TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ December 13, 2022

there all right I will call this meeting of the Durham Board of selectment to order on December 13th 2022 please stand for the pledge movies America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all

okay at least one Amendment to the agenda item four is is coming off because uh John is not able to join us tonight after all um any other amendments to the agenda okay come on up state your name and your street and yeah uh Joe Roy pink and Brook Road um it's just common to speak on behalf of the Conservation Commission to thank Kevin for coming to our hearing our little meeting last week it's always nice to see people and see people from different organizations in town and we just want to say thank you for coming we felt like it was a good first discussion and I thought that you're you being there added good value to help answer questions and stuff like that so we just wanted to formally say thanks right and I would say right back at you to the Conservation Commission you guys have obviously put a lot of work into this and and um it's a very complicated situation and it's a tough one to break down and do

kind of its components that everybody can kind of digest and I think you guys have made some good progress doing a lot of good questions too yeah some more questions for future but yeah yeah keep the conversation going great thanks I appreciate that

public comments all right uh what do we have the name of the the first original deed can I see that [Music] so in our last meeting um we on the agenda was consideration of a quick claim deed um but we realized we didn't have a notary present um for the signing so and there was a mistake of a date I think or something on there so we fixed that we've already had the discussion about the deed itself and so at this point I would entertain a motion to execute the quit claim deed for

for the property um zero zero five zero five six zero one five in book 10 10362 page 238 and on book 10729 page 174. and also book 11152 page 201 of the Androscoggin County registry of deeds is there a motion so moved Josh moves is

there a second Health special seconds any further discussion on that all in favor okay we have the unanimous I'm going to pass that back to you to Deed but we don't have a notary here tonight um it well she left and uh so we'll have to get that one at the next meeting

abatements would entertain a motion to go into assessors session okay put on your Assessor's hat um so uh I think is it just the one or do we have more than one it's just the one okay so Donna Hayes our assessors agents please be advised that an abatement should be granted to the Riley Family Trust for a homestead exemption that I removed from their account in error this property was transferred from Dana and Emily Riley to the trust and I removed their exemption I now have a legal opinion that this is a family trust and they are still entitled to their exemption of attached to necessary paperwork for your signatures if any questions please let me know does anybody have any questions on that one seem pretty straightforward enough to everybody I didn't really have any questions I just didn't know if they had to ply once they transferred it over because it's a separate entity once they switch it over to a trust it's not owned

by an individual well I mean she claims she says she's got a she's consulted with she has a legal opinion that this is kosher so I'm right um the individuals it's actually from it's here from there's a letter from the attorney here that documents that yep that's fine that was just my only question is if it if it had to be resubmitted

the abatement as requested second Josh seconds any further discussion all in favor okay five zero start to sign that one okay next on the agenda is um budget season schedule discussion so I think I'll turn this one over to you Jerry yeah thank you Mr chairman I got the schedule that um you have forwarded onto me and I just want to make sure that this we're going to follow this if the dates are correct I know that our public information officer has requested that some of the material that we get to her including all of the stuff that's in the town report by March 1st right so she can to her by February 15th so we can get it to the print by March first right yep so the voters can have it by the middle of March two weeks before Town that's the goal right that's the goal so I just kind of wanted us to all kind of look at this this um

schedule I basically just updated it with the new calendar date so with a few other changes and additions my question for you Jerry is you so we're we we got a little behind on CIP at the first yep do you expect that at our next meeting we're going to get the rankings from CIP because that would be at 12 27. that would we should put us back on schedule the CIP committee is meeting um on the 20th right and so I believe they'll be able they had their rankings and and they were sent to us a couple of days before our meeting on the 27th and I should be right on just we'll get right back on schedule right that's yeah because we're going to have our I have my stuff is due at the end of the week and then yes we're going to meet on it next week to discuss it all compiled so yeah it should should be ready okay great look after shouldn't be anything that holds that up

reviewed these dates with like staff and stuff and did these dates work it's pretty tight it's going to be close it is tight it's definitely tight so um so I'm just so you know I'm I'm doing a meet and greet with the budget committee on next Monday to see what their expectations are and what they need for material um so they can do their work getting it all together by the fifth it's going to be a challenge but I'm going to do my best to get it all in a packet form it might be a few days and of course we'll close the book so I'll have the 22 actuals but there'll still be some invoices that are still outstanding there will have not met that and I just want everyone to know that so it may not look exactly to the penny right you know and that sort of stuff has to be expected right um so yeah I think I'm gonna do my best to meet all of these um these dates I was just kind of looking at the uh the date for the to be done

middle of February for the report now the report that doesn't mean that the warrant needs to be finalized by then uh because we don't um the last couple years we've included a draft warrant with the like actually bound into the annual report there's no requirement to do that if we're not ready to do that the the warrant itself with the article the questions that can be a supplement to the town report and you know be a handout like this all right so in fact we probably saved some money if we didn't try to actually print it in the book if we can it's not you know it's not a bad thing to do but um Kim can Kimberly can give you more on that and how we handled that last year because you know in looking at this schedule the deadline to print is is right there in March 1st so we're we're two weeks uh two weeks to print two weeks to print two weeks so we're you know so we're a little bit ahead so we're

gonna yep I'll try to do my best to get everything on time I just kind of wanted everyone to review and see what we're all up against or concerns about the schedule this time of year yeah yeah that's a good point Rich you know we ask everybody to kind of maintain some semblance of flexibility and there's you know not especially with some of the presentations it might be that not everybody you know can make everything you know everybody's got other important stuff in their lives too but just you know to prioritize this as much as you can and um we do the best we can so okay you know I'm 75 80 through the

budget so just a matter of sitting down with new Kevin and kind of showing me how your spreadsheet works and get for me without plugging it all in and yeah so the spreadsheet that you know that he's talking about is the one I've I've built in years past is basically and we've simplified it this year and Jerry's got a a slightly different approach with some things that he wants to do with the budget and I'll let him talk about that when the time comes but um I've rebuilt the spreadsheet to accommodate that and basically that spreadsheet is for we take what was proposed what's being proposed in the budget or recommended by the board or the budget committee and you can plug those numbers in and it will calculate the estimated tax impact for you so you know that well and again and it's estimated because we never know what the actual property valuation is going to be we usually don't have the final School number sometimes we have

the final County number sometimes we don't and then the overlay is a wild card too so um so it's but at least we can provide an estimate and we've already calculated um what the levy limit is for this tax year don't ask me what it is I can't remember what it is but we have that number um and it's it's up a little bit from last year just by virtue of you know that Levy limit is based on average growth and wages across the state which that we all have seen has been pretty significant and that but that's an average over the last five years it's not just one year and then the other piece is the growth in property total taxable property valuation within the town those two growth rates combined is the growth factor and you take that and you apply it to what your limit was last year and that becomes your limit this year basically I don't know it's Gotta lead you to drink yeah so once you get it though it's just

plug it in the numbers you know and even plugging in those numbers you know we don't always know what those numbers are going to be it truly is a forecast yeah yeah exactly you know just this is our until you actually commit taxes like in July and you know all the variables when we have the what's the tax rate going to be discussion you don't know so changes every week right especially uh state revenue sharing you know that so last year last year we estimated state revenue sharing at the time we did the budget about five hundred and forty thousand dollars year to date through November it's over 700 000. so it's been good you know it's a it's a function of economic activity in the state now next year if we you know if we start to Trend down in a recession or mild whatever you know then state revenue sharing will will Trend back down but so that's a that's a wild card too yeah and you know I I want to

say too after working with a municipality that had a fiscal year July 1st to June 30th I would encourage I'm going to encourage the town of Durham to kind of take a bite of that apple and go from fiscal year July 1st to June 30th because it it does line up better with all the other things that that pertain to the budget it's it limits your crystal ball work really yeah yeah a lot quite a bit so I would encourage people to to look to do that that would help out tremendously and it really gives us more time to put stuff together too we're not in such a crunch you know we're we're getting down to the last expenditures trying to figure them out get them in the budget and get going right I mean and and when I was in Gardner we got our budget probably late March and we were you know looking to have it passed in June so we were like three months ahead and it's but yeah everybody's working on their budget

at that point so everybody's talking with yeah just goes a little bit here I kind of feel like an orphan left out in the you know yeah we hear that from the Auditors too I asked the Auditors when they were in last I said you know how many you know what what would you think the breakdown is of towns that's going on the calendar year versus the fiscal year and she didn't give me a percentage but she said there's very few towns you know left on the calendar year because everything else is on the state schools you know everything's on even some of our vendors like the the like our uh solid waste that goes from July 1st to June 30th too yeah yeah just a lot of it happens though I think one of the one of the changes is the result of that would like right now we kind of have our calendar is built so that we're not approving a budget until the previous budget year is closed which means we're proving our budget in our case like

three months into the the year already um and uh that's not normal normally you're approving your budget before the next budget year actually starts the flip side of that coin is you don't have your final actuals for everything when you're approving that budget you have you know you have your projected based upon what you know is still outstanding and what's still coming but that's the much more common you know methodology is doing that but anyway there'll be a lot of I mean that'll be a big change if if the board decides along with Jerry to do that um it's not something that requires a town meeting Vote or anything like that it's really it's it's really up to us um but I think that's a pretty big change and we want to be really careful how we manage and communicate that and get a lot of input from people so forehand in terms of you know what they see as the pros and cons and have that as an opportunity to you know inform

people too about you know you know why that's being recommended and explain that process what would do what would that do to time meeting it would probably mean moving town meeting a little bit later like into May or um or even on June that's typically what you see May May and June when you start reading the papers in Maine it's it's like May and June is town meeting season right because that's that's because they're approving their budgets in that time frame and their new budget starts July 1. and then typically they um commit taxes and another piece of this would be to go to uh collecting taxes twice a year instead of once a year so in smaller payments obviously I wouldn't be paying twice as much so that that definitely helps ease the transition to the um yeah to the fiscal year because then you just start paying every six months so and probably that's it's probably going to be a key part of

it yeah because the doing that first right well it's all together so part of the transition is there's two paths you can go you can approve a uh to get you on to that July start you can do a six-month budget or you can do an 18-month budget Jerry and I tell you it's probably easier to do an eight-month budget I'm sorry yeah 18 bucks not eight so by the time you go through the budget process for six months you're turning right around and doing it again doing the whole thing again right so but yeah but we're going to have lots of discussions yeah we're not deciding anything tonight right now good heads up I'm going to look and do a little bit more I'm going to talk to other towns that have done that and seen what kind of you know hurdles they had to to jump yeah transition recommendations and so yeah it's just just I just want to plant the seed because I think it would be a great I think for the town to do

especially for the record he came to this all on his own I did not put him up to this because I've been talking about fiscal year for a long time in into collecting taxes twice a year helps cash flow in here and helps manage it better and it's just for accountability it's just a lot easier what we have to do I know you want to get away from this but will we have to do more than just one six month budget no not if you just went that row just once and then but if you did a six month budget six months later you're doing your next 12 months yeah yeah so it hurts that once it wouldn't even really be six months can it be four months later to get ready for that well that's true right that's true so you've been hurt once right but then you'd be on a yearly day yeah yeah yeah it's just 18 months you would collect them you know six months 12 months 18 months and you'd be back on that cycle too yeah yeah

but lots to discuss and lots yeah to get some through but I just thought I'd throw that out there okay all right so that was any other discussions on the budget schedule I mean that's that's how we got off on that little side track but it seems normal okay yeah yeah it is but change as you know is sometimes received well and sometimes not received yes

good I get some a few things for you here um so a week or so ago we had some Pre-K kids and kindergarten kids from the school March over here see see all the decorations on the tree that was their doing it was it was pretty awesome they all marched in here you know 10 at a time and I decorated the tree and that's probably something that we're gonna make a tradition from working the school on they were very happy the teachers were thrilled but they could do that and I think you should tell the story of how that came the whole idea came to be yeah actually I don't really know okay well I can tell Jessica Jessica made it happen so Jessica and the other office staff so evidently they were they were looking for the ornaments for the tree and they couldn't find them right so so Jessica's idea she called her buddy over at the school because she's tied with people over at the school and floated the idea

of having kids make some ornaments for the tree and um it just snowballed from the air and turned into this ornament parade of the little kids from the school and they came over and did that so it was it was like a really cool thing and it's you know so credit to the the office staff for kind of coming up with that idea and making it happen I think it got a lot of uh it was really cool that's a great little great little tradition to get going yeah really happy about that um so the Christmas tree tag speaking are all gone so there was just a couple families that filled out the applications and put them up but they're all gone in a few residents have come in and made some really nice donations to the uh The Giving Tree fund and some fuel assistance and so kudos for those secret Santas so what we got to do with those donations is kind of go get some unwrapped presence and continue to do what we're we're doing for the for the

kids in need right you know that without floor and uh we're going to work with laco on some of the some of the gifts with the school we're going to bring over to the to the lake Oda on the 22nd I believe Friday Friday the 22nd which is will be nice um is that

about workman's comp and how we got audited and we ended up paying sixteen thousand dollars because they tacked on 20 percent to our wages well since I've given them the data um they just sent a check to us for Thirty One Thousand seventy five so nice work they're caught up now and we're we're okay so all right that that was good news today I just found that out so we should get that so does that impact the figure that you're gonna have to put into the budget next year no that's that's the same and it's because our mod rate is just through the roof so we're working on that and you sign the the incentives and that sort of stuff so you know where it's on a year basis so hopefully next year we'll see a little difference and once some of these claims get off fire because they're on for three years once those go and we we do better at returning people to work and that's what we should see reductions in the workman's gone but but

that that was a so so it just initially was that it looked like we owed them 15. 16 000 and then once you got all the paperwork it really was the other way right they owed us 15 so they gave us back 15 plus another 15. and then next year you say it'll be like an even budget workman's comps that go so workman's comp is workman's comp so whatever so we give them codes for our employees so and they give us a mod rate based on all of that and they look for that data so they can plug it into the system and let us know they never got the data last year that's why they jacked up the um interesting the wages 20 and that's what really and that really drives it a lot and that's why they said well we're gonna go 20 on their wages and that's where the 16 000 came in

with so so when they came in this time and I gave them the right information and plugged it all in they were really good they didn't really have to do what they did to reimburse us but they're a non-profit and they recognize that Durham was going through some changes and things got lost and they were willing to work with us and do that for us so that it worked out really good um so there's that now that we have the right data moving forward we'll just keep we'll just keep our eye on it and keep giving them the data when they ask every year they it's the same old thing you know they want data next year it's almost like you know wash rinse and repeat as long as you have it and give it to them there aren't sure work with them they're a good good organization um so because of the um and I should anyway just I'm just letting you know I did take the test to get my notary so when we have these little things like this I'll be here to

to hopefully know to sew the checks in just waiting for the state now to go through what they do oh you don't have it actually you don't have it right now I'm gonna say why didn't we just do that earlier I don't have it yet it's going through the process

the 21st starting at one o'clock we're having a little Christmas gathering over at the fire station and you know more than a moment to come join the staff for a little Christmas cheer before the holiday there'll be some food and they're doing a little gift Swap and so you're more than welcome you're all invited and hopefully you can stop by say ho ho ho and Merry Christmas and great so the one condition there is that if we show up no Fireball no Fireball okay that would be a second condition but the first we can't talk business we can't talk about business because this is especially if there's three or more of us there and we're talking business then that's supposed to be a yeah like noticed meeting so only talk Christmas cheer kids grandkids you know you talk about Joe if you want you know so but all right so yeah three

thanks for that heads up yeah other than that things are going really well I'm I'm happy with what the staff's getting accomplished and Things Are things things are good great yeah I I would just add you know I've uh I think some of you have too but I've been coming in on a on a fairly regular basis to spend time with Jerry and the work he's done just diving into stuff like trying to figure out the accounts and figure out the you know like the reserve accounts and the bank accounts and we had like I don't know like eight or ten bank accounts that weren't labeled anywhere on what they were for you know so he spent a lot of time with our banking representative figuring that out and he's he's got the Auditors coming in to help explain stuff you know like figure out where we are and also not just figure out what um

what was wrong but learn about best practices so that we do things better in the future and we don't get into these things so real kudos to you for your diligence and the way you've you know Dole right in and you uh you were I used I told you they said that you were like a dog with a bone man you are like not letting anything go and you're figuring it out so yeah that's good so that I am bringing the auditor in on the 27th that's going to be a fairly fairly big meeting I apologize for it being right after the holidays we're all coming in because Christmas is on Sunday we have Monday off and then it's Tuesday so yeah I'm bringing the bringing the audit is and I am going to invite the budget committee to be here I think that it's important that they see what you know what the status of our yep of our finances are um so we do that right we're looking good do we want them good look at an alternative location for that meeting if

we might have the budget committee here we could do you wanna something you can think about it okay huh Granger yeah yeah also known as the Eureka Center for those people that have been in town less than 40 years yeah so yeah we can do that would the fire station be all right that we work this I think that's a great thing I thought that was a great spot I think that's a that's a great spot if it's a whatever's easiest to set up yeah thing is the keyboard is in behind I don't know if it's I know the mouse works fine but the keyboard isn't behind behind a closet I'll check with Chief to see yeah whatever works if we don't need to and we could come here that's fine too we just yeah yeah that's fine and you did a great job at CIP the other night well good I hopefully I wasn't too confusing in the questions I was asking because

and you know we're still sometimes learning ourselves along the way so it's it's it that went very well yeah well thank you there was um you know and all the you know the way that you put the budget uh items together for us to to look at was was easier yeah Clarity is good and it's really just about communication make sure on the same page it's just like this budget it's no big deal but I just want to make sure that we talked about it and where we're at and the time constricted because it it's pretty tight yeah you know but we'll get it yep you wait

I want to talk to you about and it can be a separate agenda item is The copier so that lease is now up so to get rid of it it's an intent to to get out of the lease that particular lease is market value BuyBacks so we don't really want to buy it um I have a couple quotes to to get another one and the way the policy has always worked that ten thousands and under always went to the select board do you still want to do you still want that do you want to give it to the town manager how do we want to proceed with I think um I think until we amend the policy we need to follow whatever the policy says okay and if we want to amend the policy then that would be a separate deal where you could bring to us suggested recommendations for you know and changing that policy but that would take two or three meetings because you'd want to you know propose you know propose it

so we could discuss it um and then not vote on at that meeting you'd vote on it the next meeting to okay so I think we got to follow it the way it is yeah okay that's fine we just there's one out there's a printer out there that's in good shape that I think would work for us it's kind of a it's a refurbished one but it's only 5 500 bucks and um we purchased it outright then our lease what we're paying right now um basically I don't I don't have the numbers I'll have to uh come back to you like we're paying like 357 a month right now for the printer yeah for the

lease and in the service contract we buy it outright that 357 goes down to 50 a month so it's it's those sorted for the service contract Service yeah because we bought in the printer so instead of sounds like a no-brainer to me it is but I'll go over I'll put it all in better format and it'll be part of your package so you can see it yeah okay so this printer here you don't you don't want no well the least is absolute pain really more than we really should okay for it right now

know a one-pager on this is the current state this is not paying this is what I'm proposing and why and this would be the cost difference and whatever just you could you know anticipate the questions that people will ask and have the answer there on the sheet so okay that's all I got

is there a motion on the consent agenda so moved a second so is well is the motion to approve the consent agenda as presented okay all right all right all in favor okay uh upcoming meetings uh select board our next meeting is the 27th uh and then again January 10th um those are the town hall January sorry for regular meetings oh the budget presentation is going to be separate at the Eureka Center on the 10th that's what this says yeah that I think that hasn't actually been scheduled yet that's the tentative date would be the 10th we usually it as uh I think what we did last year is that we did a really quick like 30-minute meeting over here um to do like do the warrant and anything like that needed to be done and addressed by the board and then we went over to Eureka Center starting at like 6 30 and did the budget presentation meeting over there okay so I'm pretty sure if memory serves that's what we did

um so I think have you confirmed the budget presentation dates with the budget committee I haven't that's that's what we're going to do on the 19th okay so let's not announce those until we actually have confirmation from them that those are the days because they might they might change a little bit Yeah part of the part of this meeting with the budget committee is to set those schedules to what what they're looking okay um so so that's the 1219 meeting with the budget committee kind of a kind of a pre-planning meeting right right yep and then Capital Improvement meeting as you mentioned earlier uh on the 20th at 6 30 also here at the Town Hall actually so that's a typo at six o'clock oh six six o'clock on the CIP CIP yep okay all right and I'm assuming we don't need Executive session tonight we're good all right I would entertain a motion to adjourn so moved by Josh second by Joe all in favor

we are adjourned