TranscriptBudget Committee Meeting ~ December 19, 2022

[Laughter] all right good evening everybody today is Monday December 19 19. yeah we're already in agreement that's that's a good stuff uh a rather special meeting uh because we're not really here tonight to uh discuss the budget but to meet and greet our new town manager and

um to just discuss um what our role um and strategy will be in preparing for the town's 2023 budget so calling in a meet and greet I'd like to have the budget committee members introduce themselves to each other and to our new town manager I'll start my name is Milton Simon I live on the stackpole road been a resident of Durham uh since nine early 1982 and I've been a member of the select pool of the budget committee I believe this is my 24th year absolutely

Emerson Road uh let's see I lived in Durham since 1970. um and I've been on the budget committee for about a minute and a half wall Road I have lived in Durham since 2002 and this is my second year right yeah my second year on the budget committing a month like uh live on the stat pull road along with Jill songway who's not here tonight um

something or other 85 86 or something and this is my first trip around on the budget committee see if I can help them out yeah that's all I'm telling okay I'm Jane rice I live on Bowie Hill um this is my second time being on the budget committee um I've been I moved here in 86. so and I am on the budget committee only the only reason I'm back is that we had a selectman last

year make a comment I was sitting home watching the meeting and I got so irritated that I said I I'm going back and it was basically the gentleman said um I don't know why we need to go line by line on the budget as long as we're below the debt ceiling we're good and I thought wow that's kind of scary so that's why I'm back uh John Talbot first year on the budget committee and I also live on stock Neil Berry I live on Stockport Road as well I've been here since 1983 and this is my fifth year in the budget committee El purrington I live on Day Road and what did we we built a house at 72 there but I don't tell you how many all the years I've been in prior to that all right are you a native long time yes and 1950. um Alan actually has more years on the budget committee although not consecutive than I do so I I really do salute him I took a break in Milton said please come back here

introducing yourselves and thank you for allowing me to be your town manager um it's been an interesting four months being in here and kind of diving into everything especially the financials of of Durham and trying to get that all squared away and you know I come I come here with a from a different process than I got to get into one now you know like usually Town managers they start in a smaller town and work their way up well I was on a in Gardner which was a bigger Community with a council completely different budget process than there is here going down to a smaller town so I

just kind of wanted to meet and talk with everybody and kind of just go through your process what I'm used to anyway because this is going to be a little different for me from previous years which is fine beautiful I'm not trying to change the process it's just going to be a little it's a little different um which will be educational for me and hopefully I can bring some education to you I mean I've got 20 years of service and public service and been through a bunch of budget Cycles with other communities and collaborated with other communities and if I can't bring any of that 20 years experience to Durham then I probably don't know why I'm here you know what I mean so I just share that with you and because there are different processes and different things we look at and I just kind of want to discuss that and see where you folks are at and maybe ask why why you are on the budget committee like you Mind by line

thing here you're really focused on the line by line item in the expense budget well I don't know how you can if we have to cut money from the budget if you don't understand what line by line how can you how can you take anything away right um and I guess originally I got on the budget Committee just because I wanted to be an educated voter um I don't like just just winging it so

before they get to the new I have no intentions of running for this office after this I'm just here to help out my past experience of being on the board of selectman should give me a little bit of insight and and there's a few things I might wonder why we still do we the way we do it and maybe they're going to have a good answer and I'll just leave them alone maybe I'll suggest something different why did you um I joined the budget committee because because a resident who wanted to be an informed voter I felt like there were not opportunities

other than to watch meetings and hear what was being said but to actually be able to participate in anything leading up to the vote at town meeting um I didn't understand the process I've only been through one cycle so I I definitely still have a lot of questions um but it was it was basically so that I could understand the process so that when I was asking questions I could ask educated questions at town meeting um and about transparency and accountability which is really really important to me and I feel like sometimes um there's a lot more opportunity to be more transparent um and so I I advocate for that relentlessly good rod I uh excuse me I just wanted to be able

to understand the process better and and hopefully I thought maybe I could add another perspective to to the committee so uh said let's give it a shot yep good [Music] um I did as as other members died uh ran for office to become more educated on the process when I first started going to uh Town meetings um I heard some complaints that I was asking too many questions and using too much of I had too much floor time because I had so many questions to ask and it was suggested that if I was to become member of the budget committee I could get I could get my questions the answer I did not necessarily take up so much of the town's time and that made sense to me and that's what prompted me to run that first year and I'm pretty loyal at what I do usually when I start something I'll stick with it for a while um uh originally when I got on it was when uh we were the budget committee was involved with the school process too and

that has since changed we have an individual vote on that but I think one of the biggest things that I always advocated for was the involvement of the budget committee with the finances that have been going on throughout the year not just two or three weeks out of the year and one of my big pushes too at town meeting was educating the people at the time this isn't just what the budget committee oh this is what the budget committee voted on but this is how we came to the conclusions on that information and educating the public is usually it's it's kind of amazing how people can come in with their own ideas but if you present the facts to them and educate them that's one of the best things we can do absolutely you are very calm at doing that it took believe me the first the first few years it was nerve-wracking uh and I I used to spend a lot of time making up spreadsheets and handing them out to budget committee members and that

has totally changed now which it's it's good because the town manager is more involved we had an administrative assistant prior to the town manager process that was very involved in was doing that up front but that in many years ago I'm talking 25 30 years ago that did not happen but when it's changed we've progressed and it it's gotten better I believe it has good uh same reasons everybody else wanted to be part of the process and have a voice that hopefully clear and understandable and serve your community yeah yeah perfect it's the same reasons what I guess the added one that uh my family in-laws have always been active in town Politics as well so yeah well good see when I I just when I originally got on the board and I don't think it was in the paper recently they used to appoint budget committee amendments on the floor of the town from different sections of the Town three members would be

appointed from the floor of the town meeting wow but he took all papers yeah huh and I'm not going to I actually it's a young very young person my parents going to town meeting at the Union Church well so I have a question for you yeah what do you understand the role of the budget Community to be to vet the budget to what to vet the budget to bet it out to make sure it's reasonable and it's understood and to make sure that uh that you're sort of understanding and agreeing what is being funded or does it mean yeah so do you know what do you know what the budget is supposed to to actual serve I mean it's really services that the town provides right I mean when we talk about this expense budget we're really talking about what services does the does the town want to provide to its citizens and has anyone asked that question in any any meeting at all about what they want to serve well like like Paving I mean

you definitely definitely got a trash pickup that's wicked pricey have we have we talked about that it's like what services do you want to provide do you want you know there are questions that you should do you want snowpack do you want you know black and black and wet roads After the Storm because those are those are the questions that really need to be asked to be able to put together a budget that provides the services the town is looking for um so that's really what the budget I mean if you don't want any Services we could take this thing and just go we're done we don't we don't we're good but it's the services that cost money right so it's that question what do we want for services it's really the first question that really ought to be answered a lot of budgets that I've worked on there's usually not usually there is there's a meeting and that's the question that gets asked It's usually

the elected officials get together like where I came from those the council came in on a Saturday and it was all recorded and they said this is what we want to do we want to hold the line on infrastructure we don't want to do this we want to do that we don't want to you we don't want the mill rate going up by a certain amount and as long as you achieve that they don't care what the line by line is because they're looking at the budget impact on the taxes that's their main concern when when they see a mill rate go up a lot they're going to ask a lot of questions but if the tax impact is very much in line or it's not that much at all they're good they don't even look at it they'll just yeah that's fine we like it well the unfortunate thing is our Municipal side is the smallest part of the budget the school is what really pushes everything up absolutely you're really only talking 25 percent of the

budget I'll show you in a second I'll hand some stuff exactly right it's so you're you're talking about if you're talking about a thousand here or two thousand there you're talking Matt with inside 25 percent of the overall budget and it really when you add it all up it's really not that much impact on your taxes but it can be like going to the Dollar Store when you come out of there you spend 100 bucks and you didn't plan them so that's that's why I agree chain on the line by line that may be the places we cut little hair and there and we still know that in that budget they can move that money around once it's approved as long as as long as you have enough in that article right they can move it up or down whatever so that's so to me the line by line is a lot better to look at especially when it comes down to miscellaneously 10 grand really I want to know what miscellaneous is for 10 minutes so to me I I kind of like to

know that stuff yeah yeah that's that's fair but by that 10 grand on the whole budget is really mine I get that but if you have 10 there and then 10 over here and then at the United States you know that's nice to have that absolutely done that's what we're not just trying to make sure that whatever the budget is or the slutman comes up with that we kind of bet that if we think this place is especially with the history that's here that we can cut a little it's still not jeopardize what we want that's what we're here to do right because in the end we're here for the taxpayers not for the suckman not for the well absolutely you know what I'm saying so I do it but if 10 000 gets cut and it's a tenth of a cent on the taxes then but at the end of the day it really does no but I'm going down a rabbit hole when it really yeah but I know the town flow well we spent an hour and a half on 500 bucks right I mean I don't think we

should do that in an approve a fire truck like that all right yes sir so it's just those questions are really what's the budget serving yeah so when you we're talking about um what do we want to do like or you know what our role is I think that part of the frustration for us is that by the time it gets to us it's a done deal but we've had this conversation before too it you know so we we go through and we do the line by line and that type of thing but in terms of like the trash being expensive by the time we get to where we are going line by line that the trash contract is it exists

already it does but it ends June 30th so it ends this year so we got to get that out to bed and we're not going to have the numbers to put into the budget like we would like to have because it's in the process of ultimate and we'll talk about some of those schedules because one of the things I think the town needs to do is go to a fiscal year July 1st to June 30th well one of few towns that doesn't have that schedule and if we went to that schedule that would free up a little bit of time to and we'd be in line with the state we'd be in line with the county to be in line with the school to help with that budget we know what the school's asking for and we can go according to that you know we can start building the budget with those numbers in mind but if we do if we do that do we have to have an additional tax so you either there's a couple ways of going about it you can either do a six month

uh budget or the 18 month budget I'm going to talk to MMA I think Kevin has looked into it to um and there's good and bad in both you do a six-month budget that's great but by the time you go through the process and get a six-month budget you're going to turn right around and do an eight another year or you can do an 18-month budget and just collect taxes twice a year and you'll start every six months so they'd be collected in April and in October my biggest concern would be in changing to that what is the Financial impact to the individual homeowner well we got to look into that but in the long term it's better because you're collecting them twice a year so the cash flow for the homeowner is going to be better because they won't have to come up with them all at once and it'll be better cash flow for us in here too because we we run pretty lean and towards May June we're running out of cash so you stay away from the tan right

exactly in which I didn't even know what a tan was until they came to Durham I just knew it as something that you got in the summertime if you stayed in the Sun so that was kind of interesting to me that you run that thin that you can't

kind of get a budget weight you're pretty safe and sound but you're going to go out and borrow money and pay the interest you're buying trucks but you're borrowing money to pay your light bill so there's some things that are a little wonky that I think we need to sort of look at so one of the other things when we were talking about the line by line um you know we during and I've spoken to you about this too Durham and panel collectively together cannot out vote Freeport for the school budget and so we really I mean we can go to those school budget meetings and we can have an impact have our voice heard there but when it comes time to vote on the school budget I I think that residents in Durham really feel what enemy they are they technically are outnumbered by that vote and so the municipal budget even though it's only 25 of what our tax bill is is really the place where I think residents

feel like they actually can vote things down if they want to um or you know have an impact that way on what their tax bill is going to be because when it comes to the school and less for whatever reason and it never happens as long as I've been paying attention that Freeport would vote down the school budget and I'm not advocating for that I'm just saying it doesn't happen the whole budget always passes yeah it's pretty hard to touch the school yeah and I think that that's part of the reason why you know people try to micromanage this part of the budget so much because we don't have any control over that people feel like we don't have anything um in terms of the budget committee going line by line I I feel like and we talked about this but I like for it to be known um you know we want to be able to and I don't need to speak for everybody but I think that we all feel this way at least in our meeting last year this is the way

that it was explained is that we want to be able to justify how we arrived at our number right so we're not just taking you know 1.2 million dollar Public Works budget and now we want that to be 1 million we're just going to save 1 million and not help arrive at that number right and where I feel like that is helpful on the other end of that is that if the the town votes for what we chose we have gone line by line so now when you or whoever does it has to go back and put those numbers in because we're in April when we say yes or no to whatever you got to go back to January right and put the numbers in and so if we've gone line by line and figured that out when you go put that number in you know how we arrived at it if we just say we're taking 250 000 off this now you've got

to go make that number work in all of those categories still they have the flex day being the select men and the town manager has the flexibility to adjust that accordingly based on what the actual article was stated I would like to think that if you're going to cut fifty thousand dollars off an article that you also suggest where you want it taken out of line by line oh we can make that suggestion right ultimately it's your responsibility right where that's going to be cut and that has happened to be asked yeah that's how we've taken we've Justified it I remember Milton number science this is where we took the money out of that we thought was fair so Mine by line yeah yeah and yeah it's fair you can still to a point you can move that around and yeah it's very true if the intention is coming from a board of eight people nine people and the townspeople specifically saying we really want that fifty thousand dollars

come here I would certainly be honoring that because uh it's all about credibility your credibility Auto credibility explain it why it should or shouldn't be they'll understand the townspeople that come to these Town meetings they're not stupid people no no some of these people do a lot more research on Stockman do right right it's just that you're funding something you're funding the cost of doing the business for the town and if you get if you get really lean it gets it gets tight and then it's we're getting we get in trouble but anyway I digress from that anyway were you suggesting that with your opening comments that that even before we discuss numbers that whether it's I don't know whether town wide or the select board and the budget committee or that somehow in the process we fir before we discuss money we discuss goals that I think that's a good yeah I think that's important to to get

out there because it gives the manager some direction on where to go to build the budget like this budget I'm just kind of like going on whatever's there with no real aim at anything like in the previous municipalities we knew where we were headed we knew the council wanted a certain number that we had to to aim for so we would and we started our process three months ahead of time and we're starting to hear I mean it's late it's tight and I'm thinking it's because you all want actuals of what we actually spent and

in God now you knew what you were percent wise spent and you knew what you had left and you had to figure it out because time was I mean there was a lot going on so well you should know that so now what's that you should based on what your budget is you should you should certainly know what percentage you have spent oh absolutely I I knew what percentage spent three months ago I could have started this three months ago and not giving you the actuals and kind of giving you an idea where we would need to be today I didn't I don't have to wait for actuals to do that that's what I'm saying we start the pro where I have been the municipal government before we started way earlier than we start here and we had more time to flush it out right exactly you know here it's it's tight I mean we're we're putting this budget together we're putting the annual report together I mean there's a lot of things

coming in at once and when you have that many things coming in at once mistakes get made things it's just it's I'm I'm a little bit excited to see how it's going to go up but I kind of have a feeling we're going to be you're kind of concerned about the finance part of it no not so much the finance it's just getting everything together how'd last year go so last year wasn't pretty tight right so this is another reason why I kind of wanted to have this meeting so we can all kind of get on the same page because you should feel fortunate because we still

started this years ago with his five-year rolling plan didn't no yes wasn't it encouraged in every other every other department start doing the same thing think the fire chief was the first bill St Michelle the pie Chief at the time he was one that started with his a lot of it was Capital but he kept a five-year rolling calendar right but he was the only and we always was stressing that right you got to be looking forward further than a year when you have a large Department the public works is that way and we we usually voted on if they was able to save any in the budget that went into whatever that was decided that year but it was always like a 30 000 up to fifty thousand different years of money put aside in the capital for that department I think I think that that we should still go that way I'm not I'm not for this one capital budget for the whole town because if I had to put my budget

together and I know that I'm not going to be able to take my capital budget that I've saved and I put in I'm going to spend every single dime I could I'm not going to try it that's a little irresponsible though but that's what happened I'm just you know in all honesty that's what happens I mean that's the good the good thing about having Capital Improvement committee is they're looking at the total picture for the town they're not just looking for what am I gonna I'm I'm running the fire department it's all I care about is the fire department I don't care about anybody else in the town you get you have a group and they're doing it based on priority and they're analyzing that a lot better than we ever did I mean it could go the other way too where they don't span so they can get that money and capital to get that new truck away it can go either way there's always sometime but right now I'm not convinced

that's the way to go that's how my vote would be I have one comment on this uh looking at the big picture at the beginning of this whole thing the the select board has made it very clear year after year as long as I've been on the committee that it's not our job to make proposals for policy or how to spend money or where to spend money it's to make a recommendation on the budget right so they're not interested in what we think about what we need on the fire truck or well the capital committee does that um yeah so there's not that much I don't know what the right word is forward-looking we can do our job is to look at the budget and make a recommendation well it's bored looking for one year it's like I told the capital um committee the other day when we was in a meeting it's with all those schedules and looking out five years it's really a five year schedule the one year plan because you're really talking

about 2023 unless of course you know kind of fund a big Municipal Building or something like that where you want to tuck away 75 100 000 each year then you would make a commitment to do that and it would be for that specific thing but but for the most part they're they're they're going to allocate money for 2023 knowing what the schedules are coming up for equipment and they may put money in reserves right

um so I just kind of you know because that's kind of what I'm used to it used to having something to fund you know maybe next year or two years they'll do something with the Eureka Center rather it's with our profanzo or not but that that makes a that makes a difference on where we go as a town it's just kind of nice to to know that if roads are looking good and you don't want to pave 375 thousand dollars that's good to know up front so we can adjust it in the in the in the budget so last year we voted for the door for Eureka did we get a door I don't think so I don't think so either the double door right yeah yeah I mean right I mean that was what so when we went line by line there was a budget request I know I know there was a budget request for a new door over there and I think um if anyways we were convinced to say that this was what we were going to recommend that was one of the places that the

select board I think cut um and we still don't have a door so I I'm I'm interested in the follow-up also of like I know and that's a very small thing on a grand scale but that was something very specific you know that we had talked about and and now we're almost we're almost there and we still don't have that door so you know those are the kinds of things like the checks and balances sort of thing that I'm as a person on this committee I'm interested in right and a little bit to that CIP thing I mean you say it's irresponsible true but and even the board said last year the only one that's given any money back was Public Works so if you're going to take whatever he gives back or whatever his capital is now you're going to spread it out to everybody else where is the incentive I don't think it's necessary that he's being irresponsible or anybody any one of these departments uh but if that's how it works

let's stop buying things isn't that you can call it irresponsible but uh more selfish that's how it works that's how it works I mean having watched it on television last year there was a lot of time spent taking money out of budget so that I got the impression that some of the Departments wanted this would cut to that which is not bad but I don't think there's a lot of slack in there I don't know it's not a lot of fluff in them no there's no there's not much fat in this budget I can touch down at all I mean if it was a piece of steak I wouldn't order it because I think that's very good but I mean some work that much to keep it right so like my my comment about this last year was um that the fire cheap and this is just an example let's just say this is an example and I'm using air packs because I know that that was one of the things that was part of the budget conversation last year that if he knows that he wants

that and he needs that and that type of thing he might work harder and I think the fire chief is amazing I'm just using okay this is an example to buy you know less expensive toilet paper or be more cautious of this that the other thing to be able to have more money there for something like that that he knows that he needs you know I I'm not saying that I'm advocating for that kind of thing I'm just saying that is part of the mentality that if it was if it was Department directed back to them in a cost-saving way that they would be able to fund their you know things that they want to do because it's not every year that the taxpayers vote to put the kind of money into Capital Improvements right that they're looking for you know like for us we had this whole Culvert thing that happened last year that's another thing I'd like to know where all of that ended up um this whole Culvert thing that happened

last year and I don't remember exactly how it worked out but we needed to add fifty thousand dollars more to that Capital Improvement account and so we took fifty thousand dollars I might have my numbers wrong out of a different account so that we still came out at the same place but we took it from over here to add it over here to cover an expense that was needed in an emerging kind of way and I never got spent well it didn't it are you talking about the one on Quaker Meeting House Road and Swamp Road those two culverts I think so and there's something about the state they didn't they didn't happen because the state changed the requirements the one on uh Quaker Meeting House Road they basically said

said you're going to have to turn that's not going to be called it's going to have to turn it into a cement Bridge tonight because the salmon come up that they this is what they said the salmon come up that Brook I don't know that salmon have ever come up I don't think they ever have but they drastically changed uh the requirements therefore it pushed everything out right too expensive and not just one clear because I know people are watching where I use the example of the Town crew I have no problems with the fire chief I think he's a great guy too but that was just a new set right right I gotta say that because yes I do go down to the town garage and do some work once a while day a week day a month day every three months so I'm not down there making millions of dollars so just so the people watching don't sit there yeah that's why he's advocating that was just studying samples all right right and

that's all this is just sort of an open discussion that's what I just want to just get your experiences and kind of share with you what mine have been and what I look at yeah one thing that I would also really love to see

process I mean a written process and I know that we have you know the the you are going to present the budget to us and the slack board jointly the select board comes up with their budget they give that to us we are making recommendations based off of what you've presented and what they've presented we agree and then it goes back to the selectman they can adjust to meet where we are or keep where they want you know keep it where they want to keep it and then we go to town meeting um and all of that happens within like six weeks like the yeah is it your plan to change that process or to stick no not this year I'm gonna ride the process out and see how it sort of goes and maybe make some small changes along the way I'm certainly making changes to this budget right here I can tell you that I'll glue that back together [Music] this this is this isn't put together real well it's it's a little bit sloppy

so I can talk about that a little bit um so that about that but that this is a side thing so back to that process question and I know that it's so tight and there isn't a lot of time for anything but if either if we change to a

different fiscal year or if somehow and I would volunteer to do this but I would obviously not be the only one there I would need someone else maybe they'll maybe Joe whatever um when we did the land use public hearing that gives residents the opportunity to be able to ask questions and have those questions answered absolutely that really was a sticking point for me because through that process that I just explained at no point can a resident ask a question and get an answer and and I that is like if you have a question and you want to know the answer before town meeting or you and it could even just be a process question like I don't understand why you're doing it this way they can reach out to you but I really feel like that public hearing process has been very very good for the residents that are interested in this last meeting that and the one we had before that the one that the planning board did about you know

this stuff I I think that those are really important and it's it's absolutely one night that I would be willing to give up my time to be able to go and answer people's questions about the budget ahead of town meeting yeah yeah that that's yeah the process I mean it's pretty much laid out in the schedule that I that I have right here somewhere with me I thought I brought it um and at least the schedule of it is and which basically says how it goes and we'll talk about this too but more on that whole process you know when as a as a new manager coming in and being a department head of a 2.1 million dollar budget actually two departments I managed and getting started three months prior so I would get my budget like at the end of March for a July 1st start of

a new budget and I'm like why are we so running so late how come we don't stop the process sooner I'm thinking and what I hear is well they want actuals that's that's what I'm hearing and it's like well if that's is that really what's driving is you want to know what actuals are and that's why we're starting like in the 11th hour I don't think you're talking to the right people about that we don't have nothing to do with putting the budget together well the process is the way the way it is though you've had this process for having to do with that well I think one of the key things about the actuals is if you're you're presenting a new budget and we're comparing it with the previous year's budget but how much how what was the actual expenditure for the previous year so if you're asking it we want to know wait a minute do you have money left over did you over expand where is the money coming from your

budget but you can tell percent wise where you are remember it's a little bit more work but it gives you a little bit more time you know I mean because I asked myself by asking myself that very question why are we so because it just crams everything in and remember this budget we're talking about is a forecast I mean I could be asking for something that's 5 000 you folks might say well how about 3 500 we're both probably going to be wrong right because it's a fork I don't know what the actual price is going to be in 2023 the select board don't know you folks don't know so what number do you go with it could be more could be less by the time we get through 2023 so we know most of it we know what wages are going to be you know well some of it yeah well sort of I don't know what wages are going to be right now well but we haven't had that discussion that's another one of those goal settings is where do you want wages to

be because that because that man is because there's a lot of things in here workman's comp is based on wages there's a lot of things that you have to know what the wages are to be able to estimate you have FICA and all of that sort of stuff and I'm I'm guessing at this point because I don't know what what it's going to be if you look at a total budget a lot of people want to know what's the bottom line that's it but if I you ask me what can I afford for an increase I don't want to increase somebody else could say I don't want an increase I'd like to see reduction that has happened some people say it's never happened yes it has happened we've had years where there's been no increase but that that is a really tough one we can say that it's tough every year it's maybe much more so this year because where inflation is yep and price is going but that's the whole my whole point is this is a forecast we don't

really know most yeah sure your your Trio software we just got a bill for 21 Grand yeah that's a that's a hard fixed cost we can put that in as 21 Grand but most of the items in this budget you don't know what it's going to end up being at the end of 2023 I have no idea

as a guideline you can and you can use the street here she is just keep in mind that right covet really messed up with those previous years too I mean we it's very difficult to forecast I mean fuel look at fuel that went up a lot now it's working its way down so temporarily right after Christmas how do you how do you budget for that what's the right number and I mean that's why this is a good process to sort of vet it out but you're not going to nail it this what you don't want to end up doing is trying to get to zero at the end of this budget you can't do it I mean if you do you're running way too tight yeah and and I'll give you and I'll give you an example of some of the things that are really different in here um we have two employees right that don't take insurance so they get a twelve hundred dollar stipend and possibly pay their Dental well that's how it's budgeted so you don't budget for the person you

budget for the position because if they leave and then someone else comes in we have to offer them the benefits of the town does so that's either going to be single or family that's a huge difference between 1500 Bucks versus 11 000 or 20 000 and we're not budgeting for it see that right there is the kind of explanation that would help the town floor for people to understand why that looks the way that it looks right right would you agree oh yeah and this let's say at least this particular budget but there's a few things like that we're just going to get into town kind of caught up and it's going to hurt because it hasn't been done that way for for a long time so just remember that you fund the position not the person it's been talked about too a lot since I was involved about that fiscal year problem but it's never really been it's been a hard sell or or had to come up with a good Solution that's good for not

just the budget but for the taxpayers yeah well so like the school is fiscal year so we'd have their what they're looking for as far as what the impact to the taxes or the mill rates and some of our big even some of our biggest contracts the the trash that's a July first thing I tried to get numbers from them they're not giving them all they're just not going to give them out right now so there's another forecast I'm just guessing we we all are at that point a lot of these numbers yes you have your actuals and you have previous years actuals and what you budgeted for and what but they're still not you're not going to narrow that down to yeah no and that's and that's something I mean because they don't know what they're going to pay right you know they don't I mean they're guessing too and I get that I think everybody's I think everybody public themselves so what's changed in the trash thing that you

can't get a real number by the time it goes so it was a three-year contract so they've been working off a contract from 19 2019 20 and 21 and there it's up so we haven't gotten numbers from them with the covet impact you know like diesel fuel and all that sort of stuff so I don't know you can almost guarantee this price went up a lot well it was in the budget it was in the budget so they but it wasn't it wasn't a contracted price yeah didn't they do a one-year extension because of covet I feel like I remember a conversation about this they break something up a lot it did it did go up but remember oh so you're gonna look into like what how to deal with the recycling the reason why I went up a lot was it was because of the diesel and the amount of trash that our town so it was so I haven't been able to find the amendment to that contract that says how much it went up I've got the original I

found that and and and here's one thing that I want you all to try to understand I'm coming in here two administrations you know you had Ruth who's great right she did her things and everything in this project then you had Kathy she had everything done in spreadsheets none of them line up none of them are the same name I'm trying to flush all this stuff out myself and try to get down to the real numbers and I'm having a hard time doing it to be honest with you I mean there's probably 25 spreadsheets in there with the same information in it none of it matches up so it isn't Trio I'm driving that some of the stuff was in Trio some of it's in Excel spreadsheets like the reserve accounts are in Excel spreadsheets they weren't part of the chart of accounts in the trio and maybe some of that don't match up because maybe all the ones you're looking at won't really never finished that's why they don't it's hard it's

hard to look at someone else's spreadsheet figure out okay what what does it say so I'm working with the auditor right now to try to try to get to a bottom where we are so I can move forward with so when real numbers is the odd has the auditor been in so I'm inviting you to the next select boards meeting the audit is coming in and uh I'll share this is what you're gonna see and I would I would come

basically what she's going to present at least if we did figure out what the impacts are and whatnot and switch to a fiscal year does that how does that impact how meeting because like right now town meeting is in April so it would be in June that's how meeting would be in June right because the the budget would have to start July 1st so you'd have to approve it so a lot of town meetings are in June but so I what I would what I wonder about is like right now and I'm not advocating for this I'm asking because I don't want to understand we have our town meeting in April but what we're approving is a budget that's already been three months ago right so yeah that's another reason why you should change right so that that so what I was trying to figure out was it we're talking about aligning with the school budget yeah and state revenue sharing and all of that but right then but we would still I know

that our form of government would not get rid of town meetings no um I'm just wondering how we we would still have and we vote on our Municipal Budget on Town floor that wouldn't change they would just be closer to each other right okay right that's what I just wanted to understand we would be able to put what the school's budget is into the overall Town budget and what we wouldn't necessarily be guessing I guess you all been pretty good one to two percent within what they're doing but you would know you would know what that was so you can do we always do what Oz was right just had to wait get there so that we could put them together right so if the time changed and right now it gets voted on in April that we've already been spending how many months from January so four months well actually more because you're spending on money that's not a tax commitment that goes out in June so that money

we collect taxes or whatever that that's awesome it's a law before I mean this you hope you don't run out of money if that from April to then you're going any further of spending money without just that one time once you get on a regular schedule and it will really help out the residents because it will be a two tax collection time you'll collect in uh April and October so the residents will have to come up with all of their taxes at once even that one year because that one year I would not be scared of um yeah I'm thinking that and I gotta flush it out and I gotta talk to MMA and all that but I'm thinking if you went 18 months it would be six months and then you'd be on that six month the whole time but I just gotta flush it on I just I just want you all you folks to kind of talk about it talk to your neighbors about it because I think it's really I mean most towns do it that way and they do it for a reason because it's

just easier you're not you're not you don't have so much of a crystal ball in front of you you can nail down some of those numbers right as you're going and you're in line with everybody else but the selling point is if you want to sell it to go to eight you know to start on July 1st what are we paying for interest for the tan I would assume that's not inconsequential I mean we argue about 10 grand on somebody's budget is the tan 100 000 is it no no it wouldn't be that much I guess some of your numbers in the shortfalls are in there you can kind of look at them this is what I do I coming in new this is some of the stuff that I look at and I talked with the auditor and I'm actually getting the otter and Ruth together to come down with these numbers so I have a pretty concrete set of numbers that everybody's agreeing on right now I don't have that so I don't throw out numbers because if I throw out

numbers someone's going to say well you said on that and I just think I've been at it long enough can we back up just a sure because I think when I hear you moving that it to out to 18 months that first year it's an 18 month budget okay but I was thinking that first time that the people had to pay their taxes it would really hurt fixed income people but how would it would affect people um that have a mortgage would their escrow have to go up to cover that amount or yeah they just really hurt everybody there'd be some adjustments um I think like I said we'd have to flush it out but I yeah I think you I if it were I'm going to encourage you to go July 1st so it takes one year or two years that's 80 of your towns are on that schedule and there's a reason but it's got to be affordable for them to get to that point you know what I mean affordability and if I have to come up with six more months within

that month that year right that's six months six more months of Taxation within a 12-month period that's an accident we don't know that I don't get that why do I have to why can't they just pay six months right I don't know right well see that's what we gotta Fletch out well we're getting ahead of ourselves Without Really knowing well Alan kind of mentioned we'll say it's actually three thousand dollars a year

that that's something that goes on a warrant in the townhouse I don't vote for I think so I think the select board can I think so I believe they can yeah I believe they can yes I would if I was on the select board I know there's a lot of things assignment can do without Town permission being in this town as long as I have and having some of them people I would at least make sure they're well aware and not just do it because you might find yourself hung by the nearest tree if you don't well there will be plenty of input that's why I'm talking about it now right right it's just so we get there and I think in the short term I think I might even mention it at the town meeting this April that we ought to think about going to that oh no sure so we'll get the conversations going and we'll we'll flesh out the impacts to to everybody just see what that's going to be I'm sure there's going to be some

button if you do it in 2024 by 2026 all the wounds will be healed and you'll be on a casual you'll get you'll get taxed every six months it'll help the cash flow for residents that are having a hard time paying all their taxes at once you know I think in the grand scheme of things it sounds great but I think of the the individual that has funds you know fixed income or young people just starting out you know so Jane some of those are having a hard time now with collecting them all at once now right sure I'm not sure they're out there that say well I have to pay all my taxes at once right now right but that goes back to your responsibility Coleman earlier you know every year Christmas is coming the same time Thanksgiving is the same day taxes are the same thing so if you don't plan your budget right it don't matter are those six of these discussions let people know so they can start saving them that's why we have

those discussions I think in the short term I completely understand and will also feel the impact of that but in terms of the bigger picture I think in order to save the money that we're spending on interest or to be able to

come up with a budget that has been you know not I feel like we really scrutinize over what we have but with more time to do better work to put something together I think in the long run it it leaves the potential to actually help the taxpayer versus that that short-term you know I I just I it really

bothers me how condensed the amount of time I mean even when we were doing meetings last year and we had the three dates and then something happened and we had we had two dates we had to get we had to get it done we were here super late like 10 30 whatever one night because we had to get it done that night and it I just I feel like it doesn't necessarily do justice to the process to to have it so tight that way I don't disagree with that I just I worry about the people trying to get from point A to point B right and still be able to live in the town I agree I I do I one of the things that I actually asked about when I had this conversation was like would that bridge be something that the arbor funds could be used for they can't but I I wonder how other municipalities have gone from this to that and been able to bridge that Gap in a way I'd be curious that people can manage help me understand it there's two

is into two different topics one is ex changing the date we start the budget the other is the date you start the budget process so and I struggle to understand why you couldn't start the process earlier I get it that if you know in August you may not have real good actions you'd have five months or whatever which is not bad but then you have another four months five months six months to get to the final budget where you could say okay look it you know gas went up a lot more than we expected to so we got to modify that number and tweak it but Calvin knows I don't know how many miles he's going to pave next year Chief knows whether his breathing apparatus stuff is starting to fail so there's a lot of things that he you know in August that

you ought to be able to say here's what you know here's what I need as a fire chief here's what I need as a road commissioner here's what I teach as a cemetery commission whatever it may be I'm not sure why you can't start that with the best information available you can modify it over time which is separate from whatever day you start the that's to me two different conversations John just a different just throw it out there different point of view I'm not in disagreement of you but so take what you just said and balance it with the fact that we'll look at the our budget in January and we'll see

certain budgets or certain line items when way over or were well under and those those are usually two immediate points of contention with members of this committee why does something go so far over and why did something go so far into it well in August we wouldn't know if he was just using your example of let's say we started meeting in August or September we would know that those scenarios were about to play out I think he would have a pretty good feel for it because if our budget starts in January so in August you've had at least seven months of actuals and then it you would have time in November to sit down and say how close are we I mean I'm not talking about coming up with a final budget in August I'm talking about particularly the staff starting the process and starting to say and getting the feedback what do you want for um a pay raise this coming year you know what is it that the world is telling us

what is what is it best for it I mean there's a huge difference between January February when we when when you all finalize the budget and what the gas price was in April or May or whatever it was and so who who knew that it was going to go up two and a half bucks in in two and a half days but again I'm not sure why you you couldn't we couldn't and maybe the budget committee doesn't even get involved till November but you certainly could with guidance from the Selectmen or guidance from us and the selectment or whatever start putting it together yeah we could I I can just tell you even by looking at this process and how tight it was using I don't know how they do it I mean this is my words were this is insane

into your job I don't know if you do that three months into it when you're just coming in like I'm trying to figure it out I think a lot of us are looking at at that and saying please come in here and tell us how to do it but we all take issue with the way things are done right but I got to figure that out I mean you're not going to figure that out in three months time I'm just saying there will be there would be people behind you right that if you came in here and I totally get wanting to because I said last year I'm not going to say anything yeah right I'm just gonna watch this to learn the process right but right part

of us are like we want a fresh set of eyes we want someone else that knows what they're doing to look at this we want like we all feel like there's an issue here you're you're validating the fact there is an issue here the timing is and everything and you know as a manager I mean man managers sometimes are going to a town and turn the town right up on its head I'm not going to do that I'm not going to come in here and change everything get everybody all wound up and I could easily do it but no they couldn't you'd have a town office full of people absolutely so so I'm just sort of like seeing how all this works here and then taking some of the experiences that I've gained over the 20 years and suggesting some maybe some changes as I go but it ain't going to be anything like drastic right off the right off the bat I mean one of the things that would help this committee on it certainly has in the past is whenever

we're addressing specific articles you know if we're transferring money from a specific fund how much is left in that fund for one thing that didn't that wasn't always readily available to us certainly last year and that's one thing that we always okay how do we know if you're asking for fifty thousand dollars to be transferred to cover an expense what's left in the fund because James are you from pardon me you know we're transferring from them yeah yeah that's I mean that's all fair so I mean it's all out in the open it's all public information right right so one of the things that I learned when we

and then what I was given was the balance in the account on December 31st not what the current balance was right what had been incredible throughout the years exactly and or it also didn't account for what we had voted on um at town meeting being put into that account and and then that goes to what you were saying about how some of that is in Trio and some of that is on an Excel spreadsheet those two things it doesn't match up and so that's why like I I actually wanted a number in the bank account my brain was saying the way that this worked was that there's the town's account and then there's a sub account that says Capital Improvement Public Works and I wanted to know the balance in that account that's not actually how this works and I I mean and

maybe I was ignorant to that I had no idea that was that's what I thought was happening but that's not in fact what's happening it's just on paper yes the arpa money is in the chart of accounts and Trio it's the reserve counts that that is not it's going to be once I get to the bottom of the once I get to the bottom of what's supposed to be in there working with the auditor and Ruth and that sort of stuff we'll we'll add it to the chart of accounts and Trio before it was in a spreadsheet so that's where I was capped so I I just have to say how much I appreciate so that's gonna happen it's just going to take me a little while to flush it out that's all so already how just based on that right there I feel like we're in a better position than we were in terms of like investigative type of what where is this and what does this mean remember the 500 um animal control number that nobody could explain until Jill remembered that

if a dog get put gets put down and the owner doesn't claim the dog that the vet bill goes to the town and we all wanted to know why are we funding this if nobody even knows what this is for so I appreciate the fact that you are trying to make all of it make sense yeah and get to the bottom of it you know because that's important to me I think it's important to everyone and I don't think that everybody really realizes how messy

it is and so thank you for the work that you're doing well thanks and it is trying to get to the to the bottom of what this is I mean this budget that got loaded index Trio last year is not well developed at all I mean you look at the workman's comp line for fire and they got loaded in at 5500 bucks their workman's comp is fifty thousand dollars so you so imagine the manager coming in and seeing this yeah and remember though so let's just back up a little bit we've kind of had the perfect storm here right you had two administrators leave you got two brand new people in that office that didn't have any Municipal experience whatsoever none and they learn it and they're doing good they're getting there and they're learning about you know mistakes get made and you know you think you're doing it right and well you know maybe not and you try to it takes you five minutes to make mistakes it takes

you five hours to figure out what it was and where you find it and that's kind of that's that's kind of where we're at this this didn't get loaded good I mean the money's there we're all good but when I looked at this budget I was like okay we need to really clean this up there's a lot of lines in here and it really should be a three-tiered budget it should be your departments Administration firework uh fire Public Works and there really should be a buildings and grounds it should really only be four and then you have like then you have a line that might say Fuel and then under fuel will be propane and heating oil in public works under utilities he pays phone cable propane heating oil and a bunch of other things under utilities well that ain't that's not good I mean I I want to know if I want to know what was spending on fuel and I want my own mind for fuel and I want to know what's in propane and I want to know what we're

paying for heating oil when you jumble it all in you got to go pull the sheet and you're doing a whole heck of a lot of math to try to find out what are we paying for heating oil so there's just a lot of cleanup here that needs to take place that I hope to have done in a new budget but understand Trio is very

um convoluted say because that software talks to the state software it talks to all kinds of different things so once you have a budget loaded in there it's just not a matter of going in there and changing it like it's an Excel spreadsheet or a word doc there's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes where once you get that budget set and you hit that button because there'll be different numbers and different everything so there's a process and Trio will have to walk us through that but it really needs to happen because it'll be more transparency in the budget we only have two items now if you have three you can really nail down where you're spending your money we just did a quick question on Trio I I just assumed that the spreadsheets we got every year were an export from Trio some of them are so there's a lot of Rights so there's a lot of spreadsheets that recreated what trio was already

giving you so I'm not even sure why we're printing out so many spreadsheets when you can just print out Trio and we get used to working with Trio right that's what that's what I think we had last year at some point I think you had both I think you got both going on because you like the you like the punch in the numbers into the Excel spreadsheet to see what it does to your budget right which is important I mean I mean I think that's okay but whatever Trio you can get a spreadsheet from Trio right right you can export it over to Trio yeah and then you got to manipulate everything to make work it just puts it in the cells you're going to expand them and all that sort of stuff but why not just print the report on a trio and here you go so there's a lot of there was a lot of stuff that was recreated that I found in there that comes out of Trio but people like spreadsheets and that's what they

want to spend their time doing and it's so I like the spreadsheets for a lot of reasons but you can't just take the trio reports and convert them to excel you can but you've got a massage and once they're in Excel the cells might be small so you've got to expand them things like that that some things might be jumbled a little bit you know it's not as easy as just click click and here you go on it's all nice and neat and clean it is out of Trio if you like Trio are you are you proficient in Trio

um not no no I've always had staff that ran Trio you know it's it's what I like to say you know the CEO of Delta isn't flying the plane you know what I mean he's kind of he's kind of is there anyone here that is proficient nope we used to be right okay we were left and uh we have nobody that's proficient in Trio so how do we get them to that point well like you said this this confirms the garbage in garbage out right you get them if you if you if you populated all these fields in Trio and it really wasn't done correct correct you struggle with it until you can get it all which we're working on I mean I can load there are some things the basic things I can do in there but I mean this thing handles your taxes it handles everything it's a very big program it isn't the budget entered in Trio yep that's what a mistake was that's where some of the mistakes were who enters it well I don't know but it's not here yeah there's a

responsibility of the town right um do you want to explain this or is this just for our viewers this is just this is what you no yeah you can look at this this is this is what I got from the otter and she's going to be going over that is this is this who does our audit this I'm just I'm like looking at this I'm thinking huh who who paid for this oh we paid for that we pay for an audit yeah yeah but this is who this is this is the audit yeah this is the audit this is uh so this is being presented next Tuesday this is going to be yeah next Tuesday at the select board meeting I'm having to come in to go over the part of the responsibility of the Town manager is to present the financial status of the town no better person to do it than the person who audits the town how that she's coming in this year on February 6th to do the 2022 stuff they're here for a week they sit right in this room and they go

right in there when they want something they say I need this this this and this and they just stop putting it all together so any information I give you is going to come from the audit it's the best information that I have I'm not going to go with anything else other than what's in here this is 21 data this is 20 February 22. this actually this is 21 data that was I finally got the report this August Okay so they will do 22 in fact start February 6th of May enhance Jerry what is the schedule for our budget being presented we're going to go over that I have I have stuff to hand out right here for you so that's one of the things that we need to discuss because like I kind of want it to go a little bit better than last year from what I understood you know I kind of um last year's pretty much one of those poofs it's really not wasn't there well

you know it's well it was a it was a Hardy epidural let's just put it there we like to look forward yeah that's right let's look out the windshield and not glance in the rear view mirror and see where we can make improvements and see where we've been but this is just sort of all getting an understanding like I said from where I come from and what we did I'm not I'm a big numbers guy you know I want to know when when we get into budget season my main concern is what is the tax impact what I well the budget we're asking for that we first put together what does that do to our residence taxes I'm I'm going to be honest I'm not so concerned about line by line by line by line I'm not I mean I am I I want to be reasonable but I want that tax rate that if that's really high then this we need to adjust something yeah sure but if it's stable I mean what are we talking about I mean really at the end of the day if it's stable say

it doesn't change or it goes up just a little tick okay you guys can squabble over the line by line but I'm the big picture guy that's what I'm more concerned with imagine a new town manager coming in and he puts together a budget and it's freaking through the roof I I don't want to do that right I don't want to do that at all that's the last thing I want to do so that's where I'm going to be concentrating and once I see where that bottom line is if it's too much then I'm going to go in here and I'm going to stop looking at the biggest pieces of the pie public work so your three biggest items right is well you're two in school in your county tax if you had water and sewer that would be your next and then it's usually public works and it's break it's broken right out for you in that pie chart that she put together for you where your money's going again keep in mind you know you talk and I know you think it's a lot but it's

25 is what where is what this makes up this budget here so you know 1500 bucks or 25 of the whole budget is Pennies on the dollar pennies when you spread it out over everything so and again keep in mind it's a forecasted estimate you don't know like I said I may ask for 5 000 based on actuals and what it was and you may say well can you get away with 4 500 yeah sure but we're both probably wrong you know that's at the end you know it is that's just the nature of it so just think about it in those terms when you when we get going so our I just have a question about the so our trash contract is up in June of 2020 . yeah so they're on that fiscal year too so it's not we have to have a new one in place by July 1st so when we

you trying to shop for I'm putting it out to bed okay it's going out to bed so I will mail it to Casella um Waste Management Triano and uh Riverside and then it's going to go on the website and it's going to it's going to go out to bed and see what we get all right and right now I don't right now I don't know what to put in the budget I you know they you know I can show you an email on them if you want to see it because I asked them and they said well if you're going out to bid we're not going to provide any numbers right now and most people won't at this time of year they'll wait and that's another reason why we should go to the fiscal year because everybody's working on their budget then you know they're getting close and they may give us a number I'm not happy that they wouldn't give us a number because they're a business and all they had to do was say just add 15 that should cover it they just they just they don't want

their numbers out public right but if it's just so bad right well they don't have to show the bid number like when I was in in the private sector when towns wanted estimates on their roads I'd give them a budget number so I'd say I'd look at their roads and look at how close they were to a plant and I'd say um you know you're looking at 85 dollars a ton knowing that we're probably going to come in and bid it 81 79 something like that but that gives them a budget number to go to town with them that's all I was looking for was with Casella but so I added I just I just had I went up to 350. I don't know what to put in there you guys can put whatever you want we'll find out when we get there but that's that's why doing these is difficult and you don't want to don't want to try to get too tight we'll get we'll get in trouble you know that's the and if you the beauty is if you don't spend it it just will roll back

into the next year you know maybe that'll offset taxes then or whatever but so there's a way to handle that something we might want to consider I think we took it out last year was the bulky waste right and I mean you've already seen trash refrigerators and stuff so so right now I have Calvin Carlos gonna sell us see if they'll give us a number on what that might be because before it was 10 grand yeah but what would it but what would it be next you see that's what's difficult to know and put a number on a lot of this stuff is even though you have actuals and the years before it's you're hoping you get it right but some of it you will some of it you'll come right on because they're fixed cost so part of the conversation around like the trash thing was that we pay to recycle and people and I am ignorant I don't know if that's what everybody does or

what the deal is with that but that is a hot topic for a lot of people that we pay to recycle and I mean I can just assume that that must be what every what everybody I don't understand why that's so upsetting if that's what everybody does I don't know if that's what everybody I don't think that's the right language we don't technically pay it's just part of the whole fee right yeah we pay for the tags which is and that's why the price is Three Buck the tag it kind of forces people to recycle either that of paper but no I mean I think as a municipality it costs us money to recycle because we have the Streamline right and just the pick just the pickup there's a charge just for picking up I mean you know the market for recycling is gone down so bad because we used to

send an awful lot of the United States did to China and they've said you're contaminating this implement the recycling is contaminated we don't want it so where is the market I think it's that if you don't have a market I mean the demand is people want to recycle but yeah I think it's a discussion the town really needs to have about what they want to do you take stuff up there to yourself up there to my occasionally I have you'll have time so if the Market's up there you drop off Ole missile steel you might get them from pennies but when the Market's down just drop it off you don't get nothing and that's just same with a cardboard or whatever but so Yarmouth has a transfer station in Gray so as part of my job and responsibility I gotta have a conversation to see how they got started and what they did and kind of kind of bring that out and just talk about it because I mean you're trash but 350 that's a that's

pretty expensive that's up there in Gardner we what we did there was Augusta had a landfill we just paid and that was called hatch hill we just paid them like 50 Grand and the residents took their own garbage up there what I think what drove us to this if I remember because we used to have our own countdown but it came in time that that had to be closed and the state said you can't close it without having something often to the people so that's all we ended up heading in this direction right and just keep them yes but just keep in mind I mean if that's something the town is looking to do and want to go in that direction that's a long conversation you got to get the right players involved you got to kind of maybe do a feasibility study and you can't even do it it's going to be permitting if it's off a state road you're going to get the D.O.T involved I mean that's just a long long conversation process we went

through before we ended up with a town crew right and that's what we did the same so you started earlier let's think through it rather than on the town meeting somebody get up and said man I think it's a great idea right save ten thousand dollars and eliminate bulk trash day and now you know you find mattresses alongside the road and at the boat landing which is the state's problem but uh you know let's not have a

knee-jerk reaction that time meeting whatever you do so I think one thing that would be beneficial is to be able to know that ten thousand dollars saved the taxpayer what percent do you know what I mean like if my taxes are thirty seven hundred dollars not funding the ten thousand dollar bulky waste day saved me 20 bucks

do you know what I mean like I feel like that that would be a really benefit conversation because if I knew that it was going to save me twenty dollars right versus the excess of trash that has been I would rather pay the 20 bucks that's me personally I'm there to vote you know what I mean Heather you're smart enough to figure that out I know well no I'm not because yes I am just not right on the stock I have something in time we're expecting the budget committee I would say right you yeah so I think that like can we put that down that that's one of our things that we're gonna we always we always used to say for every hundred thousand dollars it would bring the mill rate up people have to be able to relate to people can relate to ten thousand dollars they can't relate to 1.5 million dollars right right right so I can't I haven't I think though if we had had that information and said what that was

that probably would have changed the weight of that vote well Kyle was pretty conservative last year I thought I agree I agree I agree but there was also a lot of smoke being blown about it's really easy to take it over to Auburn just call me and I'll come and get it for you and but the other thing also was that um we hadn't done it we hadn't not had it now we've had a year where we've not had it and I think it is we are able to

see there is more stuff that has ended up on our roadside so is that factual is that anecdotal because I know I see it on Plumbing the whole road all the time stuff's been dumped there I walked that road for four years every year trash is there and we're all assuming this trash gets dumped by locals right which I think is a lot of huis I'm from Lisbon Falls I gotta get rid of a refrigerator I'm going to take it over and throw it off in a back road in Durham I agree so I agree with you I would I would like to see okay you know if everybody thinks that this is such a great idea we go one year and then somebody monitor the next year and find out just how much less stuff is on the side of the road because and I think Calvin can answer that and he and I've had that conversation pretty quickly I think and the other thing is it it's not cheap to go over to the Auburn Way I mean we're way off the main topic though but it's

not cheap to to go to the Auburn waste thing yeah if you have a pickup truck I can tell you from from when we used to have it till not having it I can tell you our road has a lot more crap on it than it used to foreign and when they go to town when they go to the town floor typically they try to get in this room not in this room but in their room the budget committee and the select board with the same number on every article what's your feeling on that doesn't happen at this time usually why is that because it kind of looks to us to save money and the but and the psych board so there's a mindset cut regardless just cut not cut maybe justify the increase increases a lot increase in spending okay we haven't had a budget cut for I

don't know a long time okay there has been times when both committees have agreed and sometimes if they're within 500 bucks it's easy enough to probably make that but there are other times it's not and sometimes it's not whether or not they agree on the amount it's where it comes from sometimes you know if you want to take it out of out of the designated fund or if you want to raise it on the floor you know sometimes that's some of the difference yeah historically I would say the town has looked to the budget committee to lower the increases typically our number is less than the budget than the slick board but not always and oftentimes the reason why it's presented and this is a fairly recently we were talking about within the last decade the reason why on the warrant it shows that the select board and the budget committee agreed on the amount is because after it came from the select board to the budget committee and the

budget committee recommended a lower amount the select board then change that recommendation to be in agreement perfect so it wasn't that it ever got to the floor yeah so it it had the select would not change there what's the word I wanted recommendation yes then the town would have seen two different figures yeah right many years the Selectmen did their presentation and the budget committee did and that the two entities never got together we do now we have that's good I don't know three or four years yeah that's made a difference yeah it's opened up that communication that's awesome one thing that I think has also helped is that we had a year where the residents did not

vote to increase the tax levy right and when that happened a lot of people got a lot more educated about the fact that not increasing the tax levy was a way to reduce overall spending and so I think the select board now fears that

if they don't come in under if if the residents don't vote to raise the tax levy then they're gonna have to come under that number anyway and so I think they actually work harder to do that or at least they did this past budget cycle um in fear that the residents would not vote to raise the Levy right there's a push from a bunch of top manages that are trying to get rid of that tax levy limit just because they live in smaller towns and the cost of doing business has gone higher than the tax limit so they're having a hard time just running their town they don't have the because you know residents are like no no we don't want to go higher than that and it's like well they don't realize we've got costs that we need to cover that we can if we don't so I just thought I'd throw that it's it's not real black and white out there it's a lot of a lot of different gray area and I think that you know whenever that

was the year the year that it got voted down raising the levy got voted down was the year that we didn't have in person town meeting because of covet right whenever we have had in-person town meeting it's been eight they've been able to explain the reasons why the tax levy is going to increase you know to be able to fund this budget that is being put before them but I think that that year you know covert was hard and it was really hard financially not only on the town but it was really hard financially on the taxpayers and so that was their way to vote to limit how much you can how much they were going to have an increase yeah do you want to get back to the schedule yeah one more one more second um so I also noticed what we do in your budget is you list your Revenue Source per article like you can't do this so we may get away from that and just list the revenues because it doesn't matter what you pay

you got revenues in both pocket rather you pay it out of your left or you pay it out of your right it really doesn't matter so you've got your list of revenues and you've got your expenditures expenditures are going to be more than your revenues and the rest you raise in taxes so that's a because you're estimating what you're going to pay for out of those revenues but they're not going to be right you might collect more so you might say you know 5000 is going to come out of excise tax to help pay for the public works well you might collect 5500 that year so it's wrong anyway so what difference does it make it just just List It and then just that's what most towns do they I asked a couple Town managers about you know do you Revenue Source your articles and they're like what are you talking about I've never even heard of it I don't know what you're talking about I think he's talking about how we

say raise or we say transfer like snowmobile tags so my question with that then though would be because when the way that you word the article it if you're gonna raise it right it's it's one of my closed item where you can't raise the amount of money on the floor right if you're raising the taxes the wording of the article will change is different than if you're not raising so I don't understand how it works if we're not going to say where we're how it's getting funded because that the wording of the article whatever doesn't get whatever doesn't get paid for with revenues is going to get paid by raising the attacks and that'll be listed what that is so I'll show you I can show you because many times I would need an example for that because in that way you again you're doing a lot of unnecessarily unnecessary math to put everything together it just takes an enormous amount of time where if you

because our revenues are already listed it's just a medical putting it in there it's done but now you got to go through each article make sure you get that number which isn't going to be correct because it's an estimate anyway right because you don't know what you're going to collect in 20 23 in excise tax or dog licenses or this or that but you're going to estimate it so just list them and it's all again all of this is forecasting and estimating there's really nothing that's exact other than the military that that stays pretty exactly but anyway I just kind of throw that out to you because it's just easy to put together in the whole nine yards I mean you folks have been doing it the same way for a very very very long time and there have been other folks and that have that are in municipal government that have figured out an easier and streamlined way of doing it so

we want to know exact figures based on a guess and you ain't got to get it yeah you're not going to get it but that's what we do we provide exact figures based on guesses and people are happy with it you know while they're fooling them now you're not telling them the truth correct and that's you know to your point right do it your way you're going to have to get people used to we're not going to be doing the smoke and mirrors we're going to be you know here's the revenue here's this here's the difference instead of okay you're going to spend exactly this much out of capital Improvement this much is coming out of uh excise tax so that equals the rate yeah great and it's probably wrong so yeah exactly okay just I just throw that out there I just think there's some things that will talk and again this is all going to be discussion before anything gets changed it's just going to be easier I think in the long run to for

everyone to to get and understand it put together and all right so I need now I need to push you towards the schedule because yeah we're at our time all right so you guys I have one hand let me get mine so so that means this is for for Kimberly our public information officer to get the stuff in the annual report so she

can put it together to have it to print by March 1st gives it gives the printing two weeks to get it printed and then it then that allows for the residents to have the annual report which has the draft more in that time enough they needed like 10 days before at least so we're going to back into this so all articles have to be in on no later than February 15th right if we can do it if we can do it it's going to be signed by signed so this is going to go to print no we can we've got some other stuff but just because it's going to be a draft so there's nothing here is you know etched in stone you know when we do this this is going to be a draft but that's a date it's flexible I'm going to allow myself a few days just yeah okay yep so so if we do that you all right now that you know that date so now let's jump to January

here that was put together that I have um stuff that you folks need stuff to the select board everything in a binder so you have it uh January 5th that's my target date so I you're going to give us hard copies versus electronic I'm going to try to get your hot copies of everything that I'm going to do I'm saying electronic you want electronic it would be nice to hear electronic because I can come in here with a laptop and I can probably do both if I'm going to give it to you I mean what's what's the pleasure of the board last year it was electronic and I offered to print it for everybody so you didn't have three ring binders well we did after the facts because that was what the majority of the board prefers they kept getting updates on a handout and it was very confusing I bet it was I bet it was if I knew that wasn't anything I prefer but you can do both we got a PDF or an Excel when you print

it I mean if if I can provide a hard copy I'm certainly providing it electronically because that's where it's coming from right so yeah so that's going to be on the fifth I'm gonna try to get all that to you on the fifth now I want you to all keep in mind too that the actuals may not be right down to the actuals because we're going to have outstanding invoices that haven't been hit the books yet so it'll be year-to-date but it'll be really close close enough I think unless you really want to yeah but then it should be pretty good it's going to be yeah it's going to be really close um so then the joint meeting where the budget gets presented is on the 10th that's the select boards meeting be over at the Eureka Center

you this board and the select board yeah six would be better but I'll so I'm just fine I think we usually do start earlier don't we because they got a long time it's not that early let's do the 15th I mean I said it's probably not that early if it's due to the 15th no no I mean early in the evening because they take a really long time so that like the individual meeting itself

yeah you don't check your email I don't know there then the 24th no we got down here the that Thursday the 12th for another budget presentation meeting two January yep selected another joint meeting so you got joint meeting on the 10th and the 12th

right then the 17th is kind of if we need it both yep articles then I guess from you folks will you have your budget recommendations by February 7th to to me at least on the board is that going to give you enough time to when the boys done they give us their recommendations yeah they're going to do it somewhere around the 24th I believe

happened in the first joint meetings we did not have articles or even an idea what the Articles were going to be and if we were waiting until you were waiting until the 14th the select board to vote on articles I would hopefully there would be some draft articles

but I'm saying I'm looking at the 10th some idea of some I don't know how much there's going to be a joint meeting there we must have some indication of what these articles are going to do well we all have so we can discuss that then at that meeting yeah to grow because he doesn't mention it there's nothing here on this schedule which was given to me from previous years because it seems like I as I recall we ended up with a lot of discussion but not voting on anything well the 10th and the 12th are informational right well what what yeah well yeah right I'm presenting the budget to you and then I think yeah then we're just kind of talking last year like what is being said here for the 10th and the 12th like one night was Kathy well I don't know when presenting the administrative budget or she was split half and half and then the fire chief and Public Works presenting their budget right and I

think that's the two I think I go Tuesday and present mine and then on and then on Thursday I think it's Public Works and as Heather say in hand fire on that Thursday so are we gonna it's a budget committee gonna have a meeting after the select board meets we typically do it okay okay so I put him in the 24th we and we have to have our our recommendation to you by by when did you say Jerry I'd like to have it by February 7th if possible yeah we have one week that means we have the only week our only option is that week of January 30th uh schedule two or maybe three meetings unless we want to start on the 26 I mean we gotta have time to everyone has to have time to read and exactly the select was recommendation so if we're not if they're if they're voting on those in the 24th we may not be updated till the 26th so I so I our meetings

would take place on January 30th we'd have from January 30th until February 6th we usually are given a two-week window to schedule our meetings to try to accommodate it take what you need the only flying the ointment there is if if you do that that's fine but the Warren article might not get drafted in time to go into the annual report that's all we can we'll have it as a supplement so I mean unless we can go ahead and yeah that's what I mean remember it's very tight if we think we can do it on the 30th and 31st we can go ahead and schedule it uh can you what about penciling in the 26th to see if we could start there I just have a question so when we say board will vote on articles the select board right so then we're making our recommendation is

I thought we had our meeting before that and that that was their meeting where they voted to finalize for it to be able to go I don't know there's another one I think right if we change anything so on on the 24th of January the select board is reviewing the information that was presented on the 10th 12th and 17th so the budget committee cannot meet until after the 24th when we receive the select boards recommendations right if the time manager needs the budget committee's recommendations by February 8th that leaves a one-week window that's which is that's that would be new for us we normally have at least a two-week window to get in our meetings why don't you push the select boys meeting up to the 17th that's what I was going to say if they go to the 17th then I think they

want to do it on their regularly scheduled select board meeting and I suppose I could see what they think about that but if you need a 17th is being reserved if you need another extra week you know do what you got to do and I'll try to make it work on my end I'll just just understand that if things happen and the Warren article might not get put in the annual report that's really what that kind of date is all about I mean so again something we can discuss here I just I wish I could have Jill's input because uh she is professional and

um owns a business and and so her schedule is real tight uh but we could we could we could schedule a tenant it just by having a meeting on the 26th we've had no time to really individually study the slack boards recommendations we're going to be doing it on the Fly I have no opposition to me on the 26th and then we can meet the 30th and that and the 34 well I would think would be better would be to do it on the 30th and 31st and leave February 2nd open if a third meeting is

needed because that leaves us a little time to you know do our homework prepare our questions I'm just not good two days in a row working full time and then coming here from six to ten yeah well 10 must be a noodle ten was it was it was it um an anomaly normally our meetings are done at nine o'clock but we were we were being pushed and there was a lot going on normally our meetings are are done at you know you know by nine um but normally we do we have used the third meeting on occasion at times if things are fairly simple there have been times we we've been able to wrap it up in two nights and and sometimes people prefer to go a little bit later on the second night so that the third meeting wasn't necessary yeah my recommendation would be to reserve the 30th the 31st and the

second because that still leaves if we run into trouble we could still meet the beginning of we could meet February 6th or 7th and still have a report to Jerry on the 8th as long as I think I get them that week I think I'll be fine most of the most of the warrant will be already typed so it's just getting mad ahead if you are set on deciding this evening I will support you in that I I do feel like it's reasonable to ask the select board to go on the 17th if we find that that meeting is not needed so that it's less pressure on everyone by getting by

gaining that extra week it's less pressure on you to have to get the reports late because now we can't meet until a week later do you know what I mean so you want the board to vote on budget article recommendations on the 17th right but he but he's reserved the 17th [Music] for a joint meeting if right and so my my thing would that I would say about that is that I know that I significantly contributed to the length of those meetings because I asked so many questions and I was so what's going to be different this year well because I'm a little more aware of the process and I recognize that my questions are absolutely not going to change anything and so I Hey listen I'm being honest okay I know that I significantly contributed to the length of those meetings so with that being said I do feel like unless there's some creep it's fine I think the questions are perfectly okay no I I know but I mean I went into

like strategies of how we could save money in these meetings that they were trying to present this budget to us it's not it wasn't the time or the place and I recognized that you know so I do feel like three meetings provided that you can just elbow me and tell me to shut up and I won't be offended right because it wasn't going to sit between us yeah what about what's there it is there'll be a roll of duct tape the second and the sixth so that way you ain't having two meetings right in a row I'm not really crazy about that myself well Jerry you just said anyway

wiggle room there I just don't want people to take advantage of that but I don't want you know those same people that will spend money on their budgets because they have it so if if you're a date there is you know 14th 15th whichever day that was I thought it was the 14th it was 15th um you said you wanted us to repoil to by the seventh but if if we said we make that the ninth yeah would that works yeah then that way there we could have Tuesday the 31st Thursday the 2nd and then we'd have the seventh as our third option then we're not doing back to back and we still get back to you in a timely manner right you got to remember the select board is going to get our recommendations and do something with them and they have to vote on it right and they get back to they're gonna meet on the 7th and the 21st so we really have to be done the 14th and 28th it's the second Tuesday oh second okay yeah so on the 14th they'll decide

whether they're going to keep theirs or go with ours or change it all together they'll do that on the 14th of February right I'm sorry I was looking at the date somebody I was looking at the wrong dates wrong well provided that they stick to their regular meeting schedule right you know on the meeting on the 12th at joint meeting we can kind of we're all going to be there we can kind of go over the schedule again to make sure that we're on the right path so I hear two I can and we can adjust then I mean nothing has to be hard and fast now we just got to make that drop dead is the committee want to decide now or do we want to mull it over and we'll decide when we have the joint meetings it sounds like our two options are if we want to get it done in a week we have the 30th the 31st and the second if there was another option was if you want to spread it out a little bit more we can go Tuesday the 31st Thursday the

2nd and then either Monday and Tuesday the sixth or seventh not to be a sticker I think the sooner we at least hard pencil in days the better yes um Jill saying she can do 26 31 in second Mondays are hard for her she can do 2-1

also 22nd the 31st the first or the second but the 30th would be hard for her so if we set our dates for the 31st January 31st February 2nd was that one that's good for her and then Tuesday the 7th or can she do Monday the 6th Mondays are hard Mondays are hard any Monday okay she's read it she's gonna answer I'm just a second okay and we always needed three meetings we've done we've been able to do it in two is at some at some sometimes so the the one on the three would be optional I see a third meeting well that would be the seventh would be she said yesterday all right so our dates would be Tuesday the 31st write this down 131

and then if needed Tuesday um and do we know that there's no committees using the room the first Tuesday of the month not that I am aware of right now no hey are you going to come to our meetings Jerry if I have to I will Jill no no no no no no no

or some of them anyway I mean I can I mean I don't mind but well if you want to maybe after that well after the joint meetings yeah it's a selectment of deciding on the 24th we may not even get that info until maybe the 25th or the 26th so that's going to be yeah if the select would someone said 31 2

and 7 is fine and that may change on the 17th if they're happy with that they don't need the 24th possibly okay yeah uh January 5th I'm going to give you some material what is it that you would like 2020 but 2020 no 2019 20 and 21. okay

budgeted and actual okay back three years right that's what you want 21. go back three years yeah and then what was the actual what was budget and what was actual and you 2021 and 22 that's what you're gonna get right and you asked for the undesignated fund balance okay you might have it you might have it right there well that's the 21 so I I can pull it out of Trio to see if it matches though that's easy I can just pull it out all right um I'm designated fund balance what were the other things that we had to go back and ask for do you remember

five-year projection that came after the fact when when does the cap CIP committee make their recommendation well I mean with them tomorrow at six so they might need one more but they might be able to they might be able to do their ranking to be able to buy that one for us so I should be able to have that put together for you how does that help you with the expense budget well if we can put off putting fifty thousand dollars into a fund into a capital Improvement fund or then we would if we didn't think we needed something sooner than later oh you guys make that recommendation to the we recommend how much you put into a capital fund yeah nice

warrant article more thinking for the meetings six six six to nine does that work for you yeah so that works for us she's the one that works out of town yeah until I work it out with the auditor and Ruth I can give you what trio says we have in there okay but I don't you know that's I or I can give you the spreadsheet and you can try to figure it out yourself so what the way that we did it last year was it was a spreadsheet and then we put in like if we were gonna put fifty thousand dollars in that spreadsheet it and then we were going to spend whatever we were spending on that expenditure it showed us what would happen over five years right um on the capital reserve stuff so we have so this is why I need to get educated so we have a capital committee so why is that what are you folks doing it with that that adds value to what you're doing I that's where I get confused well they don't they don't recommend the money

they're only recommended the priority of the project but they but they still want to see the money right they're not the one saying that correctly request yeah and then they're prioritizing it and they're ranking it yeah and then we're making a recommendation on whether or not or how much to fund it which usually not a transfer usually it's a raise right and it's an article it's got to be an article right so to be an article language to raise it

all right and the only control we over we have over something like that is not to give them the money if the select board says we want this and we don't think they need it oh well it's a recommendation that you don't know yeah but they're the ones that are going to end up doing what they feel is yes okay I just wanted to get clear on that and that's when I was explaining the thing about the culverts right because we were trying to keep the bottom line of what was getting raised for the capital Improvement accounts to let's just say 150 000 it was 50 000

across all three but Public Works needed a hundred we reduced the other two by whatever so that it didn't go over that total amount that we were willing to fund towards Capital Improvements bottom line numbers on the reserve accounts I'm tell someone tells me what they are I don't know what they are that's been that's been an issue with for me trying to figure it out so they don't line up so that's why the otter and Ruth are getting they don't and if those two don't line up so we got to figure that out so I'm in the process of trying to do that so you may have to thank you kind of wing it a little bit as far as that goes I mean you can see it what we think we have in that report it's all right in this report that's the snapshot of that you'll see it uh

[Music] what got passed in 2022 and I haven't added it until I find out what the bottom is then I'll add it then I know I'm where I'm at the I don't I that's I'm working with the auditor on that they're like super busy but I'm on it that's all I can tell you about it fifth or whatever I can't remember what day we go first yeah it's possible um it's possible that I'll I'll have a better number than I have right now because this these numbers like this Public Works Capital the 7419 doesn't match up with whose numbers with whose numbers who's Ruth yeah

yeah it would make sense it wouldn't match oh this is the 21 Oddish yeah yeah so she wasn't here in 21 was she well she just left in 21 right I don't know I I don't know yeah but she wasn't here I think at the beginning but she wasn't months

it would have been whatever rich make um last year this whole fish thing the the Culvert thing that got to be a huge Fiasco to raise money for and then never get spent I I we never got really good information I never got really good information on what this was all about why we had to do it and what would happen if we didn't do it and I asked that question but I never really got a good answer and I'm not going to vote for 200 Grand to spend on something that we don't know what the real need is or if we don't do it what does the state sue us or something and that no it's more it's more taking advantage of the grant money yeah that's really what it was you know I thought it was personally I'd like to know what the ramifications are or something like that it's more or less taking advantage of the grant money so if you don't take the grant money and it goes away in this case the grant money cost us 100 Grand

well now it's not more apparently it wasn't grant money it was still a lot of money for the town yeah 100 Grand so the question then is do you get work for 100 grand that maybe needed five years later for 250 or 300 Grand yeah so Bridges roads and all that is uh pay me now a pay me later proposition and when you pay later you that's the way it works well no one ever really stated that we had to do it they said the state recommends we do it right so I don't know what that means recommendation versus do we have to do it I thought they said that we did have to do it well I don't think they did they didn't have to tell us it's it's a Town Road and if we had not we were basically taking advantage of the funds that the state was offered right and if we if we didn't do it that year that's when the funds were available allocated and we had to do it five years later it's going to be all our bill the

state's not going to contribute a dime maybe we don't know that anyway that's just I I'd like more information on those kind of things I and to the committee you mentioned processes earlier and I I think would be good for the committee to develop a work process for our committee like a flow chart I haven't done one for years but I think would be very helpful for us to do it what rules govern our committee it's very vague to me uh about that where we actually required to do what what's our output going to be what's our input the bylaws right on the website they're on the website and they were signed off in 2015. right established in 1933 that's I'm freaking believable the bylaws of remember that year he was only 21. I think it says

the website yeah town website the bylaws are right on there just the budget committee yeah yeah I just saw them recently absolutely Jerry I have a question I'm not sure you can answer so so following up on Nielsen about the

Mill Creek so we had we had we had we were moving forward with with raising a hundred thousand dollars for the fire Capitol Reserve and then at the last minute that got cut because the the the damn the bridge whatever that project was needed additional money so if that

hadn't come up a hundred thousand dollars would have gone towards the fire Capitol Reserve I think it was 60 but whatever same thing just so let's say yeah but so because the project didn't occur penalized because it's money that they would have had which was that supposedly needed for something else it wasn't needed for something else why doesn't why doesn't it now go back into their physical Reserve because I think the voters have to vote on that

out into specific questions we had a fire department question and we had a public works question and it was already an article but that's right I thought the reason that didn't get done was because the cost came in higher than that 100 000.

had to be built anything with fish passage has the banquet has to be 1.2 bigger than that channel I've got some old salmon yeah that's what that's what where your cost where you had to go to a different size is because of that banquet that they threw at you so is there going to be recommendation from the select board for a one article to do something with that money which money the money that was allocated for the bridge that never get spent they got spent on the other Bridge didn't it you'll have to educate me again you mean the one on route nine

dollars that got put into the public works for for the Bridge Project so there are two culverts I have a two cup though it's one on Quaker Meeting House Road and it's one on Swamp Road and one of those two didn't go because either one of them only the one ones neither one of them did yeah and the reason I asked that is because history you know once I get going I'll be able to keep up but because I live a mile from the Durham Lisbon Falls bridge and the state is going to be I don't know if anybody knows what Tracy Brook is if you go down 125 Maybe half a mile at the most from the Durham Woodson Falls 125 yeah they're going to be rebuilding that bridge and my concern was okay are you going to close the road because I need to know how I'm going to get around and I thought they were also going to be doing the one on Swamp Road and if they did the one on it was like I have no way to get out of town well I

could go to Brunswick it was just and all this that's why I knew about it so what happens to this money that's a good I don't I don't know I don't know whether it's in escrow with the state because it wasn't allocated because they changed the standard wouldn't Calvin know where it is what money or what money are you charging we raise money for this project for these projects in last year's town meeting yes the two Town Roads bridge the two-town

called it was 101 right yeah something like that yeah so that's in the reserves is it did this thing oh we raised it right ah you're right yeah that part is there but what the state grant money I have you know and so Calvin's asking for another 49 50 to go with that 101 to get

his hundred and fifty thousand dollar match with 150 Grant match to do it that's what's kind of one of his requests this year want to do it you just lose out on that 150 Grand that's so often in grant money but could you take a chance everything's a risk right right I don't think that I don't think the state the state wasn't saying you have to replace these culpits but they're saying if you're going to replace that we're going to provide These funds right exactly and that would make that makes sense with the difference in the price because it was I think it was 202 yeah half our half would have been 101. now they're saying it's going to be 300 and so now he needs the other 49 to make it 150.

yeah yeah so that's that's all I have other than this one last thing this isn't my budget this is in your budget this isn't the select boards budget it's the people's budget that's right keep that in mind as we as we put together budgets I'll return your pen just to say that I'm a people yeah well we all are right can I take an extra one of these if you have it for Jill please yes ma'am there you go thank you everyone yeah thanks I appreciate that thanks for coming and hopefully it was enlightening a little bit