TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ August 27, 2024

live and In Living Color here give it a few seconds to get going well I think you said we up good cool all righty uh call into order the August 27th 6:30 p.m. town of durain Select board meeting we uh have a quorum so let's start off with the pledge

allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic stands one nation God indivisible with liy and [Music] Justice all right everybody is here amendments to the agenda I'm going to say let's move our old business item line to the end of the meeting we have a really busy meeting and uh I want to move that back there so we can get to this other stuff first and then we can respect the time of the people we have speaking yep uh and so I'm going to move business to the end of the agenda we have a lot of people here today and we need to uh I want to respect their time uh and then we need to add the AP warrant to that as well so any other amendments I don't see the law enforcement is it on here and I just am not seeing it um yeah we'll add uh law

enforcement planning to new business at the end of new business as well does that work m at agenda all righty so the law enforcement was updated on the website but it didn't get put into the folder where Jessica took the think so it was a it's good to know okay just got updated and it just didn't get awesome okay thank you for catching that though

right off with uh real estate abatements public comment oh shoot sorry it's a long week already uh yeah public comment you have opportunity any public comment comment now we'll move into real estate payments Donna today you yes I did okay so thank you uh you have before

you three abatements slash supplementals and a supplemental for a tree growth penalty um so as you know I have no idea that I've made a mistake till the bills go out so the first abatement that you have is an batement and a supplemental it's a mobile home that sold in 2020 or

2021 I wrote letters called nobody ever got me a bill of sale until after this year's taxes went out so we need to Abate the incorrect owner of record and send a supplemental Bill to the correct owner of record okay do you want to take these individually yeah let's go one by one um any questions for Donna on that do we have to move into Board of assessors that's what I was thinking too yeah all right I'll entertain a motion to move into the board of assessors meeting some moved do we have a second second all right did you get that just first and second okay any discussion all right all in favor um almost seeing them

perfect um I'm going to pass around paperwork for signatures okay if you'll just do it and let it end up with Jerry yeah so any questions for Donna on the 21 County Acres all right I have a process question sorry do we need to vote on each one of these or we just sign them we need to vote on we need to vote okay so I'm not going to sign until we vote yeah so do I have a motion on the uh statement for 21 Country Acres I move

that we uh accept the uh abatement and the supplement tax warrant for uh map 5 lot 5621 all right second that all right any discussion all in favor all line okay uh so the second one is a supplemental bill this is for a home uh that was built um I had a couple cards for this

area this is a taxpayer that notified I guess she notified Heather and Heather notified the town that she did not receive a tax bill she had a new house um yeah one's to Abate it and one's to send the new bill so they're both for that they're both for the same one um and so anyways I had a couple of cards the files were out I sent them to the side and that's what where they stayed so we're going to send her a bill for her building value this year any questions for Donna I have a motion I move that we uh accept the supplemental tax warrant for map four lot 1219 have a second I'll second uh any additional discussion all in favor motion passes unanimously

is for a tree growth penalty um we had 10 acres that we had sess in tree growth the owner is selling it requested that a penalty be paid so that they can do that what they want we've already collected the check on this I took the check because I knew it was going to be a while and they wanted to get started they could not do anything without paying the penalty because they want to build M so [Music] any questions for Donna I have a motion move that we accept the supplemental tax warrant for MTH one not 98 I'll second that any

discussion see none all in you okay so the last one we have is we have a abatement for the value of a portion of a barn that was taken down prior to April first and I did not remove it from the tax card um so this is actually an abatement it's a 9900 in value 21533 in

Donna um I don't have a question I just have a comment sure um we we do now have a demolition permit so going for forward like it hopefully that's taking place and happening um so that it can trigger this stuff and make your job a little a little bit easier yep and as as long as everybody knows you know come get a permit de demo permit where we can put this in motion so okay good perfect any

other questions for Donna uh do I have a motion move that we uh accept the certificate of abatement uh for map toown lot 26 second any discussion all right seeing none all in favor perfect thank you very much for all of you this and you just put all it on the desk great thank you have a speed run right there do we have any other business for the U before we go back into the meting you're going to stay I'm going to stay for the fiscal year yeah thank you so do I have a motion to end the board of assessors meeting and move back into the select board so moved second all right any discussion all in favor any opposition

none cool 9 Minutes in we're off the first page of the agenda that's a speed record right there there's a full second page take that all righty that puts us discussion just one page here for each one of you um so what what we're handing out now is what the schedule would look like if we do switch to a fiscal year July 1st to June 30th okay I got it thank you and this is a decision that um the board will have to make either on your own or if you decide to ask at town meeting you'll have to do that this aely but for all intent purposes the schedule would look like this so in this late early July August of 25 there would be a 18th month commitment that would take us to the June 30th of 2026 okay so in other words

that commitment would cover all of taxes in 2025 in the first 6 months in 2026 okay so half the taxes would be paid in October of 2025 the other half in April of 2026 okay so so two tax bills for yes each one yes one tax bill with two sections to be paid okay okay yeah okay

how this would affect the budget so if you decide to do that now so this budget season we would have to put together an 18th month budget so it kind of follows that same schedule all right so it would cover all the 25 and then it would cover January to June of 2026 okay in between

January and June of 2026 we would have to start working on a 12th month budget to start July 1st okay so town meeting we keep the same town meeting in April in 2025 but in 2026 we would have to move that to possibly the first Saturday in June and that's when that would start our first fiscal year so the decision that you have to make is are you ready to do this now if you're not ready to to do this now because we're going through a reval the next opportunity would be in 2028 cuz we do not want to go through a fiscal year change in a revalve all at the same time it would just be chaos well and can I add doing it now when we commit in 26 we'll be committing within a fiscal year and that would only that would be like a reprieve that we're going back so it's not 18 months and the next year is going to be new valuations so it's it's it's like a breather in between but it at that point we're also have changed so that we have

two payments instead of the one we'll change to a two payment um as opposed to now everybody pays of course in September so we'll get everybody used to uh a fall in a spring you know you get hit with 18 months get a regular regular

taxes and then the next year would be the revalue year help seize the burden of any increases from the reow maybe yeah to and and you couldn't do it like that like that because it's too we we have the unknown of what the values and everything else will be in 27 or what our revenues will be and all of that um you said the thing about the two bills when once we got on a fiscal year would it continue you add two bills yes and why is that well it's just we don't have to worry and probably mark would speak to this better too but we don't have to worry about we waiting all this long because by the time we start getting money in we're nine months into our our calendar year and it just it makes it easier on taxpayers not to pay everything all at once and within a fiscal year we're not that hard up waiting for money because our year just began in July as opposed to by time we're getting money now in

September for January yeah yeah so sounds like it could help with managing cash flow for the town yeah I mean ultimately the cash flow isn't really an issue town and I don't foresee it becoming an issue yeah um so yeah normally it's a it might be a cash flow issue if it have less cash but you have enough cash it doesn't really become cash flow it really becomes something of a makes it easier for taxpayers they can always pay early if they want before you ask your question does this what's this put on for a burden for like you and other people who have to manage the tax bills cuz in my mind now you have to do it twice how is that better or worse or does it matter I'm just curious well it's for me once the tax bills are out doesn't make any difference to me but there are two rushes of people coming in to pay taxes which is always the way you know the last date before interest in in the fall

and it's going to be the same in the spring so so functionally for you you send out a tax bill but instead of it saying pay by this day it's pay this half by this day this it will be two pieces that they can bring in half and half there would be the administrative time of everyone coming in twice yes do people have the option to pay up all in once oh yeah because everybody takes all the money you want as soon as you want to give it to us right yeah yeah so for people that are currently on an escrow like have their bills paid on an escrow for their mortgage this is I'm speaking for my own situation yes it's going to how is that going to work how does that work they're not going to have enough money in their escrow probably more than likely for the first for the first 18 months yeah yeah and and that's why probably the two makes the most sense changing it right then and there because at least they

have the opportunity to if the bank wants to go up or or whatever if this is something that needs it's going to be done then I I think we also need to get as much information out there as we can as soon as we can so that everybody knows this is the change that's going to happen and to be prepared for it but to clarify the first 18mon budget would still would be collected in two tax bills instead of just the one then we can use the same date even you know April 15th or April 1st or October 1st or October 15th whatever you choose yeah I always tend to look this way so I got to make sure I can look this way do you two have any questions or comments or not so I mean the the county just

started releasing their numbers for their budget and it was a how do I say this polight a large increase let me just say um okay and and does this fiscal year budget help us uh help address those issues where the school or the county is going to uh make

these larger than we expected increases well and the problem is for this 18 months we're not going to commit until next end of July 1 of August almost a year from now mhm we have no idea but going forward going forward yes yes because and the other thing is we're on a fiscal I mean right now that when we figure anything to do tax commit we're taking half a last year half of this year and we're always six months behind right we don't know what the revenue was going to be I mean we estimated state revenue sharing and we're only getting half not half of the money but there's Revenue sharing one and revenue sharing too they're different amounts we fell off Revenue sharing too from the state so so we're what is it Mark 80,000 90,000 short there cuz we didn't get it that's that's a good example because you don't get those estimates until they they sent out the initial estimate right now I think

in March which is a little too late for you know your time meeting anyway we meet two weeks later yeah and then if there's a revision they usually send that out in May or June time FR right so this could help believe help us have a better job of getting those accurate forecasts once we when it comes to when it comes to the school in the county you generally have those those figures in or at least the estimates in it's a question for the school of what when you're um scheduling yourtown meeting versus the referendum board for school it would be ideal to do it after the referendum vote because then you could make some final adjustments but by the time you commit no matter what uh I mean it doesn't really matter with the referendum with either one County or tax by the time you commit you've already gotten the referendum vote for the ideally and you already got the county amounts in so the commitment for taxes is already known

there's no there's no real really um I would like to see when when we do this doing it so that oh okay you're saying to do it after I I was thinking it would be nice to be able to have everybody vote on everything at the same time so we only have to have one election and then oh no I suggest that too if you can get it all at the same time you you should have a vote anyway for elected people the night before or something like that that's what my question was going to be is that our Municipal officer election right now is held before town meeting which is in April and so how and that's not directly related to this so I can save that question for another time I'm just saying if we were moving to this it changes when our town meeting is which then changes our dates for elected officials and I would like I don't want to have another election just for municipal officers and have to spend the money to

do two elections but I don't know how we would bridge that gap between yeah to switch the the calendar for when elected M uh Municipal officials switch over is my question making sense yeah I see what you're saying this a good point it yeah does that turn one elected election cycle into an 18month cycle to make it align with the fiscal year I see what you're saying and we have some I think in our or or in one of our protocols it kind of dictates that municipal election so we'd have to look into that but that aside my thoughts are I mean we need to move to a fiscal year at some point we I think that waiting till 2028 is too late there's just no easy way to you know painlessly pull the Band-Aid off and pay 18 to 18 months you know we

had originally talked about a six month and then a 12 month but but you're leaning towards doing an 18 month and then having it and that okay and is there any I guess it's hard to say because we don't know I interrupted you I'm sorry oh no you're good okay yeah if I had another thought I lost it so it's hard for us to know what's going to happen in terms of property tax bills with the reval and there's really no way for us to or maybe you can make an because you have dealt with this before make an educated um assumption that about the rep I worry about what's going to happen with an 18-month Bill and then the reow well so the whole idea is to do the 18-month Bill have a have a a year of nothing just regular the only difference is it's covering 12 months but it's going to be fiscal as opposed to calendar and then have the rebout so we got 18 months that we'll commit in 25 got 12 months we'll commit in 26 and

then we have the revalve which will be committed in 27 so it's heavy light heavy yeah and I think that if we waited until after the reval it'd be a whole lot of change that people wouldn't like well who wants yeah especially you get 18 months after a Ral right but you especially if someone's revalve yeah valuation goes up and then they get hey not only is your valuation up and you're also get 18 months so I just think pulling the bandaid off sooner than later would probably mitigate the most pain there can you explain one more time if we're so when we do this budget that we're going into what we start in October and we're done with by February is that's going to take us to so we would have our regular town meeting this year in April and the budget that we do would be an 18-month budget so there's we would have the opportunity at we'll know this ahead of November if we're doing this without a

do you think that we should go to the town and ask them or do you think that the select board should make this decision that's up to you folks can I ask on that do we need to change what do we need to do to change the date of the town meeting and date of the election I think that's a town vote because I think that's adjusting our that's my concern as well if that's a town vote then how we we have to present

with an 18mth a 12 month cuz yeah CU if there is a scenario where we went to a fiscal year without Town input and then didn't change the town get the vote process to change the town meeting now it's super wonky there so can I ask then

so if it goes that way then there has to be two budgets put together one in case it goes and one in case it doesn't unless yeah yeah unless you call a special town meeting which would be my if if if the board's um tendency or preference is to say well let's have the town towns people vote on it I wouldn't wait until the April town meeting to have that vote I would call a special town meeting determine what what we're going to do and then do it otherwise otherwise yes you have to prepare two budgets in case yeah that's miserable does it make any sense to have a a fiscal year when we're having our town meeting in April um you can do it it's just you're really preparing a budget way far in advance you can do it it's not unheard of

meeting staying in April is that like just what we have always historically done or is it written we don't have a town Charter is it written somewhere that that has to be there I don't think you have to have a town meeting at a set time most towns do it just May or June just because it's closer to the end of the year more time to do the budget more information the reason why calendar year towns do it is because they're already off their budget and they have to approve to have X amount to be allowed to be appropriated beyond the end of the fiscal year every year right you have to say oh well we can extend up to a third more until we get to the next town meeting which is also kind of odd right yeah um but that's only because that's what you've always done I'm not of any state stat it says you if you're a calendar year you have to have it in this month or if you're junior and you have to have it in

this month I think it's just convenience to do it when you have those School budgets available to you even though they might be an estimate you're still going to be voting on it maybe the week after the town meeting it's still a you know pretty valid number that you can go into your budget with an estimate and same with the county you'll have your county number by that so it makes everything line up a lot better um to be to be able to move forward I mean but you do run the risk of the you know the budget doesn't pass then you're you're high and dry and you have to come up with something pretty quick because you are right down to the wire on the end of your end of your year at that point yeah I mean I think we need to do move to a fiscal year and I think that we need to do it before the reevaluation as opposed to after the reevaluation and uh I think that we'll have to double check but I think as the board we have the ability

to make that decision and so I think that we just need expediency when here when we're thinking about budgeting like the idea of coming up with an 18-month budget and a 12-month budget doesn't seem like a very good time use of time it doesn't seem like a fun time either um and one thing that's really burning me here is that you all just did all that work and this will be our first year where we're going to be able to compare actual numbers to numbers for the new budget and now it's going to be like oh everything's 50% more than it was supposed to be is what it is so next time it would be even better but well no two times later yeah 2027 we can compare it

numbers to numbers there but can I ask Mark a question yeah have you gone through a calendar year to a fiscal year change with towns I was just wondering if you had experience on whether or not people go to the town to vote um I agree with Joe where I think that the select you both of you actually

um I think that we can make this decision as as the board but my my concern is um number one making sure that there's so much public education around this and that people are very prepared for a change like this coming and so again I think this is one of those things where if we know before November that that this is the direction we're moving in I want to take that opportunity when we have so many people coming to a November election to really use that for PR purpose I know that you can make that decision does it mean you have to you can take it to the town if you'd like but you can make that decision that is in Statue it's not that I don't want Town input on this by any stretch of the imagination but we've been talking about this for a long time and knowing that we have an e reval set up I think this really needs to happen before the reval because even before we came up with the idea of going into this next year we had

talked last year about how it needed to be done the next couple years and then we're like we got to do our reval on the next couple years and that reval dates set kind of set in terms of like how long it just takes people to get here so I think we just got to bite the bullet and go with the chain to the fiscal year and have a have a very large education and Outreach effort there so we talked about sorry I grab first I just had two things to say one it is a goal that's um in the comprehensive plan

back from 2018 that the town did vote on at that point that the fiscal year change is a goal that's identified in the comprehensive plan so there's that and then the other thing is are you looking for a decision from us tonight you don't necessarily need to make it tonight it's just I wanted to share the schedule with you um this is what it would look like yeah um and you know if you make that we just have to manage it and it's going to be a little bit of work there's no doubt um and so with that in mind we have to keep forward about how much more we add on to our plate while we're going through this so that's that's so that's that's the big thing there right it's so but it's your decision we'll manage it staff and everything we'll do it but that's I know we talked about the uh the Rial um happening sooner is there any chance that's still going to happen early 27 I just know the I remember we

said as soon as we can do it okay good all right I just don't want that to get pulled in yeah no a com oh you had a comment D um since I'm new to the board I think I missed some earlier discussions on this but could we summarize the three key benefits of moving in this direction what are what are the three key take fisc year yeah J REM Mark you want take it's little it's more fiscally responsible because we'll know more about where the school is where the county is where the state is like I said we we estimated revenues and and we we really are estimating I mean this year we kind of threw it D I mean we blew it by 80 grand that's that's not okay you know especially from a manager point so are we moving from estimating to knowing the details enough to say even though we're still estimating we're going to be on target possibly also like we had to estimate County tax and we have to estimate the school budget and I

think we estimated like a 6% increase this year or something and one of them was closer to 9% and so it's harder because that's that's a especially with our budget with the school budget being such a large proportion of it like that's a big thing to to estimate and if it if that's if we're off by you know a third that that drives our our budget a lot there well historically you've gone 3% at least that's what I've seen but with the inflation that we've all experienced the last couple years that has gone on tremendously matter of fact the county just reached out and they want to we pay the county Bill all at once and so they asked if we wanted to pay that quarterly and I'm like yeah we want to pay it quarterly of course we do so yeah so I I kind of knew they're asking that I knew they were probably looking at at their budget and it was probably going to maybe increase cuz I know kennet County last year budget went

up a lot yeah and and okay that's the big thing for me is that the like our bu like 12 million in change what how much of that's the school like seven yeah so it's like we have three things we budget for you know our Municipal budget with our town and our County and if two of those we have to make these guesses without having that information especially with one of them being 75% of our total budget it's

it's I'm good with is when we know what it actually is is there other key do you have any issues or is that the I mean that's a big one I think I I I know in the past that we've had to take tax anticipation notes before waiting for tax dollars to come in we're probably not like that anymore but that you know we we don't collect our tax dollars which is when the money comes from until September yet you know the budget the whole the whole year is almost over by toy St collecting y so and then do you find that in towns that are are collecting taxes twice per year that people like that better than paying it all in one lump sum they do and and some towns such as pound they do quarterly to make it easier on the people to pay so the whole idea is not everybody has Nest grow people older people have paid off so they're coming up with the money themselves so you know it just eases the

burden Mike do you think of anything audit wise no I mean it's just from my perspective it's just good to be consistent with the majority of everyone else if I had my brothers it would be like understate statute all schools have to be on a junior and fiscal year my brothers be State Statute all municipalities to be also want to jar just because you know when you have these you know variances it's just wonky okay that's great thank you I think it's good to itemize those points so um Josh I I know that this is was

brought today saying we want to do this quickly but I think we have this election coming up that's going to be a high turnout and that is where I think 90% of our uh our education is going to go if we get something prepared and I don't mean to give Jessica more work at election but if there's a table and here's this information yeah and you can stop by and get pick it up and have the understanding that's where the information is going to go it's not going to be on Facebook it's not going to be in the emails uh so I think we need to not necessarily tonight but we need to make sure that there is time for somebody uh to come up with some type of education we can present to the people at this in November and get it out then it's easy to understand I think if you want people to stop at a booth you just put up a 18month tax bill sign people will swing by you got a free cook more I've already taken the day off

and I'm happy to manab boo yeah I'm going to take the day off too and I'll be there town office will be shot off that we've done in the comp uh plan is good because if we don't do it now it goes to 2028 which is when we'll need to do another start another comp plan review and so if we can get something done that doesn't have to go back into the hey we wanted to do this 10 years ago let's do it sometime in the next 10 years it's nice to kind of get some things done so

is there any reason why we would not vote on this tonight I I just have one comment about that I I know that there are budget committee members that are here in attendance and I think this is a is a big thing and and I'm not saying just budget committee members but I think we should at least for one meeting allow the public to come and make public comment regarding this if um I I have a

hard time with information being presented the first time at a meeting and then not giving residents the opportunity to have a public comment yeah I think that that while I think I'm comfortable voting in the affirmative right now I do think to your point Heather the idea that gets introduced and voted on this meeting I can see people being like that was quick um so

we just we I want this to be a priority because it's going to we know we already a lot of us are already thinking already about the budget and so that that's going to affect the work work plans for everyone a lot going forward I'm not suggesting I want to kick the can down the road I just think we need to give at least one opportunity for people to make a public comment about it if they want to with with that being said would you want public comment at a meeting and then a different the following meeting have us voting on this or public comment and then voting on it incorporating public comment I think it's I think as long as we do public comment at the beginning of our meeting if it's on our agenda and people know we're going to make a vote they can come make their public comment at the meeting and that can impact our decision that we're making after the fact and at the same time I I think we could flag for the

current members of the budget committee who aren't here to say watch from 6:30 to 707 of our meeting for this presentation and I appreciate that those from the budget committee who could make it tonight um to to learn from this so you don't quite have a quorum but can we just not do it at our next meeting on September 10th right yeah agenda makers okay the I mean the problem is is that I next week isn't going to work it would be the 24th which I think we have something we have something big on like every meeting forever there's a lot of stuff going on yeah so tentatively we're going to look for September 24th to put this on you tell me I and that's what I'm saying I don't know what's going on behind the scenes for September 24th meeting I think we I I can't remember exactly but we we threw a couple things on that meeting I thought oh I think that's when we were planning on Jerry's eval do was going to show do that was it

but they can't now they have to wait till the October 10th meeting okay they can't so let's try for the 24th and then if some fire has to get put out we can adjust are you is everyone in agreement with that September 24th y okay and what do you want to call it fiscal year vote all right okay fiscally year switch

okay and uh okay I can also send an email to the budget committee to just say please let us know if you have any questions to to prepare so we can make sure we get those answers before vacation and you might forget to do that so I'm going send you I'm going to do I'm going to do that before I leave okay the land of the

internet so let's do that [Music] thank you thank you very much I'm going to come sit for a minute okay I have I do have other questions for you that if we don't get to answer tonight about okay about well I kind of want it to be in a public setting but I don't know that we have time to do it tonight so we'll ask you to come back if we don't okay did you want to stay and talk I was going to I just my personal my grandson who just went to college called yeah I'm just going to step out and call him and I'll thank

page took longer on the whole first page all right discussion of financial software Jerry yes well thank you again um so um you all heard of our financial software we don't need to mention it by name and how much trouble it's kind of given us um well we've been approached by the folks that put together our new web site and they have a financial Suite they're sitting right there those two people so they if you have questions for them um we certainly ask so what they

what they're building is a financial sweep for towns it is Nationwide um and they're looking for Maine to take on their their software you know and they working with uh Farmington Paris I believe and a and a few others um and what they're looking for is early adopters to to to do this

and if they if we sign on with them and we'll talk more about it I and I have numbers for you I I'll give you the numbers because I because you see my brain twitching I do I do um so pass that along a is right there if we need so what what they're proposing right now so they're they're they're building this software for main they are nationwide so they they they approached me and said look if you if you'll uh you know take us on we'll charge uh you 15,000 a year and lock you in for 10 years uh no increase but you got to sign a threeyear commitment all right so what I've handed you out is we'll just talk about the numbers and then we'll talk about the the process and these are estimates okay so if you look at the first box up above this is what we paid the current software company that first where it says under 2024 mhm you see that MH so

the annual maintenance across 10 years you can see it and that's at a 5% so at the end of the 10 years we're going to be paying you know somewhere in the ballpark of 303,000 for that well total over those 10 years over total over the 10 years right but that's probably not going to be the case because they're forcing towns to go to the web right now they're an SQL I think that's sequential query language and they're they're not going to support that I don't even know if they're supporting it now so getting support is incredibly difficult it's like a forced upgrade that they're do right they're going to for to upgrade like when your iPhone stops working and you get so I've tried to get some I've Tred I've called them three times left uh two emails to try to see

what they're going to charge Durham for that upgrade other towns are getting estimated like 8,000 to upgrade to the web per year NOP just to just to just to convert from the SQL to um to the web so if they do that you know we're looking at maybe spending if if we stay with them the first year is going to be 28 somewhere in that ballpark Okay then if you add 5% because they can in their contract in their invoices they're allowed to add up to 5% each year so if you do that over 10 years there's 352,000 we're going to be paying okay quick question sorry so you said first year would be 28 yeah but that doesn't include the 8,000 one time it does because right now cuz this is for next year cuz I'm trying to get a number for it next year I'd rather not be forced into it I'd rather do it ahead of it and that's that's pretty conservative because if we PID 22 I'm only saying 28 that's only six but I don't have the

real number because they ain't getting back to us all right so again these are just numbers to kind of get you thinking so over 10 years you're looking at roughly 350,000 if not a little bit more over the cost of paying for that software all right so if you go down to the next box this is what the uh new company is proposing okay 15,000 for 10

years lock in for three years and they'll work with us and they'll build that out and we'll work with them and we'll and we'll have a decent Mark demo that we they gave a mar demo to Mark and Mark can speak about what he thinks um however this is where the wrinkle comes in it doesn't do assessing all right so we need to have an assessing software so part of our contract with KRT is if the data converts

nicely from Trio to Patriot is what they use um awesome if it doesn't they're going to charge us 10,000 extra the to KRT to convert that's what they're going to charge us sorry I need to pause for one second to make sure I'm digesting this correctly we currently use the software we're using KRT uses Patriot Y and if it will go easily no charge no charge but if it doesn't $1,000 charge and with that 10,000 we get the Patriot software so we're getting the Patriot software regardless all right so I got a couple questions so if Town cloud is

going to take the SQL data and transfer it over to their web-based site they're gonna I'll say comma delineate everything and pull it over you guys are going to go and do the download why can't you take the data and go from your server over to Patriot after the transfer or can you can I can I answer that yeah go ahead you can yeah sorry because they do not have an in package so what so so you're saying so

so the trio assessing package are already goes to Patriot no no it does we have everything we have right now in Trio y it's my assessing it's the billing it's the finance their package does not have anything anything for for assessing

so we have to have assessing or else I'm not going to have any values when we put the RFP out for the rebound we were specific that we use Trio right and so you got to do it in Trio now we've got to figure out KRT uses Patriot software they didn't offer it to us and we didn't ask for it but now we have the capability of getting it for free if I remember correctly when we went through the assessing for the rebal and we were looking at the proposals the company that we chose had the ability to be able to put that

information online for people to be able to access their cards and that type of stuff is that going to be what is going to happen here and we could add that to the website and we were already paying for that no we that's Patriot we don't have Patriot right now MH okay I thought you just said that we were already paying for Patriot no no okay no we weren't going to go with patri but we would have to hoist that aboard as the assessing software in this software whether we're going to use Trio and pay for that which if we leave Trio and we keep the

real estate and personal property part I mean Trio's not the best in the whole world and we're going to be paying Bo box for it cuz they're not going to let us just keep a little bit without paying a lot I I recall you saying during that when we were talking with the assessors that the Patriot software Patriot is the

you I remember you saying like it is the better it is and that at the time if we're doing everything in Trio it didn't make sense to necessarily move to Patriot if we were already doing everything in Trio but now the situation we're at is if we're going to explore something that's not Trio we would definitely want to use Patriot for assessing because if we tried to just just only use Trio first sessing it would be extremely expensive going to pay we're going to say hey we're out of here for most of our stuff and they're going to be like oh well you're going to be paying for the thing you stick with so what we have to consider then is getting the information out of Trio into Patriot and then bridging when it's time to to do

billing um from Patriot into Cloud yes oh no maybe not for me uh maybe maybe maybe not it might not be tonight which is completely fine I don't think the answer will come tonight my qu information that I would need to be able to make an informed decision and I'm sure there's lots of other questions we haven't even gotten to what this software is going to do would be what is Patriot going to cost us if we go to Patriot it doesn't cost us

anything it comes of it will be part of our they they're going to throw it into I just asked that question oh and you said that we don't have it and it wasn't part of the cost assessment am I wrong we don't have it we don't have it we don't have patreon so it comes with the

contract and so it would come with it would come with this contract yes so if the data conversion is smooth we pay no more we still get the software if it's not which is likely the case we're going to have to pay them $10,000 to transfer to transfer it over because it's manual labor that they're going to have to KRT yeah when you say them you mean KRT okay yeah and I can tell you it's not this go smooth to this it sounds like what you're flagging up front is that any change from Trio to if we were to explore this option would come with a $10,000 increase on our assessing fee because they would have to likely convert to Patriot in a way that would cost m reevaluation sry our reevaluation yes but then is there an annual fee after we do the reval to be able to sustain the Patriot software 3,000 cut we cut them off before you get to that because we were just talking about year one that starts year two so I mean we so

I just wanted to share the numbers of what what this looks like so so we go with this new software we're going to pay 15,000 it's three it's between 253,000 for the maintenance I went with a higher number that's Patriots maintenance yes okay so it's 150 over 10 years plus 27,000 you're looking at 177,000 versus the 352 for $175,000 savings over 10 years how long is the new software been

around is that a question for them is yeah we'll have you all come up here I think Mark wanted to say something I just want clarify okay right yeah if we're going to ask them questions we'll just come up and sit down so we can get you get you live in little col on our microphone here so just just let me get through my numbers okay these last two numbers either way the savings from switching is going to be it's going to be somewhere right around 175 to 165,000 a year over the course of 10 years all right so the glaring question here is you know

knocking on the door saying we can save you 50% how unbelievable yeah cuz I mean like that's a big savings what um you know I understand sometimes I'm just thinking like that's a that's a big difference so give you all the opportunity to explain why it can provide us with the same Services well happy to answer that so yeah by the way I'm Chris Haywood yeah and this is ravy Jackson I think many some of you have met rvy already and um I've worked with Jerry on the website and agenda that you're using now um so that's part of what we do um our our company um I guess part part of how I would explain this is our company was really created with the express purpose of providing modern efficient userfriendly software for small towns across the country um so we live here in Maine and you know Maine is very important to us and that's a big part of why we're doing this uh but we really built the whole company right the the

way that our software works the way that we sell it the way that we implement it um in such a way that that tries to make this accessible um and and so that's true um you you're already experiencing that with the website right so our website um is substantially less expensive than most of your website options and what we've done is we've made a big investment in the technology uh because the technology that underlies your currency software is very old right what everything that we have and that we offer it's all modern it's all state-of-the-art it's things that we have written and we support ourselves so um our applications are what's called multi-tenant it means that from a technology standpoint anyone that we're supporting we don't have a copy of the code floating out there that has to be updated for every single customer right we have one copy of the code so when we put out an update we do it once for

everyone um and so there's efficiency in the way that we do that the other thing is um you know we we don't overcharge our customers which is one thing and uh additionally uh the process itself is much much simpler right so our

implementations um are not nearly as difficult for you or for us so it doesn't require the kind of services and the cost to install it and to train it right and so you know the example that I would you know give you again is is you know website and agenda we didn't have to charge thousands of dollars um in setup fees because we built the software so that it was intuitive and we were able to work together and and quickly you know get everything set up that you needed and your your maintenance rate um you know the ongoing upkeep you know it it doesn't require that people are going to training classes all the time and many support calls so it it really is about a a very we're taking our experience so our team has been building software for four Municipal agencies um for decades and we we founded this company really to provide modern software simplified for small towns and so we're we're combining modern software

technology or techniques right for building supporting implementing with our experience for local government so that's really the difference and and for us you know it's economies of scale so you can think of other things in you know your private lives where um you know you don't have to go out and spend a lot of money in order to be able to you know have uh you know modern technology right you can get one seat of Zoom for instance and have modern video teleconferencing right you don't have to go spend thousands of dollars like you did you know 10 20 years ago so with the multi-tenant applications what you're saying is since you are all writing the code that Services all of the towns as opposed to it sounds like competitors having individual codes which get messy and usually one person understands it and if they leave it's a right Beast to unravel um you're saying that that right there provides you with

a lot of savings in order to just manage this in a more efficient way yes that's a big part of that's the big part of it yeah that's correct okay we have any questions for them from anyone else y I know we do so are there current towns and Main using the software well let me I'll I'll distinguish so we work with people people all over the country we're in 45 States across the US so we're this is this product that we are talking about providing um this is our clerk package that we're calling Trifecta and so this is this uses the apps that are

that we've already provided that are in production now across the country so our general ledger our payables our billing right these are proven applications and they're they're designed not only for the functions and features that you need but even more sophisticated you know more complex systems that we're replacing we're extending that right so that we also cover the other pieces that you need in order to be able to switch off of the software that you have today so part of it is we're developing

it with the feedback from the towns that we're partnering with and it's based on our proven technology our proven platform uh that you know that we've had out I mean we were we started out you know um talking to people in Maine about website and agenda but we had people coming to us asking us for an alternative um because of you know the frustrations that they were having so her question was if there were any towns in Maine that are currently using it not no because this is something that we are we are rolling out MH right this is something new how new are we talking we offici I was going to say we officially launched it this year gfoa in June it's been implemented outside of the state prior to that actually more complex Integrations and implementations of it um but for Maine this is a new adaptation mhm but building off of a model that's been used so for instance the Billing System you know has been

live since uh we've had that La we launched that last year right and so we're adding on pieces this is the way that we develop all of our platforms everything that we do so pieces of it are going to be new but it's based on what's already proven right and you guys have seen a demo yes so uh for my

perspective so you have to recognize that this is one of the reasons for the savings right is an incentivization so that they can start up their business so so that they can not start up their business their business is already running to enter the market right in main um right one of the reasons why there's significant savings is only two players real players in the market here and they kind of hold that market cap captive and can charge what they want right um so get that along there's a

there's a risk obviously of being under adopter right or an early adopter um from what I've seen on the financial side I don't really have any any concerns with it on the financial side I I actually see that can be it's much more flexible than what the the current system is um and I also see the potential of getting more usefulness out of it um uh for two reasons first because the existing software both of the two major players they don't focus on reporting so getting any information out is is unbelievably difficult right

um like the reports I send you I don't get those from those that those software I have to export it reformat it massage it myself in order to provide it to you so that you can make some decisions and that's a real failing on their part those those software companies part because they're not understanding that the entire point of accounting is to get reports out not just the warehouse data for no reason right so uh the other reason why I see a huge benefit is because they are in the process of developing it and so they're going to be using feedback from M uh early adopters to help find it for exactly what we need and from personally from my perspective if you guys adopt it that means that I am available to help provide them with huge feedback which would just make it even better um often they don't get feedback from people that know exactly what what could be um which makes it a lot better um in fact Robie reached out

to me yesterday asking do I know anybody else uh in the state because he's looking for feedback from the revenue side right the tax receivables the motor vehicles stuff to make sure that the the input that they're getting helps drive a solid development of their software given all that what I've seen on the financial side I definitely see that it would be an advantage over what what you currently have um comped with the savings I don't see why that would be a problem there is a there is a risk with the revenue side um particularly assessing side uh whether or not uh it's going to be as seamless as possible um

they have promised that uh the motor vehicle portion and the um the other portions of the revenue are going to be up and running and also because they're not building up an assessing module because that's a huge task or at least in I'm building one out right now um what what it will require is any of their are going to have to have an outsourced assessor right assessing software professional assessing software and then there's going to have to be some sort of bridge you know API whatever to connect the two so

um in a perfect world everything can be housed in one while functioning machine how does it impact us if we have to keep assessing separate I mean right now even if it's imperfect we're doing it all with one package the trio package correct we've heard even before yeah trying we've heard even before this that it's not the best option for assessing so I guess I'm just trying to say how does it work for us if we have we're using you all for one for the majority of stuff and then assessing for a separate thing I guess it might be a Donna question can I can I answer this um in so in two of my towns I use Vision appraisal and I have for 20 something years uh every the town uses Trio for everything else such as finance and billing and stuff and and I have a I

have an export that I do very easily every single year um I have a file that I take out of vision and I put it into Trio and make sure my numbers match and we're good I'm assuming we're going to end up with the same kind of thing no matter what package of of assessing I

use it's just a matter of it's always going to be whoever the programmers are on one side with the programers on the other it's nothing that the town will ever be able to do to make sure that it goes we just need communication between two companies and that's a standard part of our process yeah so you know we try to make it easy to integrate to other platforms um so uh it can be a direct connection right like an API or a web service um in many cases you know it it's going to be it's it's going to depend on what the other system is capable of um in many cases it's a flat file right so like think like an Excel spreadsheet right so they would you know you would run your report we would define an import that matches those columns and then it would come in and then from there on our billing engine would take over and you know we would handle you know sending out the bills and the aging and all of that stuff so

it's a very routine thing for us and I will say it we just need to make sure it does do it one time once we get it and it I can do it myself every time after that did you have your hand I know you got you go to Jo so how much work have you done with the various towns on customization for things that the towns do that are sometimes independent of what what needs to be say transmitted to the DMV like what kind of like reports that Mark was talking about how much of that customization is allowed by I'll say the clerk versus how much is it that you need to do that's a that's a good question so this is going to be a little this is going to be different than your current experience um we really don't need to do customization so there's two there's kind of two components to this right so part of the reason that we it's important for us to have the feedback from the towns and and from par is that

we have we make this platform support the functionality right acoss across the state right so that it has the flexibility from a a setup standpoint what we would call configuration right when you're setting up the the codes and so on um that it supports those processes the reports aren't custom every single screen is a report writer and each user can go in and they can Define The Columns and they can change the way they sort and they can save their settings and then they can literally just push a button and have an Excel report so you things that today

would be custom and you may get an invoice for and say oh well you have to change that report you can just change it whenever you feel like it so you kind of set like a definition query and then just run that if if you've used Excel with a filter right it's a similar concept and and but you can save those filters and then you can export it whenever you want so there's certain things that are standard right so think like a trial balance or something like that but then all of your other data right you have the ability to see you have to have the ability to drill in and see the details so to simplify it it would be like if we only want columns a

b f and g showing that's something that we don't have to go to you all and say please create this custom process that's we just Define what we want exported and then we can set it up and then anyone can do that from any and you can do it again provided that uh you have the right permissions M uh you know you can do it your way Jerry can do it his way Mark can do you know create the ones that he needs you'll never have to pick up the phone to call us for that sort of things so oh I'll let you sry so what's the back end look like and how much redundancy do you have um across the cloud so our applications um are so we

our infrastructure is AWS or Amazon web services um we've done a lot of research uh you know we we've we've worked with multiple vendors you know to to prove out you know kind of who was the best um you know we worked with IBM in the beginning um we've just found that right now with where the industry is um that is the best platform for redundancy speed efficiency cost Effectiveness uh security uh so so that's that's the platform that we utilize today and and from a redundancy standpoint what what what Hardware platform are you you keeping all this data on it that it's through AWS so they provide that it's called they're a provider yes so they so so we don't go out and say like buy a server that lives in our closet we use their it's all virtualized and so we use their their servers their technology you know the backups I mean it's it's our secured environment right it's not shared it's it's our stuff but um it's

their platform y okay Heather de did you have another question uh one of my questions was about reporting and that was answered um I was going to ask if Donna worked with any other um towns that used a different assessing package and you answered that yeah yeah so thank you I appreciate that that was ahead of my question does this allow for

um time tracking for staff like based on what projects they're working on do you have any of that built into this like if there if there was a staff member that was working on um a project and they want to Time Track how much time they're spending on those individual projects so that when we go to doing our budgets we can see the planner has spent this much time on this project or this Lane and so we know that

based on that time tracking we can show where we need to be putting some of our budgetary dollars does that make sense is is there any part of this coding yeah yeah that's that's part of the the those that's part of the the application that's being built out right so those requirements right we would be working with the staff and working through the requirements that they have to Define you know what level of detail needs to be tracked you know what flexibility it needs to have so part of the process the system also supports projects but not the time tracking projects you're talking about but for say Grant to other projects you can track across different funds so it like tags the different expenses cross funds that's called projects so we have that functionality which is similar but not exactly what you're describing for personnel and what what's the training like the learning curve look like for new users like the the time

involved with bringing somebody on board so that they are efficient at using it to be able to do their job pretty quick and yeah I mean that and that's again that's the the difference with because we started with a clean slate uh we were we didn't we didn't have to deal with sort of like all the steps that you go that you had to go through that you know from old software right that you carried forward so we've really everything that we do is focused around Simplicity and and we needed and we've created an intuitive user interface so that the that you don't have a big learning curve and so that's been proven out right we've done training for people where that person leaves they train the next person they come in they train that we'll get maybe a call about how to do something and we realize they've been trained by two people we never even talked to um and and so it's because we really focus on keeping the application

simple so the the the onboard time you know is dramatically lower than what you're what most people are used to seeing um do you have support um like support Pages web pages to answer questions and walk through people things yeah we do so it's actually integrated into the application so there's um you know training materials that's basically you know a link right on the page that you're working on so it's integrated right into the application that's one additional benefit yeah currently don't have that's what I was going to ask because I wasn't sure how you handled the onboarding initial training is it like someone comes here and trains the staff or there video modules or is it like you click how do I do this and it lights up and shows you on screen I I mean I'm just kind of curious there yeah absolutely well I I would say

we I mean what we do is is based on what we have found to be successful so the traditional training approach that you know government software generally has been provided with is that you go attend some class right you go to class for a week right or a few days or or whatever it is and and then you then you have to come back and figure out like okay well how do I apply that to this system right well if we look at for instance how we worked with you with agenda and website we don't do it that way what we do is we say okay let's look at an agenda that we have to set up and then we build that together and then we and then we say okay now you go do the next one right same thing with the website right we work together and then you know we say okay now you're going to work on this page and and and so with the with the financial system right we've taken those Lessons Learned and we we kind of follow

the same approach approach so we work with you know essentially the people that are going to be kind of your you know main users your core users and we're walking through how we set that up how we map your accounts and everything together right and then they really understand the full capabilities of the system and then they can bring in whoever you know okay if someone else is going to be responsible for a piece you know if it's just one piece they may just get training on that one piece but if they're going to be responsible for multiple areas then you know they would be walking through the whole thing most of that is done remotely over Zoom okay um you know again we have the option of local because we're here um but you know we found that kind of a a hybrid approach is often very effective because it provides you the flexibility um that's most convenient for your staff but is oh sorry were you going to say

something no I was going to say it's a very intuitive design using I think of it like an iPhone so it's complex on the back end but very uh intuitive on the front end and the way it's laid out um actually explains a lot of how it's going to function so in the way you navigate from breadcrumbs is is intuitive to most people and the way that it's set up is is familiar to most people because it's a grid based system so that minimizes the amount of external training that's required for people to get familiar with this system okay and it sounds like when people do need that instruction it's via a zoom call or something like that it's not NE like because I've been trained on things before where it's like here's some four you know YouTube videos to watch watch these and you've learned how to do it and there's no and so it sounds like that's not the M we we try to take a both and approach because we find that

people learn differently so I work with some people where they like to be able to go look it up themselves and they prefer to do that before they call us so we provide that right we provide those online materials as we talked about a moment ago they're you know linked right through the application um but if there's something where it's like oh I'm trying to remember this piece or I need to set up this report a certain way and I need you know I need a few questions answered um you know someone may send us an email they may give us a call if we can't answer it right on the spot we'll hop on a zoom meeting together we'll walk through it basically we're kind of virtually sitting right next to you um you know seeing what you're seeing looking at what you're looking at and you know usually we're able to get things resolved in a matter of minutes cool um are you familiar with kepware or

PTC um I'm I'm not so I don't speak this language at all this is not my wheelhouse by any with the imagination my ex-husband worked for kepware which was bought by PTC and what their entire thing is is that they have created something where all the all kinds of different languages come into their software I don't know again please I don't speak this language and then it can go back out to all of the users so that the information is getting transferred back to them in the language that whatever that is speaks right so like imagine all kinds of different countries that speak all kinds of different languages the language comes into the central Hub and it can go back out to all the other places translated so that they can understand it in their own language and it's making me think of how our assessing needs to get to you and

make sense and may be worth you guys looking at ke whatever it is that kepware has created that allows those languages to speak to each other and transfer easily versus it sounded like you would be doing manual if it doesn't the thing about not converting from Trio to Patriot easily gets charged this amount of money if that needed to get into your oh do you see what I'm saying I do I do so so this is it's a it's a little bit apples and oranges um I I do I think I do understand what you're saying so what I think what they were talking about with data going from Trio to Pat right I mean any data conversion from any system to any system I mean this this would apply and and perhaps Donna has specific experience there but one is how clean is the data today right is it is it in good shape or is there sort of like over the years have things got messy and you kind of need to streamline it and organize it and then the other is

is really generally there they're kind of broken down into two parts one is mapping right so it's like oh it was in this field on the old system and it's going to live in this field on the new system but then the other is transformation right it's like oh well we do it a little differently so we had this data now it needs to get converted over so those are kind of the three main areas when you're talking about a data conversion and moving to Patriot right that exercise or that effort is going to be very specific to Patriot the data needs to be brought in in a way that you you have the records that will be used for the assessing process where we come in is more of an output from that right because the the bills are going to go through this right okay for us can you read Patriots language and then spit it out and for us that's actually quite easy because essentially what Patriot would provide us like a typical file or

this sort of a file for a Billing System wherever the bills are from any any system you know you're typically going to have some things like uh an account right so an account number perhaps someone's name you're going to have some amount it may be broken down into different categories uh some effective date for it and and there would be those columns and then you know however many rows there are and we just have to map those columns and then we bring those in and then it can go through our billing process for that and so so our effort would be to work with Patriot just on that definition yeah that's my question is in this price includes any sort of lift that you need to do to define those um connections like and pull you know from this sheet to what you need that's already includ well that's that's kind of the nice thing about this offer for you is this is an all-in price there's no surprises so we're not charging you

separately for any data conversion we're not charging you separately for any training we're not charging you separately for any Integrations you know for us this is about economies of scale right we're trying to provide a solution that works for all main towns and we're and and by having a streamlined standardized approach that works for us you know the economics works for us but it also is able at the same time to provide a cost savings you know to you and and we again we've proven that in other areas but um this this is a piece that that we're really excited about because frankly you know you just don't have a lot of options and and we think that this can really have a big impact on the data day operations of a town and and your ability to get data out I mean as as Mark said it's really quite crazy to me and it by the way Trio isn't the only you know solution like this but that you put so much work into the care

and feeding and paying for and then it's hard to get data out so for us from the very beginning the ability to extract data easily you know on your terms is a is a core part of the system design cool um real quick like mark

question for you right now to generate the financial reports sounds like you're doing a lot of like physically like copying and pasting and like writing it out and for like let's say how much time does that take you well it takes it takes time on the on the front end to set everything up so now are done right so now on a monthly basis when I'm going in I'm exporting data I still have to massage it I still have to do that you know for for you guys maybe on a monthly basis probably takes me a couple hours just to massage that data just so I can use it so that I can do banking so just generate and so would you say you're familiar enough with their software to give an estimate of what how much difference it would have taken you in time to get to where we are now had we been using something like theirs from this well see that's the thing with their software I wouldn't have to export it to my stuff to do I mean the only reason

why I have to export is because the reports that I can generate from the the current software are just not they're not really usable I mean they're what they're okay but they're horrible but you're saying that this financial report that they're okay but horrible yeah this this one I wouldn't have to massage any it would already be in a flexible format

that I basically their their software is doing what I am I am replicating in in Excel now with exporting dig tree you see what I'm saying yes and so when you're doing that sort of stuff now that your files also have to live somewhere right which is when youel saved locally yeah and so with you

all those things would be have some redundancy CU they'd be saved and in in yeah server and you can you can pull them on demand yeah that's that's that's another key thing right so regardless of whatever system I I use like historically with my clients in past uh I've always exported it to Excel and saved it locally just as a just as a what if yeah for some reason Amazon web services there huge Colossus of the it organization gets locked down or whatever at least I have something backed up some right um it's unlikely right yeah but you know I always do that and this holding data hostage which is what a lot of which is what a lot of it companies do um from what I saw the way

that they can the way that you can easily export it wasn't really any of that and as a matter of principle we don't right exactly right it was well whatever whatever you want however you want it here you go um whereas you can't do that really with as easily you can get it out but it's hard you've already imported data from Trio into your software you know that the import takes we we have not but I am not intimidated by it the list of systems that we have imported from you know that we've imported from systems that don't even have a SQL database have you looked at our data enough to know that we don't have a lot of data Integrity issues that would really cause us a a glitch for this town specifically you wouldn't have any because I've already exported it oh and you've already looked it and fixed all that stuff so really specifically for this town or any clients of mine uh it would simply be just take what I've already

done and because that's already an excellent format and just upload it now aside from the financial and just Jerry Suite here compared to what we're doing on like the clerk side of things and whatnot do you think it's better serves our options fixes some of the issues we have the trio and stuff like that yeah so I've been involved in these software developments for I did it at do where I asked towns to look at the software so we could design it for what they need that's essentially exactly what they're doing so I'm I'm not afraid of it at all um I think it would be a good thing uh just because you've heard the Rumblings of how difficult it is to work with a current system right this is an opportunity to rectify that with input

from the people who are actually using it yeah I mean the big plus I I see here is and and I'll just take it one step further so I I've reached out to the current software company on five different occasions three emails two phone calls to find out where are we going and how much is it going to Cricket when we were doing web development and going through this I call those they pick up when I when when the phone rings rby lives in Brunswick I live in Bruns I can find them you know so they've been they have

been excellent as far as getting back and and and walking us through what we we uh need to do Kimberly usually does the agenda I had to do it because we were really short Staff last week I called up Chris he walked me right through it it was it was great M so that kind of support is exactly what I would be looking for I'm not NE necessarily afraid of the well it sounds like your customer support from our current package is zero it's tough right now it's it's it's tough and they're offering more than zero customer

definitely things about the website that I like a lot and there are things that which I think come with like any new you and and I know that this isn't specifically about this but I'm wondering about two things one no search engine I know we can put a search search engine but it's like a Google search search engine and I'm wondering why we don't have the ability to add a search engine that searches our website information our information

not just a Google Search and then also there's five tabs across the top and that is creating a little bit of difficulty user difficulty not only for me who I am like studying are in like I'm researching our stuff to be able to be prepared for meetings and whatnot but that like some Town residents will want to go register their car and it's like kind of buried for lack of a better word Under tabs because we only have five options up there and so that's my only hesitation is that we're talking about things being intuitive and user friendly and and for me that feels a little bit clunky and so I hope you know that you're welcome to hear that your feedback and maybe that's somewhere that we could you know talk about changes happening but those those are two areas where I feel like that doesn't feel very user friendly and that would be my only hesitation to going to something that doesn't exist yet for us to even

try yeah I mean as far as the the website itself I mean there there's kind of there's kind of a balance I mean certainly you know a search capability is something that you know can be added um you know as I mentioned I mean the there what what we wanted to accomplish with the website was to have something where or information was easily organized and streamlined and and laid out in an intuitive way so that the search didn't

like like many websites that when when we talk to people because we talk to people here in Maine of course and then all over the country and a lot of times you have to have the search because it's the only way to find something on the site and so we've tried to focus initially on cleaning up and streamlining the data and having it laid out in a a a you know you don't have like hundreds of pages to navigate but you have a list that you can easily get to also one version of the site for desktop mobile because a lot of people are looking at things on their phones right and and so providing you know that um you know kind of one you staff only has to update things in one place and you're going to have a consistent experience no matter what platform you know that you have right um there are search capabilities so for instance on the agenda you know you do have the ability to search all of your agendas

and minutes um you know right from the application um and and and search is something that we've talked about um but the there there is some rationale to why that design is what it is that that is it's not the only way to do it um but it is there it is a standards based like having a a limited number of tabs in the in the top nav you know with a more is actually not something that's just like a town Cloud thing like there's a lot of that's actually kind of like a modern design approach um but your point is taken and and so one of the things is that you know we set this up working together and you know it's organized the way that it is right now but it also is flexible right so we can change the order of the pages we can we can change the way that that information is organized um and so it's not something that's like Frozen in in stone um so it's definitely something that we want to have an open conversation about and

but but that was really sort of the to answer the question of why right why is it that way um and that's what we're trying to balance is something that doesn't require a lot of setup uh that doesn't require a lot of cost you know for you uh and and that's easy to maintain and also easy for you know people in majority but that being said if the way that we laid it out we didn't get it quite right it's also easy to change yeah I don't want to I think those are important comments about the website but I don't I want to F come back to um the software discussion and just wrap it up here in the next couple minutes so uh Jerry what it seems like here is realistically this uh fourth or this third table

here is is it's more likely going to be the fourth table with the $110,000 up front that's right and so more than likely in in the long term there I I don't want to say because we have to spend $10,000 to save $165,000 that we shouldn't do it so that's that's kind of a non concern for me um you said at the beginning and you all might be able to answer this that we we could lock in this $155,000 a year for 10 years as long as we committed to a three-year contract at the onset yeah and they would like to have you know 5,000 down to get started and 10 would be paid in January 15th mhm okay

and we're probably going to need to discuss this a little bit here how long quote unquote does that offer stand you know if we need to talk about a little bit more and get back well the way I'd answer it is this you know we're we're trying to really put our best offer forth up front right

so we're not approaching this trying to haggle we tried to come up with a price that was reasonable that you know contributes to the development of the application that we're talking about um you know which there's a lot of good reasons for that also um but also is something that is aable you know from a from a budgetary standpoint you know for yourselves um the timing matters right

because for us you know we were you know we were wanting to get started on this even earlier this year right and and so we're really trying to get established with our launch group the group that is going to be providing us feedback because we know there's a demand and so it's something that we don't want to be stretching out months we don't want to be stretching out and and I will say that um certainly there's going to be a different pricing structure after the system is live yeah so so you're you're actually getting access to the best pricing that we will ever offer on this yeah so my my thought on this is whether we stick with Trio we we use this no one up here ever uses it right

and so that's where I want to defer in terms of comfort level to Jerry Jessica Mark like it sounds like you all ask Jessica no one's asked her that question I do I do want to ask you Jessica Jessica hasn't seen it okay but

you've seen it I've seen it I they demoed it with Mark and I okay Heather um so we I'm I'm confused about how we would do this ahead of town meeting because it would Trio be pro-rated because we've already paid for that correct we we we we yeah we PID for it up until February so in February we pay them again and then because this is more than what we we can approve for spending correct no I

thought we were only allowed to to do until the next budget season yeah 5,000 start gets it started right and then come February rather than paying Trio 25,000 or or whatever we're now only paying them 15,000 correct or we would be paying the other 10,000 so it's not like we're increasing the amount of money we're spending we're saying let's get started so before our next bill pops up we actually decrease so this saves us a little bit of money even before the town meeting you follow what I'm saying it's not like this is 15,000 in addition to you know it's just changing a vendor but we just need the 5,000 to begin the process so that's correct okay

Joe I saw your hand go up and then Josh I saw you so how yeah so how how many employees you guys have it's around 12 15 kind to all of them based in Colorado or you have anybody here we're all over the country so we we have people here in Maine yeah um obviously ourselves and and some others uh we have people down in Florida we have people in Colorado so one of the things that's kind of the uh well in California as well yeah we we are really across the whole country um so because we have been you know in the industry so long right we have we can be very selective about who we work with and one of the nice things about our company is that we not only provide cloud-based Solutions but all of our tools are cloud-based as well so we're we're fully virtualized and it gives us a lot of flexibility where people can be with their families uh but also you know we're able we we basically are in you

know working together on a daily basis so U we have uh you know it's a it's a pretty pretty unique Arrangement but you know it's something that works very well for us it does keep costs down which we can then pass questions so my thought process here is I love saving money and as long as our end users Our Town folks and and our our staff who have to use it meet their needs and feel like it's a pro product that can do everything we need better

than we're doing it right now so so we're in a we're in a pretty good position right because current software is going over to web we're going to have to learn that anyway so rather we learn that and fumble with that or learn theirs and hopefully fumble with that it doesn't really well and it sounds like current software going over to web you've asked several times and they're not saying how much it would that's going to cost anyways but there's going to be an increased cost and then our current software can increase up to 5% annually and I found that people usually take that full up to when they can increase so just Budget on that it just it makes sense here from a monetary standpoint as long as it makes sense for you Jerry and I don't see this stuff you're you're the one who uses this stuff so if you think it's good I'm all for saving $165,000 and and talking to the towns I just got back from the main town city

managers conference and their towns talking about I think farming thing is having the exact same conversation we're having tonight at their council meeting well who's talking to Joe I I don't know I guess I'm having a little bit of a problem with this um so why are we not setting a committee up to look at the off Ware how many software packages are available to do this I'm just I'm not all in on just picking these guys with 10 employees got to go to what we got three you got three you've got a larger corporations here and I get it there's a savings here but there sometimes not always a savings and I'm just I'm having a little hard time with just saying let's just go with the cheapest guy because he's going to save us $165,000 over 10 years but we could be you know unless there's just a number of things that are just hit me here this is more of sales pitch to me that I don't believe is has data to back it up that's

genuine well we can wait a year and pay the same amount of money as all these other companies are we could so it seems like the question here is there's three companies we work with one of them and don't like them and they're expensive and going to be more expensive so our option is to stick with the company we don't like that expensive and already increasing in price annually without good support without good support or explore the two other companies and we're hearing from the two other companies I mean when you have don't have that diversity in the marketplace you you try to find your power from somebody else right now you know like it's I understand the idea that sometimes things seem too good to be true but we don't have a lot of options it's the same with things like trash and stuff like that so well but with trash we have a committee looking at different options to save the only option that there is so we have a

committee that goes with the only bid y just I'm in favor throwing the caution flag out here because I'm not sure I'm all there to to to me it's it's a we lock in the price for 10 years but it's only a threeyear contract has anyone looked at all the reviews and how many times have we contacted to find out if this sofware works so I'm judging my my feedback on how the software works with the two people we pay that use it um and so okay

and with with that feedback I'm feeling good things from you all and i' also would like to just note CU I hear you and we've lived some nightmares in our nightmares I I but you can tell a lot from the demo even though it's a sales pitch so to speak seeing the demo under understand the gaps it fills with the current software that we're using and we have heard over and over about problems that we have with where we're at so I think although maybe a risk because of there's some unknowns there that we haven't been exposed to I think the fact that we're in the development stage and we're part of the solution of what the end product will be is a is a big win my thought with the committee here is if we go into a decision by

committee how many members on that committee are going to be users of the software they're even evaluating so they're going to pick out the software that they've never used that they've never experienced and decide which one's better I just don't see how that you're you're giving that decision- making outside of the the users and so I just don't see that that's a effective use of time to to go with this you know it's like I'm not gonna ask I'm not gonna ask my mechanic to come up with the committee to pick a wrench when no one's gonna ever touch the wrench or see the rent and they've never worked on a car like other since we have Trio until

February before we would need to do something else is it possible to get our information into this for people to be able to use I mean I know we would be entering into a contract I'm just saying before this went live as what we were using would we be able to have both existing at the same time in case there were major glitches knowing that this is what we're going to but sort of having that safety net of keeping what we have in place now operating until it's like up and running does that make sense I think that would that's my question for yeah I should clarify that actually the system is ready live it's the large County in Oregon is functionally using three entities or much much larger um places using our cor

Financial system already it's not a new system it's just no one in Mains using it correct yeah but would our existing system have to cease to exist in order to start this H you know what I'm you know what I'm saying yeah so we'll get a we'll get a bill towards the end of January to pay for the whole package of um Tria so we'll have to pay that bill sometime in February so the $5,000 is to sort of convert everything over sort of skin in the game we're yeah it really is I mean for us we need to know that people are committed to actually use it um and and so I'm just saying until we were using it to be able to continue to keep our exist because we've already paid for it right to not just be like okay that's gone here we go like keep this in existence over here while beginning to operate over here and and that's really your decision as far as how long you want to keep the old system but what I

can tell you about our implementation process right you know when you're bringing Financial transactions in right you know one of the first things that you do is you map the chart of accounts right so that's a process that we go through together and then we can bring in transactions this is something that you know your staff is going to be involved in and they're going to see it's not like they've got to wait till the end to see it as we bring in data right they're going to see that they're going to be able to touch it they're going to be able to be handson it's exactly the same process that we went through with jenta it's exactly the same process that we went through with website and and this is you know I I I will tell you and you can consider this a sales pitch or not but I have been involved in not only you know I mean historically right you know not just this company but even as a project

manager for other Solutions okay we have come up with the in my opin the easiest transition process that puts the least amount of work on your staff where we do the most that we can to streamline the mapping and and the reason for that is that our business model is based around having a quick painless migration right we're not incentivized we don't have part of the reason that we aren't a huge company is that we don't have an army of trainers and and data people to to to

feed because and and that I've been through that process and it your staff will spend a ton of time and and they'll make it your responsibility and the the the process that we have come up with you know it's a standard mapping and and you get to kind of do it gently where you can see it along the way right so it so we're to to whatever extent we can we do everything that we can to mitigate the risk and and that's for every single product that we that we produce and that we sell and that we support and and you know like I said the I mean the best the best reference I could give you is yourself at least in the process that we went through with website and agenda and certainly you can you can talk to other folks as well but um but this is this is why we're doing it this way you know we're we're trying to provide an easier way Mark you had a question yeah I mean a couple things just speak to Joe's Point um I do

understand his concern and as I said earlier any sort of transition is not without risk particularly being an early adopter under software so that is recognized that there is a risk um but first of the practicality of a having a committee to assess different fund accounting softwares first of all nobody knows I mean even within even within towns it's I I train Tech tax collectors and treasurers all over the state even they don't have good understanding of fund accounting software to know enough what is a good outcome uh I personally have used um several different types of accounting software so I used one called AP which was based off of uh which was based off of Microsoft's access database um out of

Texas I used that for several years not good or not very good I used um Cougar Mountain software which is based out of Utah uh Denali F accounting software for nonprofits I you know it's always a workaround I use QuickBooks even though that's not a fund accounting software you have to do a work around used Trio I've used munice um and I've used other Tyler Technologies version so personally I do have had I have had a lot of experience with a bunch of different softwares and none of them none of them are perfect this one is not perfect right so they have to build out um they have to build they don't have module for example that's another example of where it's not it's not perfect but there is uh they are going to be building up um a connection um they don't have a a a payroll module anything more than a basic payroll right which one of the benefits is if we're early adopters we help to we help to um help them build

out something per the requirements that we have so even though we don't need payroll right now because we're we're already outs for the third party eventually if we want to bring that in house which there's benefits to cost of that too because you need a payroll clerk um we we can we can help as

they're developing this developing their more extensive payroll Market to to um to to build it up properly uh that's responsive to exactly what we need um but yeah there's always going to be operational RIS and you just have to yeah you just have to accept that address I understand that there's always going to be a risk especially when you're the early adopter of anything um

but if this was just me without you two hear and getting this information from you I would say I can't make a decision I don't know enough my thought process is the people who in our community who use this and are in a position to assess this we're hearing from them if this was a broader Marketplace and there was 14 vendors in the state of Maine that we could go to maybe it would be worth exploring a lot of other options but there are two outside of the people sitting in here and we don't like the one that we're already using and that price is going up I see this as an opportunity to meet our needs assuage some of the concerns our employees have raised with their software making their life difficult and save money um so I'm

in favor so Josh I just want to make sure we don't have an obligation to go out to bid or anything like that on something of this expense you can you've got I'm not asking I just I just want to say if there is there an obligation I don't I don't believe so yeah uh because uh I mean how long because how long you used the current software that we've used it's probably been in existence since I don't know how long right years so keep using the same same one same one same one so cuz I I will admit I agree

with you I did have some concerns I don't necessarily love the idea of being a sort of Aidy Pig but I also uh think the benefits there uh to me outweigh that that potential risk uh and so um I I I to me I think getting in and

getting the help and I think that's only going to help Jessica and help the staff uh have that um which it sounds like they're not getting and so if there are questions and I like the idea of having Mark there also providing that information uh and I see Jessica shaking her head so um I I feel like that's another another notch in that so I also would support it and I don't think that we're a guinea pig in the sense of this is would be the first time your software is doing any of these things it's just if we're the first me if we are the first municipality and Maine to use something that's being widely used elsewhere I I I picture that as just someone entering the marketplace someone enters the marketplace they have a equal product and they're more competitive in their pricing and offer better Services think it phisal responsibility to take it seriously get input from the people who use it and make a decision so that's

where I decis I think the these two gentlemen here would like to have some sort of at least idea if we're going to commit and not wait the longer we wait the longer it's going to take to get that it working for us so I and it

is if you're not comfortable that's fine so I just want to I just want to be clear you know they Kim to M I wanted you to be aware you folks are the the elected officials and I really appreciate that you recognize that you don't operate the software but you're making a decision for people who do yeah so I'm going to make a motion that we pursue uh this contract and Empower you to uh start the process second second do we have any discussion on the motion so my question for you oh sorry go ahead Joe I I I I I still think we have more homework to do on this I I don't believe that making this decision right now is a um with just the information we have in front of us I I agree I'm going to use Mark as an example his company came in here to do a job for us and they did it and we got lucky because that company was no longer able to do that job for us any longer but we got lucky because Mark decided to join up with us and help us

out otherwise we'd be up the creek at this point with that software package that or the the the the whole accounting uh effort that we went through last year right 10 employees is bothering me it's a small company I'm not seeing good reviews online I'd like to sh have you show me reviews from various people that actually come out and say that you guys do a good job and you're not mismanaged so there's some stuff out here on the web on your on your Cloud company that I'm just not that happy with so until you see a good we all see a good demo and when I say committee we have the right to go and pull software people from anywhere and pay them to be our committee and go and look at this from well I'm just I'm just saying we have the right to go do that as a as a board so when I say committee get the right people in here to go look at this look at all the things we need you're you're parsing this out into five

different packages or whatever you know from accounting to billing to payroll all these different things these guys don't do it all so who is it that's actually managing all those things and how they integrate into the office I don't see it and and you're now taking another piece of it and putting it out here over to the right no we're just shifting one piece to a different vendor because payroll is already out someone who's managing it the town manager I yeah I get that I just it's just still not going it's not going to sit well with me I I'm not for this at this point not with a lot lot more data I can empathize with what Joe is saying um in the fact that when we were talking about text messages we didn't vote on that at the same meeting that that was presented to us and this is way bigger than that so I I do empathize with what Joe is saying and but at the same time I'm I

completely trust TR Our Town manager and Mark also um that you have sought out those reviews I would like to see those in front of us but they're not here I could go either way making this decision tonight um but I just I I do want to

recognized and we were making a decision about what Tex company we were going to go with which was a variation of a $100 we did take more than one meeting to make that decision which sounds ironic coming from me because I'm never the one who wants to put the brakes on forward movement right right yeah and and I understand I understand that it's a lot of information taken but this isn't this isn't the first time Jerry's come forward to us and said our current software is not working no I agree with all the points made so my point here is we have empowered we have hired Our Town manager to to make decisions on helping us with things like vendors and stuff like that um and so we know that this is a problem for the staff we know that this is a problem for our manager and we know that there are two options Jerry has brought forward what he thinks that best option is and it is in my

mind getting somebody else to pull a committee together to comment on this like if we had to hire someone to come in and then make the evaluation and we're saying all right we need you to make these two decisions I just don't see that I don't see it's bringing in those subject matter experts it's like no one's there's five four people in town who sit behind the desk and use this stuff like I just don't see how we get more from other people and so that's where I'm just comfortable making the decision based off of the input from the two biggest users of this of this software that's my my logic behind why can't we bring Trio in have and pit us well we've emailed Trio five times with no response and so they're not pitching us they're just at they would be telling us we just want you to stay with us and we're saying we can't even get an email from you on the the projected increase in cost to move to the web service

so like we just we know that this is not the first time Trio's been an issue for us so it's time for state-ofthe-art you know software and getting our input Josh I felt like you had something to say so I don't see the value in online reviews um uh you know Mark has used all of these programs pros and cons I I I don't want to put words about but limited concern about switching over I have I have limited concern based off of my ability to be very adep learning

software and using it the way either the way it's supposed to be used or finding workarounds because I've been doing that for the last 10 years right uh the fact that I'm working for the town lessens the town's risk because then I'm here to help leverage my abilities to and Jess and whoever else you have work so uh the um the unknown yeah I get I get but it's scary I agree sometimes I get sometimes you got to make that jump I've made the jump often you know with with my Ser with my service I had to try out different software because every single one wasn't working in every single time it's not it's not perfect but but it was always a little bit better than what I had before um and so that was always the that was always kind of the calcul as long as it's marginally better I'm better off right even if it's not perfect as long as it's step towards something better I'm better off than lse and my go ahead how much better does it

have to be to be better than the current software we're using well right exactly I mean just based off the demo right and how I saw and my understanding of how things work in the background uh it just on my side the financial side and the accounts payable side it's a lot more flexible um so it doesn't it does you know it's not hard to beat the inflexibility of Trio it just isn't I mean even the other software that I had before I mean QuickBooks is better than Trio really when it comes to flexibility it really is not a very flexible software yeah my other thing I would say here is I understand I'm a bold personality type some people have told me so I'm apt to jump in the deep end but at the same time this isn't a completely unknown entity we're working with them with something else so to your point when we're parsing all these things out and that being negative we're now coalescing multiple Services Under the same roof if

so I think that that point would be a positive you know we have it's a known entity we're moving in the right direction we know that it sounds like nothing can be worse than our current program based off of the end users no but I'm being a little hyperbolic but it sounds like there is very hard to get worse in our current program that people who are using this our subject matter experts are telling us this would be better and we have an opportunity for a large cost savings and then as it is we already know that our assessing that Trio isn't the best option for that we've heard that long before we were speaking with anyone here and so this gives us an opportunity to migrate at a very reasonable price of uh our assessing

into a better situation I see this is all really positive and the staff needs some relief here so that's why I I I just it's always it's always risky when you when you stick with the devil you know and not the devil you don't know M right I mean and we're dealing with the devil we know right now Jessica did you have something yeah I just I know you guys are talked a lot about the finance part how's the BMB module on your end because that's the really heavily used module for us yeah that that is something that is one of the modules we're build that that's an example of the the modules to adapt our fund accounting system to become a replacement for I mean clerks so Finance directors of course understand what we build and how it operates and how it works and that's brilliant it's having the frontend uh piece we met with States this the BMV already you worked with the VMV oh yeah we've met with them a couple of times

already and worked on them for the certification process unfortunately your manual batch process will have to remain that substory thing appar we can't automate that but that look and feel that wireframe piece is what we're building connection with our user group ta Ting that online right the goal is to keep it simplified within the same system instead of you having to jump out to separate systems

Jessica okay do we have any additional discussion all in favor of the did you get the second I was the motion Josh was the second four to one in in all thank you all for your time today hopeful to get these answers and looking forward to working with you moving forward like us and thank you very much we appreciate your time okay we're talk at the website okay okay okay we're gonna thanks we be in touch side effect is you're going to have to answer Heather's website question because you are looking at the number one it's 100% true right here number one user thanks guys thank you very much we should have Jerry

those website I wrote September 24th what did we put on that meeting um review and discussion of financial reports I you have you're the reports yes have my paper copies and I can look online if necessary well I want you to be able to see them you don't have I don't have I can look online and someone can have my copy do you need it who needs

you gu any what do we think the expert that's it's 8:30 now do you think we before we get started we should extend or do you think we can do this in a half hour this this shouldn't take long at all I just want to go over some stuff with you so does any anybody need my copy are we good do you want it I didn't look online okay thanks I am a paper and Pen person but I will make an exception so Jerry you want to take us away on on this was Joy's Jo so these are just a three reports we're halfway through the year this just kind of shows our cash flow for the first six months um just wanted you to see what that looks like so you can tell you can see at the end of where uh is what we have left before we uh as we commit taxes and collect them so when Mark does the reconciliations for the next quarter you'll see a big difference in this in the cash FL yes in the cash FL sorry can you back up there on that

that's the beginning yeah all right so I just wanted to share the reports with you I'm going to share three of them with you I think they're most the first one is the cash flows it's the first 6 months of cash flows so you can of see at June is when we start to get a little low on our funds and then you'll see when Mark does the reconciliations again for the next quarter you'll see a big difference in the numbers especially the uh um the inflows because of

taxes property taxes being col can I ask a process question quickly sorry to interrupt if we have a question about the specific one that we're on do you want us to wait until you're completely done or ask it here you can ask it here is that fine is that Jo are you okay with that now so this cash end balance cash flow end balance for June is 1 million right okay that y so is that

number our unrestricted is that where our general fund number yeah this is just your operating cash okay so you don't have any really other operating you have very you have a couple other bank accounts but they don't have a majority of the cash so when we've talked before about having a number that's over the 2% two months worth of

operating this this is the lowest that the account goes generally because you're you commit ta you committed taxes in July and like today we looked at the balance it's at 7 million okay so that's generally what the flow is you you bump up in August and September and then you basically eat through that for the rest of the year so we spend down issue the tax bills WEP inflow like you know I know

we're looking at July here but you know what percentage increase from June to July is the inflow or from June to September it's going to be pretty large pum up because we're getting right I mean you're getting pretty much all of all of your inflow okay for the year but the outflow is pretty consistently around 8 or $900,000 that's that's generally what what it's going to be except in the month when you pay your county tax um outside of that unless you have large large Capital expenditures you're buying a big piece of equipment or something like that uh it's generally going to be around $900,000 so technically we don't at our lowest point the way that we're currently doing things we don't have two months worth of operating over there we only have a million as of June as of June we that's correct yeah okay but we're we're back up now right and and that's what happens right and so that's why you do want to keep track of your

unassigned fund balance in the general fund and you don't want to eat too much into it remember we were talking in budget season about budgeting to use up fund balance you don't want to have that's the why I'm making this point because it looks $1 million here looks very different than a $4 million general fund balance because technically at our lowest point we only have a million that's correct I wish that Debbie would have just heard that maybe we can revisit it right and that's why and that's why this cash this cash flow is useful to look at apart from just looking at your budget to actuals because budget to actual don't show you that right so that's why this is useful to look at it CU I guess what Heather what you're getting at is if we said oh we have a fund balance of $3 million and we spent it all down we will be in the negatives right now right which is why Mark advised against that but your point

is that even though we in theory we're saying we're going to maintain a fund balance of two months there is a point here for a month where we don't have two months right and that's when we have a $4 million general fund balance we still get down below so I just I'm bringing that up because I want to caution us that if we're eating if we're using rather our general fund balance to supplement Capital expenses and well no because we're funding that normally now but do you know what I'm saying right I just want us to be careful that you know I've been thinking this whole time we have an extra $2 million but really at the end of the day when we get to the lowest point we really only have a million right when we get to the lowest part of I just want to make sure that that's it's a good distin because I I guarantee you there are others out there thinking the exact same way you're thinking yes that's which that's another reason

another benefit of why towns have traditionally moved move to who were calendar year fiscal years to a June year end fiscal year because it better aligns with the cash flow particularly when when you're a once a year um uh tax

bill so because July is closer in time to September when you issue the tax bills and start getting the money in um you basically whatever you have for a fund balance at at the end of the year automatically goes up and that's generally what you're going to have at the end of the year in this case you you're talking of 4 million which is what you had basically halfway through the year and you still have to eat through some of your cash by The End by the middle of the year which is another benefit the other benefit of doing the two two the two um tax things is it

evens it out it evens it out it doesn't it doesn't change the cash it doesn't change the cash balance over the course of the year but it does change it just does even that huge lump out so in that in that real quick just because we've been talking about fiscal year when would the first chunk of money be paid in in fiscal year uh September right September October something like that the second one would be in April six months yeah so it's usually so right here what we're saying is we're getting low on low on cash in June but in in the

fiscal year model we'd see that that inflow in April would be half of our cash so we would likely just be building a little bit more safety with cash flow there that would kind of assuage some of your concern here Heather because I see what your point is is if we say we only need to keep those that 2% but then we have dipping below it right now which is why we didn't spend down the fund balance obviously now be aware that you when you switch to an 18month because you are adjusting your commitment date and when people start paying them by a couple months there may we may you can see this is close to one month left worth of cash um if we hadn't committed if we hadn't committed in July and started getting that money in you you know we would be running out of cash and so you do want there's a likelihood that you'll have to seek for a tan for the for the uh next

year's uh July August cash flows if it's around this amount as well just to cover those couple couple months until we until we can get back because of the 18 month just no because of the because of the change from committing in July to committing in August or sep so yeah if we're getting one within one month cash flow right when we're committing July it may not be that we need to but it what I would do what I would suggest is um preparing for it talking to the bank ahead of time so that it's ready to go if we need it um we may not need it but it depends on it depends on operations between now and next year really so I would I would like it doesn't obviously right we're not going to make an report but it would be I think beneficial when we're doing our PR part of this around changing for the fiscal year to be able to show what this looks like when we're coming in with two two tax bills you know what I'm saying

like do a cash flow projection yes and then and then for people to be able to see that that makes it more consistent and then it may be it may allow for us to be able to use more versus having it sit at $4 million for part of the year just because we knew we were going to get down to a million RightWay through at the end of so you will see at the end of the 18month year right your fund balance is going to be different the ending fund balance is going to be different it's going to be lower it'll be it'll be closer to you know what you have here but again that's it gives you more information on how to properly plan for future budgets how much do you want to raise this also shows why it's important to plan for future Capital correct if not we'd be in a situation where we really have the time that vehicle purchase or that capital expenditure to just because of cash flow let alone total funds thank you thank you for

entertaining what I had to say there I appreciate it and part of the is this a is it sorry really quick is this a as a your professional opinion this level of cash something you're comfortable with or you'd like to see uh no this is this is fine right I I wasn't I wasn't particularly I mean yeah you have nine8 8 900,000 going out the door every month but you generally get around 300,000 coming in so it's really only a net of 500 every every single month right um on average when you get your county when you pay your county bill that's a huge bump obviously yeah um but that's a really good distinction because kther you were saying oh we're spending 800,000 every month and we only have a million but we're gaining 300,000 every month so this is months so it is meeting that two month correct but I mean flows are relatively stable that's correct this is something that we're going to want to you know you're going

to want to have us keep an eye on and get report you guys are going to have get reporting on it uh really every quarter and and then uh once we start getting into next year um I can start providing this to you on a monthly basis if you want because I think as the year goes along you're going to want to keep an eye on cash flow especially with the change to the to the to the 18 month yeah but Mark part of the reason that we get a tan as we're committing right around the same time but we're not collecting until like October 15th correct and that's now we're collecting in August so we got that couple month GH that's correct but that's that's only going to be the one time obviously once once you're done right once you convert then then your cash will be fine and if Andrew Goen goes to a quarterly payment that helps as well because that levels out the cash flow as well okay thank you any questions on yet no

all right let's go to the last page um first which is just your basic budget to actual summary so we're halfway through the year so on the percent of budget spent you know you what you really want to see there in most cases is you know right around 50% um obviously um information technology is up there because most of that is the is the software software so

I share that with you just so you can see where we're at we looking pretty good um any questions yeah Joe so you had prior to the meeting You' said this negative percentage confuses you um and the reason why you have such a Negative percentage is because taxes when when they're committed are recognized the revenue is recognized even though the cash hasn't come in okay yeah I figured it was an yeah you can see that that 8.3 million is in actual has been recognized even though you haven't received all of that as of June 30th I think you committed on the 25th 28th something like that so that's why that that number is huge as far as the difference between what you budgeted of a use of 6 uh

$68,000 right you budgeted to eat your fund balance 668,000 but you actually are showing a net increase in your fund balance through June 30th by 4.2 million right and so there's this negative variance between what you wanted to get to that's what I had assumed but I wanted to make sure we clarified it in this setting thank you um I can't what are charges for services I can't remember what that is uh those are uh what transfer station fees and EMS fees oh oh oh Okay ambulance fees yeah can

you give me one second to just run that that was one of my questions and then I uh and yeah you would expect that to be roughly 50% of the budget there so the every the only thing that's confusing is the fact that property taxes is realized that 8.3 million even though correct yeah yeah because you recognize it all at once the same with the transfers out which is in the other financing uses at the very bottom it's at 100% because well I just transferred everything as soon as the taxes were committed so you're not going to have anything more in that for the rest of the year what's the capital expenditure line uh that is an additional expense uh

uh expenditure that uh I have to talk with you about about whether or not you wanted it in one of the reserves or not it was originally coded uh in June through through this uh the general fund as opposed to being put into a reserves and I have to talk to you about it I forget what the expense was was it was one Calvin's Calvin's stream Crossing thing so okay yeah we'll have to adjust that well you can either there was no budget for Capital expenditures in the in the general fund and so they you B basically are going to expend it out of the Public Works capital reserve or it can because it's a small amount 14,000 it could he could probably code it directly to his um directly to his Department Public Works even though he didn't have a very specific line for it within his department so right but I think maybe but I think probably in the warrant though it was it was a capital expense though I think we can talk about it

where wherever you want we can talk about that's fine could leave it there too if you wanted to right I mean it's up to you sorry I wasn't trying to I just was I was confused because anyways and then my last question is um other Revenue where what is where does other Revenue come from it's most mostly interest or um it would be uh you know

any time you have um well it's mostly interest is really what it is or donations donations is another thing um I have sometimes we'll get a rebate check for something too that might get thrown I have a I have a detailed and then any other any any questions that you have about any particular thing I can always provide uh if you just email me I can always just provide details to when in that okay um you break it out just on the line basis where I can actually tell you well this is what I see the transaction actually was okay so yeah thank you all right anything else on that jer no let's look at the uh changes in fund balances this is the one that um I want to talk a little bit more about especially the committed funds we have a lot of money tied up in these funds and I don't know what they're actually for like the recreation

fund the emergency fund the telecom's fund I if it were me I would recommend liquidating them on just putting it in your regular general fund which ones here well well let's talk about them what's the emergency fund what's I I don't know what that is or where it goes there's no there's no document or policy that describes what these are no not that I've seen has that balance changed uh several

so it just sit there something's been set aside for an emergency fund it wasn't said why and nothing's been pulled or into that uh the same with the recreation fund I think what had gone in there before was I actually I don't know about the recreation F I know for the telecoms fund what had what has been going in there was whatever you collected in franchise fees were going in there and then what was supposed to come out of there is a reimbursement back to the general fund for whatever you had for uh telecom's expenses which made no sense because I I don't know why you would do ever do thatch off what franch cable franchise good from the TV channel I have no idea why you would ever so that's how it's been done like just by from my reading of the prior year Financial stat so the Telecom line has $99,000 in Revenue that's the franchise fees for through June 30th oh oh I see do we still have a TV channel I have no

idea no but they're paying us for it there's some sort of franchise well you pay franchise fees for them to be in the RightWay of the town so they pay us what what what the town used to do is you would you would have this telecoms and then you would use that money to specifically fund like the IT department right so revenue is revenue so whether you take it out of your left pocket or right pocket it don't we did that until two years ago yeah well it's still that's how it's still been doing no no I mean we like when we would make our decision and we would be putting it on the warrant you would say this and it would transfer out of that fund to cover it sounds like some of the that's antiqu Antiquated um and but when we said we're not going to utilize that to fund things anymore there was still a fund balance in there everything was budgeted elsewhere and so this is just yeah so my question would be is and I'm not trying

to split hairs at all right but this these balances are starting at these numbers they're in a bank account and so they must be earning interest but the end balance looks the same and so is that is that how the interest is being tracked in that they're not all in um they're not all in their own separate accounts they're all just in the the operating account so that cash balance that you saw part of that cash balance is these these balances okay okay and then the interest is in that revenue on no they don't yes that's correct in the general fund they don't these themselves don't earn interest uh except for the River Park which has its own cash right has its own cash account so the River Park cash uh the River Park bank accounts interest gets coded there the scholarships has its own bank account so the scholarships interest gets coded there and the union church has its own account so the revenue in the union

church has its Interest being coded there all the rest don't have their own bank accounts all the rest which is why you don't see any Revenue except for uh the grants matching Reserve we got a grant in which we're paying some we made an expense out of uh the 9,000 for the telecoms was the franchise fee and the building capital reserve uh that might be interest I can't remember if that has its own account or not but uh we got 1461 and some sort of Revenue there so just to crank back for a second here Jerry you were talking about recommendation to liquidate some of these funds and I just wanted to go through you said emergency Recreation telecoms were there others well I think you got Eureka capital and you got buildings Capital well the eure is a buildings within the town so I would combine those two and if you want to spend money on Eureka then we'll spend money on Eureka MH but then obviously fire department

capital buildings Capital Public Works Capital those are capital Y what's the deal with Union Church I thought we were the Union Church is the money that's in there for them to do so we're it's it's still housed with us but it's now under their control yeah and when they do Renovations and they want to use some of this money they'll go to the board and get so that leaves obviously Grant matching we get that reevaluation that's just budget line for the reval well yeah no that Reserve you don't want to obviously liquidate that's what I mean but that's just that's right so it's really just the tel put another I thought we were putting another 180 or something in there with our last budget 160 160 we did it's right there transfer 160 my oh yep I had that covered when my pen as I was looking at it so thank you so um it's really just the

emergency uh if you want to keep the grants matching Reserve I guess you can I don't we we the reason why we do that is because sometimes we go get grants we that need matching funds matching yeah so then it would just be the emergency the recreation and the telecoms that you would either want to liquidate or consolidate into one of into the other Capital reserves so like the Telecom seeing as that generally has to do with the it infrastructure generally has to do with buildings I would if you didn't want to liquidate it I would put it in with the buildings uh capital or maybe the Public Works doesn't really matter um the recreation I don't even know how it was created or what it was for and what the emergency was created for so so I think what we used to do and I'm just remembering back to Old warrants is that we would people they would put the snowmobile club the baseball you know whatever and we would they would vote a

line item for recreation and I think it would just go there but then we would pay it well because we like we would give one year I remember and I only know this because my husband did the fence and this was before I was a select person so there is a conflict of interest but my husband did the fence at the baseball field and they voted on the cost of that at town meeting and so they raised $66,000 it went into the recreation but never got pulled out but never got pulled out to pay those things I think that that's what in which case you know theoretically then it really probably doesn't have a balance right it just was never transferred out to reimburse the general my thought process is why have any line that we're not pulling out of or not saving for like it just makes no sense to me so the liquidating it is this a discussion for tonight when it's 856 yeah we would need a motion to extend the meeting if we want to go any

further well I don't know if I don't think I need to talk liid I don't know liquidate it anyway I think it has to be town because you're committed by the town people okay so anything else on here that you needed us to see if we end up talking about this again which maybe we should Jerry I think we should have in writing what you are suggesting needs to happen to this funding I'm I'm just I'm I'm having a hard time following just having it open discussion about what needs to go here and where where where it's ever been so so I just want to clear so the reserve accounts these capital reserve accounts you have the trustees of those accounts you don't need to get town meeting vote to do that if you want to that's fine just understand what the law says oh okay I don't but those aren't the ones that you're suggesting liquidating and I think the ones that you're suggesting liquidating that we have to do by Town

vote because they're not capital accounts correct they're Reserve accounts oh so your Trustees of Reserve accounts okay yeah I mean I don't I don't I just I just assume that you had to do it in and then then they can then and you can okay but it's written in statute that I don't think that's a discussion for tonight but I think that's it's a good thing to bring up to us so I probably won't bring it up again until he puts another till I share another quarter I mean part of the check box that I have to as Town managers keep you a breast of the financial status of the town if you don't want to do this we we do absolutely want to do it okay that's fine part of our job as fiduciary do it

I'm just thinking that I think that's a very important recommendation for us to get but for the sake of time I think we should okay decide on the liquidating of that yeah before Bud just cleans up the whole count well that's my exact point I agree with you is there other are there other things that you want to address about this withar here for us to ask information um no I think we're good um there is one thing in my report we going to get to my report or yeah we got to extend our meeting so do we have a motion to extend the meeting move we extend the meeting to 9:30 second second all right do you need here uh um any discussion all in favor good okay any opposition okay thank you Mark thank you Mark thank thank you thanks all

right so thank you for that put that thing to do all right uh yeah manager report yeah okay so just want to let you know that we had an employee resign um so we need to kind of adjust there a little bit so what I've done is um I have moved

both Kimberly and Deon up to fulltime so doesn't really change the budget you have a full-time member or full-time staff leave and you got two part-timers you move one of them to that full-time position those two part-time is is really a combined full-time job so

fulltime or net fewer hours total right um and one thing that I would like to show you folks too if I can find it real quick um does it change your benefits um package it will yeah it it will change but we have no choice I I right so I just want to show I want to pass this around to you to show you where we were hours wise with staff and where we are now and what you can expect for me to propose in 2025 just to kind of give you an idea and I'm just talking about man hours in the town office behind the glass okay so in 2021 I wasn't even here

you had four four basically full timers you had 130 for a total of 126 up to August 12th we had 112 hours down the second box now we're at 108 and we're going to have to stay there until 2025 so we're going backwards in man hours this is the point that I want want to make getting more efficient well well I mean true that that's true not making a difference um but we're also burning out yeah no so I mean that's you don't want to be going backwards when the town is growing with more population are you not posting the position no I don't have the money we don't have it in the budget because we didn't we voted against a contingency line we don't I I have no money to work with yeah in the budget yeah because if you recall one of the things we talked about in the planning of the budget was adding a contingency line in one of the examples Jared had used was we we that's just for in case someone quits or we

have to hire and we had decided not to go with that and you know now we're kind of stuck so we don't have the opportunity to so we did the budget for 112 hours and now we're at 108 with is that is that what you're saying pretty much because it's bringing them up to fulltime makes it equivalent almost and that's what the budget is right okay but but you but as I've said

before last year and the year before it starts with the work you got to outline the amount of work you have and then that justifies the budget that you put behind it so I get it that the numbers are going backwards but and now we're in a budget cycle where we didn't budget for the work we budget for the number of hours that we were going to expend which is not the way it's supposed to work it's supposed to work the other way not that you did anything wrong I just what do you mean by that well meaning you take come up with the hours and you apply that to the work let me finish you take the job description it starts with what that job description is and how long it's going to take that person to do that job that's what generates the position that's what generates the number of hours against that position if you do the hours the other way and say I got four people they're going to work 40 hours a week and that's is all the all

the work we have well that's not all the work we have we have more work than that we keep putting more work on them so the number of hours needs to increase and we're budgeting against X number of hours need a budget against the work what the actual description of the job is going to entail if you're going to hire a clerk and you really need 60 hours a week out of that Clerk you better be budgeting for that 60 hours later on based on the job description I'm doing this I'm doing the the the voting I'm doing you know behind the counter I'm doing you know marriages and all that stuff it's great to get the fees but it doesn't increase the hours even if you get the fee you consider that bonus money it's doesn't help the budget getting a fee for something that the clerk is doing what gets the clerk more money is saying it's really 60 hours worth of work or 120 hours worth of work of that the clerk is doing and then you you you fund

the position not the not just the body being here physically and then you don't get the burnout issue because if you really have 120 hours worth of work for a clerk or anyone else behind the counter then that that you know you you need to you need to add that body that's how you add that person that's how you sell it quite frankly is is you sell it against the position so I know that just it's what we what we've done for years trying to get people into the larger corporations and that's the way you budget people is is by the amount of work you think you're G to have to do yeah so I think what Jerry's points here is that where our amount of work is not decreasing but we we're seeing a decrease in staff hours right now and so that's what he's highlighting for us and it looks like there's going to be a proposal to increase that staff I I think what I want we're more in a service organization not we we don't build

widgets you know what I mean so we don't yeah the parallel between Private Industry and government is completely different we don't we're not building widget so we can't say it's going to take x amount of employees to build 100 widgets we we provide a service and that service can fluctuate up and down week to week month to month and depending on what you all want for service and you know back we have a town planner we have a codes person now um they have no administrative help we're trying you know so we could look at that and add and add folks because the clerks are looking on that but we have to remember this this town is has got a reputation of having one of the tightest budgets that I've ever worked in mhm period I mean and to and to to even kind of kind of raise it I think for you folks it's going to be difficult for you to do that so I can put all the positions in here to do the service but

you're the ones that's going to have to sell it to the people but it's not only the service piece it's also what type of policy gaps do we have you know administr like you said administrative support right you know when we look at

where we are or where we've been you know there's a number of hours that need to be applied it's like to get our together basically right and so that needs to come in on a list with what type of skill set do we need or do we need to expand on and then add staff some next you know plan I think we're jumping ahead of Jerry's presentation I kind of wanted to show you speaking my language we've got three people behind the glass right now to do the to do so of 4,200 do they want to be full-time yes

they do okay yes it's worked it's working out good and they're and they're very good um but what you're trying to let us know is that there's less hours available for the rest of the year exactly and we're working more hours than they were in 2021 so we essentially have four less staff hours a week we've got it handled right now but expect more employees that I'm going to ask for in 2025 just preparing you for it okay um and I see you have some proposed uh hours there as well as that went in right just kind of giving your heads up

where we're at um perfect so next thing I want to let you know is went to the conference last week or week or so ago and found out the tax levy limit that we're always concerned about that law has been repealed so there is no such thing as the tax limit anymore so we don't need to even put it in the warrant unless you want it there you you can you're the you're the officials of the town so if you want to you still want to do that but it's not a law anymore it also sounds like the vo what was being vocalized about the tax levy limit was incorrect up until this last budget anyways because Mark cleared that up for us but um the other thing I want to let you know that I've been working on is the whole investment banking so right now we're really fast with money so we have an opportunity right now to and I've shopped around to put money in a better money market to to get more interest so I'm working on that

right now um and I'll let you know um what where that lies yeah I'm really to hear about that because that was something that the planning the budget committee brought up last year as well so there's a couple different accounts there's so there's an ICS account which is an insured cash Suite and then there's these Cedars accounts which is like a CD so we can move you know right now we can move if we do CDs it locks it up if we do the IC that's liquidated so

um I've shopped around I've shopped around a little bit so we might I might move some money to a different bank to get a better rate on the IC so you kind of keep an eye on where you are and if the money's in the bank it's just a 24hour transfer to put it back in so we can pay our bills but it will help us make a lot more money do you have a rough interest rate that you've seen um there well you know yeah there's anywhere between 2.5 and 5% yeah cuz I know like in my I get four but it's different for a 10 so don't wait too long because those no I know the rates supposed to go down so I'm going to work with mik and see like what's the best way cuz we do have to keep I don't want to tie it up too much look all about liquidating right you want to be able to have access to your cash when you need it mhm so something to a fiscal especially that first year right so keep an eye on so I'm working on that and I'll let you

know what what we decide what I decided to do when when I do it um so that's great there's that so interesting we should do we should do much better much better can we go back we skipped a few things the manag report yeah we also skipped law enforcement I'm sorry de oh but we report I'm good i'

I've been busy I've been I just wanted to share what what's been going on I've been I've been I haven't really been a town manager the last cou I've been Human Resources person so there's been a lot going on in that in that when you have one person leave you promoting too there's paperwork and all that stuff that has to get done MH so by wear many hats and that's just the way it is well we definitely appreciate you handling those issues as they rise up JY yeah did you have anything else on go ahead I know we're getting late no I think we're yeah we're getting late but I want to make sure you still tell us what you I had no I had my list here of what I the most important things that I wanted to to talk about okay so cool um we skipped

over law enforcement so we added we we added it um in uh the as e here we also skipped over old business well we moved old business to later and I I I I I thought i' vocalized if we had time to get to it but I figured we don't so yeah unless

someone wants to extend longer to talk about talk about that um let's go with the law enforcement first and then we'll just touch on Old business really quickly so because law enforcement was supposed to be a new business and we moved old business to after new business so Deb I think everyone got the email from Deb with um this really freaking

awesome uh pivot table and all these bullet points we were talking about really appreci I'm sure this was not a quick test really appreciate you putting all that effort into it uh I just asked that we can get a copy of this um put with on on the website with our our packet or whatever so people can see see that uh do you want to cover it well just the concept was when we have this community session it is really important on just how that's all going to play out and I had taken the action from our I think it was our last meeting maybe even the meeting before is like pull everything together that was uh discussed when Ryan came to talk with us and then when we had the police officers come I did my best I know it's not exactly right there's probably some things in here that and and how we plan on executing that meeting we have time before that so um are we going to have a handout is some is is are we going to

speak have the the officer speak so so my thought process for that meeting is we would do an introduction sort of a little faster what the the sheriff and chief deput we did before and also have Chief McGee and chief Goodman speak and and our fire chief briefly overview this is this is why this is the services that that the sheriff's department can provide this is why the fire chief thinks it's it's a good idea this is what the two police neighboring police Chiefs think is is a good idea and then

open it up to specific questions that the board might have and then have the public ask and present because the goal is is to try to not have too much duplicative question and because it's it's they're volunteering their time um and so I want to make sure we're doing it so we get out the basics so there's a clear understanding for everybody who's there and then we can ask the questions and actually that's a great point because when I was doing this I had that in mind like if we're standing in front of a crowd you know what's our current state today and that's you know how I lay this out if we want one of the officers to describe the current state I'd like to suggest that we talk with them about this written word like this is what we want you to go over when you talk about the current state because it is basically what they said I mean I just put this down and then people are going to want to know a

little bit about the call volume and what type of things so if we use this as an outline it might be helpful to communicate that with the officers in advance and say these these are the talking points we want to make sure you get to so we can be sure that we're addressing much of the concerns even before the questions are asked but we don't also don't want to be talking the whole night either right so right okay I just my my my thought was so there's still information that I don't know that will make it to to this packet because I know uh the chief Deputy after he sent your email I was in his office not long after uh we were talking about something else he's requested uh call volumes from

Lisbon where they've responded and also um I know that Chief Goodman was going to send it to Jessica but he had also uh requested it from Brunswick uh because they dispatch free port and so they would have a record as well so those that's additional information that may not make it here and so um I I think I think what I'd like to do is is start with them and then open up to the board to ask any clarifying questions that might not have been answered previously um and then open up the public and really try to focus on not repeating what's been said or what's in in in any handout um you know unless there's two people there and there's one person talking but you know try to respect their time that they're all putting in because uh they're all working full days and then coming to do this for us so I think that the best way to do do that is I and I won't be there so you'll be chairing the meeting I think if you

facilitated the question period and asked you know if people had questions kind of like at town meeting we can put up a space where people can line up and ask questions um and then that's where if there's a sometimes in these situations people will get an answer but they don't like the answer so they might ask the same question over and over again and that's where if you're facilitating this event you can say that question was already answered so we're going to move on to another question um um you know I think that there also could be a merit in like keeping a a timer and people can only ask three minutes worth of questions so that's kind of like what we have here so someone can't go up and just say I'm going to repeat the same question over and over and over so I I thought about the timer thing the difference is is that there's going to be questions and answers from up to like five five

different people so yeah well I mean in terms of the time of their question so the person can come up just to keep it moving and I just think if like you said to respect their time if you're facilitating it of oh y please answer your question that I think that can be smoother but I know it's in good hands with you for so so do you think there'll be like should we have something in front of people to go over the call logs or have a graph or anything or you I I mean I thought I thought that's what this was I thought this was sort of a handout well it's but it needs Ed there still some edits need and that was I think part of the discussion here is do we want to have a handout like this in advance and I think if so then I think what we need to do is my suggestion would be is I actually send or you however tomorrow I'll give him this copy yep I I can send it to him too and then he can send me the call log data we can add more graph

more additional call call information um yeah so you pull essentially with this you pulled the highlights of the larger packet that they brought to us and you added in the reason why we' started this conversation and then summarized some of the tables that they sent along correct yes um that that call that is a summary of the call log that uh I receiv from the anders scin area right so if we're going to have call logs from Brunswick and Freeport that's fine we can do that the Run report theoretically should be the same but so what I like about this de is that when we're thinking about handouts for people to be able to read and ask questions that larger handout which is on the website and then some members of the community have reached out to ask there's that's really harder to dig digest and there's a lot of info in there I think you did a really good job with this as to put it pulling some

things out of there but also just explaining so everyone in there can read this and no I don't need to get up and ask why are we having these conversations we we're highlighting that why so I think you did a really good job with this so if this is cool with the cheat uh with the sheriff I think that this could be that handout well what I'd like to do then if we're going to make this the handout I would like to get it to both Ryan McGee and the uh sheriff

and have them look at it make any edits because these number whatever make sure they're good with it and then update it one last time and then before we send it out and and also have discussion with them is like if our conversation flow should I feel like kind of match the handout which is I think basically where you were headed anyway what's the current state okay you can see that you know and then move on to the numbers what's the call day to tell us out of all the calls we have how many are serious enough that a police officer you know one of the things I didn't have that I had heard after I relistened to our meeting was um we don't have calls

by weekday I don't know if we need to go through that but you could if you needed to and none of the data talks about exactly um which calls link would link more to a police officer initial responsible um that they had First Responders right yeah well and then the other thing that and that's okay to not even have that data I mean it's really it's the concept so that information I think you I think what you're talking about is the the fire department respon response where they should be waiting so that needs so I don't know that the chief would keep that level of detail but I can tell you in conversations uh not only with the chief and the sheriff's department but members of the sheriff's department there are a number where they think he should be waiting where he did not necessarily does yeah and I think safety I think that that's a that's a harder metric to capture because it's not getting recorded but I

think that that's where we you all as a board should ask that question because I know we've heard times before and I'm sure you all have heard from Chief as well of like I called and they said it was going to be an hour and 40 minutes before they could get to us so I just made the decision to go in because we had a potential we had a suicidal ideation we understood that there might be someone with a knife in there but we figured the four of us could handle it and that's a very big risk that we're not capturing that metric for but I think it's important to just get that uh those stor we should tell hether You' had your hand up really really patiently um Debbie if you don't mind I think you did an amazing job I've already told you that a lot of times I think this is wonderful thank you I really appreciate the work that you put into this a lot of request for you now how to pay for improved coverage I'd

like to like either you and I go over that together and then other people there there's just some things in here that I'm scared to put this way and I think we need to like mhm I don't even know this is a draft y yeah I just feel like if this is something that other were gonna put out like this part of this is really people are going to focus on the cost so we need to be really careful about the way that information comes out and Joe brought that up earlier when we first started talking about this is like if you put a number and it is a penny above that it's you said it was going to be this and that's but it is important to have that I had a few more things everyone's going to ignore that approximate logo I just want to say thank you that to Kimberly that I appreciated the fact that she got the Facebook invite out um on the town page and I shared that and on the all things Durham page and and as of right before

the meeting there were 30 people that were interested and seven people that marked that they were attending so for one day out I think that's great um I'd love to see that get up way higher and I think the way that that happens is for us to just like on an every other day basis blast that again um so that it's getting like lots of views okay um and

then one other thing that I was thinking two things I would be happy to take on the task of recording even just by subject matter what people's public comment concerns are at the meeting and then just putting that in in Excel so that we have that data if we want that based when we're continuing our conversation around this to be able to track sort of what people are concerned about um and I just had the idea of that

maybe it's worth us coming up with some sort of a survey um like I'm thinking about the public hearings that we've done regarding marijuana and um land use ordinance changes and how the planning board puts out a survey whether it be something that we have a paper copy of for people to just kind of fill out the survey when they leave so that we get feedback about what took place that night and then also put that same survey on the website if that's something that we want to try to do before the meeting and you're this is your your show so I don't know if people think that that's important or not but I think if we're going to go to town vote with this it's helpful for us to know what what people are taking away from the information that we're putting in front of them I I think asking people to fill something out after there just you know additional questions initial thoughts concerns and having it online I think

it's a great idea I don't yeah but I don't don't leave it to me to make I'm happy to take on the survey part of it and also to record the information that we would get back if it came in on paper I don't want to put any more of that on Town staff like my only question is I really like the idea of soliciting more information but does that information change what we put on the ballot in November the answer is not really we're we're putting on the ballot in November do you want us to explore this more and then this hearing is to make sure people have the details they make can to make that informed decision so if you want to take that extra work on that's fine but I don't know if I think when we get to the pr pce it's going to be important to know like if the information we're to know people's feelings when they vote okay I I I think it's a great idea but I just didn't think I don't know if it

changes anything but at the same time you can discern things from that like oh a lot of people had a concern it was voted down but we now have an idea of what that concern is just but I don't know just I I would hate to see you put in a lot of work and get five or six comments you know what I mean so when I did one regarding another thing I can't remember what it was I had 98 responses to it it was just one Google form that I did on my own before I became a select board member um but regarding the town manager actually but that might be a lot easier to facilitate as a private citizen among private citizens versus from the board to town you know cuz we have a lot of other hoops and whatnot so but I don't know I'm just not trying to poo poo it I'm just thinking out loud I if if you're volunteering to me I would be interested in seeing what that is because I I'd like to know if there's a a misunderstanding that's a good point um

and so I think to me uh that that would be helpful because I will tell you I keep going back and forth at first I was like this is crazy then I heard the chief and I was like Wow and then I thought about it I was like oh my gosh this expense and I just had a conversation with with a sheriff's deputy they're like they just pulled some going 101 miles in hour on 136 I also think the one the one day they're here they're like we got them I think it's important because what might be in the room voicing concern or bringing up you know what ever might not be represented that's a very good of everybody and so to give other people opportunity to give feedback it feels like the the planning board survey type thing where we get data I I think I think it's I if you're I wouldn't volunteer you to do it unless you're not here um but if you're volunteering to do it I I think it's a good idea to do um

um and so I would I would say go for it okay also I I would just like to make a motion to extend the meeting to 9:40 just so we can wrap up this sort of stuff I'll second any discussion no all in favor any opposition okay one thing I do want to say about that is to your point and just because I'm not going to have a chance to speak there is I have been very much in the camp of No and then into the camp of maybe on this and then back to the camp of no but the other day learning that the fire department now has bulletproof and sta prooof vest that we received from Poland Springs and they're now going through the process of training on when when I when we first got those I thought this was just going to be if there's a mass shooting and now they're going through the process of training on when should staff just be wearing those for calls that the police can't show up on so there's been a couple calls where

there's knives involved abusive people involved and there's no response available and so now we have people who are volunteering getting paid minimum wage strapping on a knife proof and bullet Pro F because they know that there could be a knif wielding person next to the patient that needs care and that's that just gave me a moment of pause to think about it a little bit more so that's all I want to say on that I'm not saying that's the only thing to be take into consideration but just I don't know if the fire department always tells us those sorts of things so I would just like to say that I think that based on this and the financial part of it I would feel the most comfortable if Debbie and I could meet with you Jerry to like make sure that this is all what it is before we send it out to are is that are you good with that um before we send it out to the sheriff to review and then before it gets posted okay okay

yeah so we'll oh before it gets posted for for this meeting no no they we have to post the draft because this is what we're looking at but before it gets posted like how we share the information on the website ahead of the meeting y so that people can review it online or whatever before they get there I want to make sure it's a final draft before it goes up and Jerry or Jessica when this gets posted please turn on the feature that puts draft in big language the the grade out you know what I mean so everyone there yeah so yeah we would want to post it like around no later than the fifth M for the 10th meeting yeah so we'd have to meet so you I I don't even need to be you two can go over the details make any changes then we'll update it then we'll get it to the two the police office officers and then once they provide the input we'll you know look at the final draft maybe the next time we meet is

that did you say no it's the next meeting no our next meeting is that meeting so I can come in tomorrow or yeah okay can you get it to me I'll make those changes then I'll send it to you and the police the two police officers is it that work their input and then from there once all that is done then you could work with the police officers about going through it and then how it fits into the discussion y I'll have that discussion and the chief too we should have it go to the the only the only thing other thing I I forgot to mention I might have to start the meeting a couple minutes late because I just found out my daughter has soccer practice on Tuesdays that ends at 6 and so I'm trying to find somebody to bring her in but that's you know

okay another but our business meeting is at 5:30 so you miss that part fine no I'll be there okay no she's got practice from 5 to 6 oh oh to walk her into the building good yeah yeah I I mean course can help if we need to do that it's fine okay there's there's someone there I just have to and what about the mechanics of the schools do we have to go there and set the table up are we going to have a microphone all that business how's that work Jerry and I can talk about that tomorrow is that fine are people comfortable with that okay um anything else on law enforcement so the only thing that just go ahead the only Point only thing that caught my attention and all this I love the list with stuff is um number of calls hasn't

changed in six years it's just uh can you say what page you're on yeah first page table down the bottom average calls per month 78 in 2019 and 80 in 2023 that's for police calls only I know that okay no I get that I get that and and the overall calls went down too so it just the data doesn't support this like

that raw data doesn't support it at all the rest of the stuff does so I'd be careful putting that up front put that in the back somewhere because it it doesn't doesn't get you I mean it's what the sheriff said the other day the call volume is the call volume it doesn't really get you to the right it's just facts these are the and that could be part of the um message too it's like yeah I I just it just caught I mean when the especially when I went on the pivot table I'm like holy crap look at that nothing's changed yeah I mean the first thing I saw all kinds of it just it just it doesn't I love the improving our current state list and stuff pull that to the front and put put the put the backup data part of the thing to consider here too Is 2020 there's a pandemic and we see that that's the highest bump too so but it's all in the the date the it's in the details you know I get it I get it I

just something that the numbers just went to my mind I'm like wow well and that's a fair that's a fair point too someone can say it's I I look at the numbers and I vote no and that's why we're I think this highlights why we're getting so much input is because we're saying before making a decision like this we need a lot of inut and I I think maybe what the the message here is when we talk through this is you might look at this call volume and say it's there's really nothing's changed and you might not need it but let's go to this maybe the softer side of why it's required in this list of things but that even I think you need to emphasize more on so that it it that's the message here because the volume may be the same but might different I think it's important that we're including it though and I think the order of it um Joe it even

though it needs to be in this order you're messaging okay just something I point out John real quick with the numbers so so we we had moved old business into after and the reason I moved it is because I wanted to at some point discuss um next steps with the

section 5.14 and section 12 of the land use ordinance based off of the feedback we've received from the Durham historic District commission uh Town planner and right now we're seeking some more information from legal uh Town legal on yes to make as as it sounds like now that we're having that relationship with our legal services from the g go figuring out what people are proposing is even legal before we go down the process of putting it out there is important so we're waiting on that still Jerry right um so we can save this conversation till later I'm unsettled about this this markup after the I thought about it and that's why I don't even want to start on it now because if you look at the version that I have annotated here with my pen there's a lot of removal yeah um a lot

like getting this down to a page uh or with plenty of white space so I don't that's going to be a conversation that we need to have as the policy makers and then if we go forward from there and realize that there's not an agreement between us and other people we need to figure that out but not doesn't need to be done today but the reason we started this is cuz I I had a feeling we were going to get to this point and I'd rather for us get to respect people's time get to this point in August instead of in March and then not be able to put something on that addresses concerns so

kick that down to can other new old old business there J we'll just put that in for another meeting yep board member reports um right off the back I had a question I know I've asked this before and it's uh if people want to just fire it back and say no I have obviously I'm going to be on vacation and out of the country for a almost three weeks here um I have three conferences that I have to attend to for work when I immediately once I get back from vacation and they all three of them are on uh over at least two of them or three of them overlap with board meetings so as it's scheduled right now I would not be able to make any meeting in September or October and I know we don't normally adjust meetings but I just wanted to propose that idea I feel irresponsible as chair to miss that many meetings but unfortunately I have to make these conferences and one's in Madison Wisconsin one's in Baltimore I can't

like come home to do the proposed dates if I I will email it but what I was just proposing is the o just shifting the October 8th meeting to the 15th and the October 22nd meeting to the 29th and I don't know it's probably a trial week for you or something no I I'm actually at the conference the second meeting in October as well so okay can we just not talk about it tonight since it's not till October and we're be here so we can we can talk about it quickly yeah okay I'm fine with moving the October meeting if that's what people need to so I would like to move to make a motion to move the October 8th meeting to October 15th and the October 22nd meeting to

October 29th can I talk while looks can I say what my things were oh sorry it was motion sorry second second and I I I don't want to make a habit of making a meeting move every time I have to but I mean there's five meetings that month so it works anyway it's technically the right it would be the fourth meeting if it was a not a five month Tuesday there's not five meetings you mean there's five weeks five weeks so I mean technically it's right the last Tuesday of that month which is what our typical Tuesday is anyway

in October on the 14th so I won't be there for the 15th and I'll be hurting on the 29th but I might still be here so I I mean I I would can we just move move the second meeting I think is a better so how about this if that's okay I retract my motion I move that we move

the October 22nd meeting to October 29th okay so we would be the 8th and the 29th of October is that what you're saying yes yeah is that fine yep it works for make a motion my second I just made a motion so I move that we move the October 22nd meeting to October 29th second any further discussion all in favor any opposition

about my things I just want to say two words fee schedule it didn't get on this agenda we really need to address the fee schedule to make sure it's finalized and on the website and um the lights at Swamp Road I would like to have a conv uh not Swamp Road the lights Dead Man's Curve if we can just put that back on the radar we don't have to talk about it is that something we can add when do comes in oob so they'll come on October 8th he'd be the guy you want to talk to

seconds left I do just to say last week or the last meeting I signed up to take a look at maybe creating an action list and I look and I had done a proposal that I want to run by you jry before we bring it back to the board it's nothing fancy but I think it will really help us with all of these moving parts and making sure that everything you know has a Target date for the next meeting it's something I'm familiar with at work already so I have that um I want to send it to you to show you the format and then I'd like to meet with you and maybe we could pull in Heather and just go over make sure all the data is accurate see what you like and what you don't like about it modify it and then bring it back to the board to review it's nearly as nice looking as your pivot table I'm going to be a a um all right um so I'll follow up with you on that okay that'd be that'd be great yep Joe Joe or Josh anything for

board member report no this is for after perfect so I have a question September 10th is just a regular business meeting nothing other than I'm talking about the business meeting we AP that's nothing else okay approve minutes if we have to the we have from 5:30 to 6 to do business okay all right

that's good approve the consent agenda so move second oh I'm sorry Heather all in favor of approving the ascent agenda does that cover you had mentioned Jessica you had mentioned AP that's theone that's here right yeah I think it made it it is in there though it is no wor be the 27th though all right so upcoming town meetings board meetings at 5:30 at 91024 at the school schol just going to be a truncated meeting and then 6:00 goes into the discussion and we'll just flag that the uh October uh 22nd meeting has been moved to the 29th no that's not the math right yeah that's right y with the October 8th being a normal meeting uh do we need an executive session no no any all right do I have a motion to adjourn so move second all in favor discussion all in favor we never have a discussion about that adjourn one it's pretty cuz it's always close to 10 p.m. when we're doing

everyone sign