TranscriptBudget Committee Meeting ~ August 1, 2022

it's only a draft we can stay on well if you want to take it out of order we can adjourn right i like that there's a stage left are you on the air all right good evening everyone uh today is august the first time is 6 35 we are the budget committee this is a special meeting prompted by a special town meeting that has been scheduled for august the 16th uh budget committee has two new members so i propose that we um go around the room introducing ourselves just say who you are and uh where you live i'll start i'm milt simon live on the stackpole road neil berry stack bowl road john talbot stackhold road jane rice bowie hill heather roy hollow road jill gaston gay stackpole road a boy now parenting day road but you're moving to i felt like i had to go to the second yeah i'm looking at a new home over today i guess our street is well represented um this is the first meeting since the town voted um our new members um and so

uh it's we need to vote for um a new chair and vice chair for this coming year the year being now through the budget season of next january and february right up through town election i'll nominate milt simon as chair oh second um it's been moved and seconded that milt assignment be continue on as cheer is there i accept is there any discussion cnn all in favor all opposed one abstain um we move on to vice chair i'm moving we nominate joe gaston vice chair service i'll second it has been moved and seconded uh that jill gassing continue on as vice chair of the budget committee is there any discussion i accept good any further discussion cnn all those in favor of having jill as our vice chair and it's i didn't vote all right so seven one um and i do declare we have a quorum we have eight uh seven out of eight members are with us tonight we should probably note that we are one member down due to

um lois retiring correct we're waiting for the select board to assign our ninth member all right um i i suggest we just take the articles in order 20 minutes would it be worthwhile to have him if he wants to say his piece he is the first article so

you're supposed to punch me seen on the town warmth at the special town meeting it reads to i want to remind it to everyone that our votes are either yes or no tonight we can't change the figures we either say we approve what's uh select board has recommended or we don't approve it so article 3 reads as follows to see if the town will vote to appropriate twenty three thousand two hundred thirty dollars from coronavirus local fiscal recovery front funds also known as american rescue plan

or abbreviated arpa arpa funds which were received by the town from the federal government for the following for the following project hvac work at the fire station with a motion and then have a discussion um this would be a perfect time i would think to recognize the chief if you would like to explain what the need is and how this dollar amount came forward to us mr chair uh it actually started uh when i took tenure about eight months ago we lost heat at the fire station so we started looking into heat pumps at the time to replace our heat thus heating and cooling we have no cooling at the fire station i understand there's been some debate whether the eureka center or the fire station is a cooling center eureka does have cooling the fire station the last addition was 20 years ago again no heating no duct but there is a mezzanine or an attic space that would allow duct work

reunification center for the school so from june september any hot month the kids could have to in an emergency come to the fire station um we've built out what used to be a volunteer service we now have three four people daily at the station for up to 12 hours a day last week of course the office manager all those offices except mine are internal with no windows so her office was 80 degrees literally it's what she said with a thermostat thus the need so we have water we have the staff we could man and staff a cooling center we did just update on the town's website to contact us thursday there'll be a heat advisory and we'll be ready to cool we have uh an a window unit on wheels that has to run 24 hours a day with the electricity just to keep it 75 in the training room which we we have meetings two three times a week in the training room and that doesn't include the office i have one in my office window that blows down

the hall we can't keep the doors open to those offices due to sensitive material and files so that's just a daily when i'm there that's the need i believe the price with due diligence from calvin uh the price came back for cooling only it was going to be heating and cooling heat pumps but this is cooling only with ducts ducted sort of uh a unit so you replaced your heater already we did replace one heater we have two we replaced one and it was upgraded for all it doesn't do the bays we're just talking the office and training side the bay area where the trucks are have three or four sealing units gas sort of fed units there is one more unit that's more than 20 years old does all the hot water we upgraded that first one just in case and it should take the load in case that second one goes so we invested more up front now for the heating side this is just cooling am i correct with so that this is just a cooling

for the building and again what used to be a volunteer department is now staffed regularly every day just to clarify chief if the second heating unit in the bay were to break down you're saying the one that was just upgraded could take care of the base yes it was not the bays itself but the hot water heater so there's two in this in the in the sort of the hvac room there's one that we replaced and there's another one that does all the hot water if that one goes we can duct right off of it and and pick up the slack but there's four overhead in in the garage in the bays for overhead gas-fed furnaces ceiling level not worried about those and and when when the quote came in to just do the cooling for the firebond did

did someone an engineer a technician someone a specialist someone actually come to the building and see what the setup was not a third party when i started and then calvin was was uh delegated to take over a fantastic job um i gave him the just the parameters of i would like to either heat or cool this area and all three of them came in i was there for all of them they measured they measured radiators they measured square footage ceiling heights if they could duct which officers were internal without windows which ones you you would have to you know do duct work through a wall so there was not a third-party engineering done but all requests for proposal companies were given the same

all back to the supplier who has the engineer on staff and that's where the numbers come from so there is a third party it's just indirect all go to the internal engineers i'm kind of curious why one recommendation like all the recommendations were different than for what size ac unit it looks like the conference room they all agreed on a 24k which i'm not familiar with terms so i'm just going to leave it there but one recommended a second 24k one recommended only a 9k and another one recommended in 18k so did we question the discrepancies well the 18 and the 24 pretty close and the winning better just said he pumped it up just a little bit because they either come 18 or 24 and okay bumped it up just a little bit but one of them was way off numbers and

because it would have been in his office blowing on the back of his neck all day and he would have been listening to it and all the other options with that day the door was open and then it would have only been half the size of the ones that were going to be deducted so so that that really didn't come into play so it was between 2 18 and 24. okay so those two were ducted whereas the other one was expecting natural flow just a chair i did recuse myself from the process i assisted opened up answered questions but let calvin usually take care of it all that i had no skiing in the game really or or tried to upgrade or anything so how many units are there how many air conditioning units are there currently or that they're proposing their proposal to the the training room they're both ducted one in the training room all three bidders were it was going to be just blowing out into the big open room

the ones that the one that's going to feed all the offices is docked and and the one in the training room is not heat pump it is well it's a it's an ac i'm saying the same same type of unit with a little bit different so is that going through is a window coming out for that to go in is a wall getting cut how is that getting installed putting the condenser on the back out by the tower in the back of the building and then it comes in through the uh the pipes coming through the wall so it'll be mounted on uh an interior somewhere on an interior wall but the the the tubes that feed the uh the air and the intake will all come through the long run through duct working so the walls in there are all you know it's not it's not um wood studs they're all steel studs if i recall in the in the building was when that renovation took place so that doesn't complicate things running

space i believe there's a space above so they're going to abduct it from the ceiling not from the wall right the duct is all going to run if you look over the office area there's like a mezzanine right an area with a crawl space and they all looked in there and said yeah we can get

okay am i correct in understanding that the way that the one that is not ducted they anticipated that doors would be open and that's how other offices would be cooled is that correct okay of the officers have a duck they will they're going to the quote that they went with will oh even the bathrooms will be ducted everything will be done those can all be closed and still yeah it'll be just like these yeah okay um well where is agility out of i couldn't find any information on them they're in minor

we were looking did we contact someone from the town contact them or did they hear that we were looking for the work i mentioned it to him through another job and fire chief mentioned it to that one and then we put it up and they answered the same ad so they all see the same stuff on whatever platform mitch putin owns was that the mm-hmm i believe it was in one of the papers

fire station it really did uh so that we were all understanding and then mitch got involved when it got bigger and it went out request for proposal according to the town bylaws and our policy and it was delegated to calvin to take over the project um being a consistent point of contact for both here the fire station that type of thing yes sir just some background it was a request for quotes we informed all of those individuals and wanted to make sure that we had enough time our intentions were to try to get this resolved quickly so that it would be air conditioning in this whole building which we only have some of the air conditioning going on and we also recognized even back then supply chain slowdowns and if we didn't get our our point across in our contracts in place we would not make a more serious problem come wintertime this building doesn't have the leading capacity to keep going without

both systems working the fire department but it's kind of all lumped into one my understanding is that the select board decided to go with agility and agility gave a quote for doing both the town hall and the fire department and that that contract has been signed is that all correct we have indicated to agility that subject to the final approval of the town meeting they were the responsible bidder that was selected okay if one job is approved and the other job isn't because they're separate warrant articles um was this a discount deal like because i'm doing two buildings so there's a discount or can they be separated

if one of the warrant articles gets approved for agility but the other does not was the agility a lump sum all or nothing or can we break it out from there i don't think they discounted other than the fact there's a scale of economy by having them be in the same area to do both jobs but i didn't specifically ask that question about both them both of them all of the bids were itemized by facilities but i think scale of economy is the important thing they don't have to travel just for one job they were actually doing two jobs okay so and the funds that the select board plans to spend um is the arpa funds which for those that haven't listened to past select board meetings up there in the cloud or for those here in the audience the arpa funds are also known as like covid relief money for the town mitch can correct me if i'm saying this incorrectly but it was supposed to um kind of be an influx of funds to help

out the town and the taxpayers to improve some of their infra infrastructure um it can also be used on capital payments such as equipment that sort of thing it can also be used towards assisting residents of the town so these are funds that are not going to be raised it's not like we're requesting to have a second property tax increase um it's not free money this is my input it's not free money this is money that you gave to the feds at one point in time they're just giving it back um so i think you know no matter how we look at it this is still our money and how we want to spend it but it is through the arpa funds um and it if all articles are approved today um the total is a hundred and eighteen thousand seven hundred and thirty dollars which is 28 of the opera funds that we have to spend um so the select board has mentioned that they will be looking for input and ideas on how to spend the other 72 percent

mr chairman yes sir if i mesa if there was a question question raised thank you by one of your members that effectively uh talks about uh what about our capital reserves so it's a good opportunity to bring in and luckily i have now the draft of the audit for the period ending december 31st 2021 and in it at the very top point and you'll need this paper again as we discuss another warrant article but at the top of the page you will see the different reserves and the amounts that are involved within each to answer the question jill aptly described the eligibility and uses of the arpa funds and there was one other catch that arpa has in it is extremely important and that is if we try to in any way shape or form remove from the appropriations the warrant articles that were approved back in march and substitute arpa funds for those we effectively would be violating the law but from when harper first came out from

congress to literally about a year ago they loosened a lot of the requirements and recognized they wanted the infusion into the economy and that the accounting is what we are really talking about now in the final analysis if we were to for whatever reason use any appropriation monies and then attempt to reimburse them with arpa that would be a violation of arpa the projects that you have before you and i know you're only talking about one effectively utilizes arpa and it fits exactly what they're talking about you'll talk about i.t and other infrastructure investments later on but just wanted to give a little bit more of the background because it's very important it is our money and i consider it as i said the other night as an investment that has a return to it because if we turn around and look at the more efficiency that we're putting into heating and cooling or any of the other things that are being proposed

tonight those are going to be assuming we meet the supply chain problems in a timely fashion a much more cost effective approach to operating the business without having to raise property taxes to fund those projects otherwise thank you sir can i ask you a question real quick about that um you said that this was as of december 31st 2022. 21. 2021. did i oh no you said we're in 20 you did sorry sorry sorry um so i just want to make sure that i understand this correctly at town meeting we approved um funds that go into these accounts like we approved capital funds i think it was 30 000 for 50 000 for public works that type of thing those are the reserves that i've reported there to you that's that's included in this number no that would be because that was this fiscal year and this fiscal year has not yet been audited it will be audited after december 31st okay so it's safe to say that the amounts that

were approved we could add to this number but i also understand we bought a truck and that comes out of that account you know am i am i saying this right yeah you are i don't understand the relevance of it because we're we're not authorized and we're not there's no recommendation of moving any funds from funds within the town no talking about our i'm just answering questions but right but the relevancy is in march you raised meaning you're going to ask the taxpayer to pay and then you authorize its expenditure here the warrant articles that have been designed for your special town meeting are asking that you allow us by appropriation of authority to expand right the reason why i'm asking alan is because the select board stated that if these if it wasn't approved that they approved the expenditure and they were going to use the capital account to do it and so that's why i wanted to know what the amount just for just for the

town office they they felt that the emergency part of it was for the town office and i didn't think for any of the other articles i thought it was only for the town office the town office is the critical one correct but you also have the other three which we will respond to your questions i think you need to recognize that in the article pertaining to the gis which is the technology one of the technology elements that gis mapping system is effectively reflective of what we do for tax billing and i'm sorry to say that your map systems are in very poor shape and as a consequence to that you need to upgrade and it affects ultimately the quality of the tax bills that will go out in the future in 2023 and 2024. so i'm i don't want to jump off of what we're dealing with now but i'm trying to answer your question at the same time sir do you see why i was asking i i i see why you're asking it and i know that the

selectmen indicated that they would have to fund this through capital this particular one for the town office but but i don't think they indicated that they would be pushing any capital funds into that if it wasn't approved through these particular articles i wish i could be as definitive as you are in terms of my representation of in my understanding of that because i think the select board will at their august ninth meeting effectively take whatever recommendations you've given and make final decisions as to sources if they have to because if you recall in the discussions the other night i believe it was the chair who said that since if there was an absent of monies needed they could always use the capital reserve they don't need extra authority for appropriation it's already available to them depending depending on what is considered an emergency situation and that would be up for the parties to discuss

executives yes can you clarify for me how capital funds can be spent without an appropriation i'm still confused on that part i apologize but the capital funds initia as i understand it those capital funds come from two sources potentially the first is if there's an appropriation for a capital fund for a project to do x

for one million dollars and they only spend 750 000 according to what the select board believes is appropriate they can take the remaining 250 000 and keep it in capital reserves so it's already been appropriated and it's been usable the second would be any supplements that come from grants and things of that nature as i understand it but the appropriation action that you're talking about had already taken place for the capital so what is our balance in capital reserve if you look at the sheet i just gave you each one of those on the top represent the audit number as of december 31st 2021

because you're in a different calendar or fiscal year in this case right so this represents money that in the past the town has appropriated to spend on another project but didn't get all of it spent it was recaptured for capital expenditures in the future because it's already been appropriated and there they've delineated it and that's how it's accounted for can i ask a question because at the last town meeting wasn't there a vote on kind of combining all of those funds

capital accounts okay what what the vote was is that it like it used to be that well actually it might still be this for the capital fund accounts that if it doesn't get spent it stays in that line versus um before it would go back into undesignated right but now vote is that correct wanted to take appropriated funds that were not spent and put them into the general fund several of us wanted to put them back into the fund where they were appropriated there is an exception to all of this and i think you all recognize it if in fact you were planning ahead five years and you wanted to buy a new million dollar piece of equipment i don't care which department you potentially would accumulate monies into a special reserve earmarked for that if upon conclusion of the acquisition you only spent 950 000 and you and you had already collected a million in this example the 50 000 would either stay with this that piece of equipment

for ongoing maintenance or it would i say maintenance capital maintenance or it would go back and be recaptured as a capital improvement for any future projects that they determined were necessary so if in if at the town meeting of april 2021 the town voted to put forty thousand dollars into the fire rescue capital fund yes is that reflected here or that's another check and balance sheet okay thank you now i'm now i've come full circle i understand keep in mind january to december come december we're audited that's the end of our working business year the auditor may say in your example that 40 000 was appropriated for that operating year and it has to now be transferred to the capital reserve with the understanding it's being saved for some accumulative expenditure in other cases we've already expend something and there's ten thousand dollars left over we come back to the first discussion

where that ten thousand is then shifted to a capital reserve that's undesignated at the moment okay can i ask one more question no it doesn't have to do with this i'm gonna stay on point but i would like to ask these questions at another time because i really want to have a clear understanding of this but i do want to stay focused on what we're working on tonight don't you ready have a question i did i guess this is all good discussion for the new guy who's learning but i think our is not our mission tonight to decide whether the four articles are appropriate use yes or no for funds and if the town select board decides uh that and it's the town actually the citizens who decide not us but if they say no we don't want uh the chief to have heat in his building or whatever it may be then the selectmen make a decision about why they're not using that so i think we're two steps away from that i guess

is my point i agree so having said that mr chairman i move that we on article three we uh approve the appropriation of twenty three thousand two hundred thirty dollars from the opera funds for the hvac work at the fire station

uh by john um wait i gotta finish to practical three to vote to appropriate hundred and 23 dollars from the coronavirus local fiscal recovery funds or opera which will be the word i use from going forward um it's open for discussion just to give you there were a few of us that came to the selectmen's meeting the other night and when i left that meeting i was rather confused as to how they derived at the number so i went back and listened to the whole selectmen's meeting that had been taped so that i would get a firm understanding of how they backed in now backed into those numbers so we had three different quotes and the quote the bid which they uh recommended was from agility for forty four thousand four hundred and nineteen and out of that they applied twenty thousand one ninety three to the fire department they rounded that up to 20 200 and then they added another 15 to that to get to the 23 230 that's how they

derived it came to the conclusion on that i believe that's accurate sir and just to remind everybody also on the that was pointed out at the silkwood meeting um if if after the it applies to all four of these articles if after the work is done the actual expense is less than the amount that appropriated that balance will go back into the opera funds for other use if the amount appropriated is not enough to complete the job then the

another vote can be taken to request the additional opera funds that are needed to finish the job and that's that would that's i don't think that's very accurate because we'd have to have another special town meeting before well it needed to be a special time meeting or would be or come up at town meeting the the select board right jobs being done now so i don't think it's a it's it's theoretically accurate but i don't think it's realistic i guess is what i'm trying to say there's an emergency spanning trade that select

enough through arpa my realistic imagination says they will go to the capitol reserves to finish paying the bill i think by adding that fifteen percent they're trying they're trying to cover that yeah exactly and i think that well i think and probably for article three and article four um i would agree but i think they were pretty insistent that when it comes to article

communications that they fully intended that if they underfunded it that they would come back and request additional money i guess i interpreted that as if we can't replace all the computers we'll replace what we can and ask for more down the road and do a second job right like is how i interpret it is that correct interpretation selectmen i think so i think i mean it would also depend on the cost saving i mean right so most likely yes but right i don't want to foreclose the other yeah the other answer and to clarify again unspent arpa funds goes back into arpa not an opera reserve account that the select board can then say we can spend this how we want to i intended that meeting one in the same unexpended of our birth goes back into arpa and they would probably mark it as the other balance that has not yet been designated for expense purposes i don't want to confuse anybody but that pool remains arpa right okay

any further discussion that the town appropriates twenty three thousand two hundred and thirty dollars from opera funds for hvac work to be done specifically cooling work to be done at the fire station all those in favor all those opposed and to vote moving on to article four which reads to see if the town will vote to appropriate four thousand five hundred dollars from opera funds received by the town from the federal government for the following project hvac work at the town office

cooling and heating and hot water heater water heater and insulation yeah yes yeah from what i understand it's two air conditioning units not heat pumps gas furnaces here 18 gallon electric hot water heater and this offer came with a five-year warranty for parts and labor and two years of annual maintenance correct you have a motion i'll take a motion i'll move that we accept the article as presented well i second it it's been moved and seconded that the town votes that the town appropriates thirty four thousand five hundred dollars from opera funds received from the federal government for hvac work both cooling and heating to be done at the town office discussion in this particular one they out of that forty four thousand four nineteen it was in the bid they uh took twenty 22 526 and then they took 2 000 for the water heater 5000 for insulation so they rounded that up to 30 000 and they added a what i consider a

contingent of 15 on top of that for 34 500. to the entire process there's been a lot of talk about this building and replacing this downing this wall expanding this heightening that leveling this um have we settled like is i

be demolished to to because we did in addition and we now need a bigger heating unit because of the addition or we now need a third heating in ac unit because of the addition his if if i met history-wise and following an awful lot of this and the selectmen's meetings is their intention in the long run was to turn this meeting room into office space and they want to turn the eureka center into the meeting room for the selectmen but there is not enough information right now

firm numbers as to how we would upgrade the eureka center so there's no there's been no discussion about retrofit would be turning this into office space in this room that we're in right now and it would allow the three people that are crammed in to if you know where that back room is there are three people at times that are in that small you're lucky if it's eight by ten wrong so does this allow the ductwork to have the three extra offices or four or ten or cubicles whatever's planned in here to be done it won't be cuba it'll actually first the answer is yes [Laughter] but everyone has a slightly different vision but excellent report on that there would be probably a a movable wall right here so that we would create on that wall a map hard map and your computer capability for the public who come in and say i own map lots or might look at this address i need tax mod information that side would become the office space

to help relieve the congestion that you've described okay and the third part is you'll still get many good years out of this the insulation that's coming in i think will provide you the ample time for you as a community to decide where you're going to be in your next level of population growth and therefore the services that you have to provide that's what i poorly asked was does this calm us down for a little while or are we still like dreaming and planning to make changes how quickly your town develops you stand here on a thursday evening when people want to get registration squared away you can answer your own question fairly quickly and you're only at 4 100 people right now so one of the questions that i brought up and that i had was when looking at these different systems how the monthly cost compared between the systems and that you know one might have been a little bit more expensive

initially but would that system have saved us in the long run in terms of heating and cooling costs um because that bill isn't something that can be rolled into the arpa funds that bill becomes part of our annual budget and i didn't see those numbers reported whatever the answer is is not going to change what happens from here i just want to make you know a statement to say two things one i think when we're assessing these situations moving forward it's really important to look at who the approved contractors are through efficiency main so that if we are eligible for any type of grant we have done the leg work with contractors that are approved through that agency so that we would be able to you know solicit that information quotes from them so that if there were grants that were available we could apply for them because there there is a grant which i brought up but we're not going to talk about that i'm just saying

had we gone down that route with even one of those contractors we would at least be able to have the option to potentially move forward down that route and so not knowing right if we're like one of the things that i brought up was lighting there's a grant available for that if when we're soliciting quotes we're soliciting quotes from efficiency main approved contractors that could potentially go through that process and use those funds versus these funds and then the other thing is just that you know i do think that the monthly cost can be a real significant factor and having those numbers available to also look at when we're comparing which situation would be the best for the long haul um you know i do feel like that's an important factor to consider in this facility the heating load the cooling mode is not going to change the requirements are exactly the same it should be better because we're adding

insulation the british thermal unit requirements of these new units if they're larger are going to increase the electrical requirement a little bit but not significantly i wouldn't think the building hasn't changed we're heating same building and the fire station is using window units which is going to be a lot more money and they're plugged into a wall outlet so they're using a lot more than the new technology we'll use and part of the problem is we're not going out and soliciting these quotes or these bids they have to come to us from the publication and if they don't do that you know it ties their hands a little bit right so if they're like this thing with the efficiency main grant right we can't reach out to approve contractors because that's the way the process starts through that grant process is that you reach out and have an approved contractor com to do the assessment of your building

to see if you qualify and what the what numbers what systems you know that type of thing so if are you saying that we're not allowed to reach out to those contractors to start the process that way i'm getting a little confused i apologize may i respond the best i can and i'm not speaking for the board but i am at the same time that's where i asked who's going to volunteer to help do the because i think you brought in a very good point remember our time right now right is a supply chain issue right which is why i'm not against this i'm just saying moving forward i think it would behoove the town to look at that list but now but just hearing what josh just said how do we do that okay

my first comment please don't misunderstand you are not a procurement group you are a review of the actual budget presentation and i think you all recognize that i'm not a mechanical engineer and so i think having your input in the application process which is going to take a fairly long time that even if we're successful in getting the grant getting approved for the grant there's no guarantee that we will get it in a timely fashion right and that it will be 100 because if you look at some of the efficiency main grants out and we're all 50 reimbursement i want to answer that as well in the final analysis there's very little value in upgrading to more efficient technology it's going to cost you more and we believe that the the samsung units that are being discussed are the more efficient ones they provide what we need they're more dependable and reliable and as you pointed out we're also getting two years of maintenance on

it as well so i don't want to digress to the procurement side but you're right on that cusp where it's very important that you as a committee fully understand that what calvin what myself our fire chief our leadership in your community have done is attempt to get and take full advantage of getting our foot in the door getting in the queue so we can get these pieces of equipment we pretty well lost the summer unfortunately right but at least if we can get the heating system squared away you will then begin seeing the benefits and when you start putting together your next budget we may be able to see a distinct difference in some of the monthly ups and downs that are variations from what you're getting now that happens in january and the new manager will have to face all that and the inquiry that goes with it

oh that got a smile out of you didn't it know that any other discussion hearing none it's been moved and seconded that the town appropriates thirty four thousand five hundred dollars of opera funds for hvac work at the town office all those

in favor all those opposed and it's unanimous article five to see if the town will vote to appropriate forty five thousand from aqua funds received by the time from the federal government for the following project communication and information technology upgrades for the town office public works building and the fire station mr chairman yes sir i move we approve article five second all right it's been moved and second that the uh town appropriates forty five thousand dollars from opera funds for the following project communication and information technology upgrades for the town office public works and fire station buildings discussion so i have a question on this which i'm trying to not get off the rabbit trail

yeah so based on some of the things that i was hearing and listening to um this plan is to replace all of the computers in the town no matter the age or ability of the current computers um with the thought process that this is what opera funds was meant for updating infrastructure so let's update um

funds i believe 2026 is when we have to submit the final audit results but we have to make decisions by like 2024 right or something like that okay um so i guess this is more of a public comment because i thought of it long after the select board meeting um i would like for the select board to entertain the idea that if we don't get one awesome discount to replace everything at once that we consider replacing you've got the funds yes but replace the oldest first and kind of work your way out over the next two years to replace them all because one benefit that we have there is you guys are not coming to the town in five years saying we have 16 computers to replace

to respond to that because he's rit expert so our audience can hear you too i'm supposed to be here to protect him he's just a little boy [Laughter] i got this mitch though okay he's done very well so far so a large majority of the current computers we have were purchased at the same time or they are all of similar spec to each other a few of them were purchased roughly two years after based off of what i can tell by the specs of them and what's the age of those five well the newest ones would be three years old the oldest ones are five to six okay depending i don't know exactly when they were purchased um but yeah they're all pretty much old um so i wish i had brought my computer in today [Laughter] so most of this money is going to be for

phone and internet upgrades because that can absolutely be covered 100 with this money um the next step was the computers and unfortunately i don't have exactly how much the full price will be for that but what's good about it is i can scale back pretty easily so if we can't do 18 we might be able to do 15 or something like that and that's easy to scale back so i can be under budget and that gets to your point so do you know what the increase in the monthly charges is going to be for this that's on that paper that mitch passed around it's on the bottom

phone and internet so the change will be a per month increase of 238 dollars and 62 cents over what we are already paying a month for phone internet operation and that's all three buildings combined so right now don't we have the phone system that's failing yes it is hard to hear on um i mean our phone system i think causes a lot of customer frustration it has lousy voice boxes voicemail it is

inefficient and i think that again as devon pointed out ideally we need to modernize how we take calls from our customers view the citizens and i think we can be much better at servicing their needs going forward and that's the return on investment

yeah way back when um i always thought that our cable fees play into this is that correct when we do budgeting they're franchise fees yes okay so how does that affect all of this where does that money end up if we're using this to do all of the foretelling threatening the sky is falling declaration is we probably won't see franchise fees in the next um contract negotiation but if we did they'd go back to where they were but if they did we yeah the the town has a history of using the franchise fees to cover the telecommunication fees

service to televise because what are we going to get rid of the town channel there are a thousand people here in the town that getting capable that franchise fee goes back to the town i think it used to be like a kick back to the town to help them out but the day of a kickback or a bribe is going well don't use the pressure when is yep you're absolutely right jill that if you go back to the 1980s and 1990s there was a whole lot of hubbub about we're giving a private business access over our public rights of ways to service our citizens and communities the community members who subscribe are paying that company and what does the infrastructure of the community get in return and that's where the cable feeds and negotiations came through and what you've been hearing is very true it's not going to be easy to extract a fee from the company their arguments are going to be well we didn't increase the

rates as much as we could have but we're not going to give you any money going forward so whether we want to argue that at the table of negotiations which will have to be a committee's job or attorney's job what devin has pointed out is parpa came along at the right time for that investment and if we can get five to ten years out of that new system and replacements you're actually ahead of the game and that to me becomes the return on investment for you the customers so can i go back and ask when does this contract renew it's coming up because i've heard the select board talking that they have to start negotiations now or soon it's interesting though all of us probably see all the cables that are being draped around town that's consolidated communications that's not comcast that's fiber optic and that's that's right yeah it's going to probably be verizon and somebody else so completely have a diversified network in town very

soon so it's going to be you know up for anybody to sign up for anything they want at that point i'll be one of them but to answer the question i received a second note from comcast which is a very pleasant way of saying be prepared to sit down and sign your life away well or not we're getting we're getting off time but aren't they kind of a cable monopoly i realized we got fiber optics coming in but we would the town i would assume has to like pay a pretty penny if we wanted to switch over to spectrum

decide well i think like any place you go when you shop you try to negotiate with the vendor if they even allow it and in this particular case comcast is a vendor as well as anyone else consolidated eventually one's going to eat the other up it's just a matter of time then we're back to less competition which is not good for the customers but overly simplified i think your prediction of less the 43 000 or so that we get from the fee is probably going to get reduced as a result of negotiations are we giving it up freely no maybe there's something else we can get out of it that we're not aware of once the pipeline's in place maybe there's other things that we can benefit from and that's where i leave it up to devon to advise us

doing this you know changing the way that things are done here will we still have a durham channel yes that's the crime yeah and that's how meetings will continue to be streamed live and then the youtube channel is how people excuse me we'll be able to go back and view at a later date as soon as eureka is set up which is not currently being discussed right that is when we will be doing you know a full new setup of youtube and the town channel as soon as we get the new internet here i will try to implement youtube streaming along with the tv channel which i think will work because the only hiccup now is that the internet isn't fast enough right is connecting eureka not part of this 45 000 no no because that would be more money than

we didn't have quotes and enough info or the select board didn't feel they had quotes and enough information is to go to the town hall meeting in april and still use the arpa funds but at least have their ducks in a row yeah i i i agree with it they weren't clear what direction they wanted to take and how they were going to get the service over there and i i definitely agree with taking it off the table at this point so what i'm not clear about is exactly where forty five thousand dollars it's being spent i know we've talked about it's 18 computers

eight you at the select boards meeting the cost was at approximately 500 a computer 1500 1500 computer computer right yeah the 500 was the the 500 was the bek fee right that is each computer for them to set up the yeah so whatever yes when they originally

had their discussion they came up with 39 500 and to put not having some firm quotes in place that's why they increased it up to 45 thousand dollars so this most of this money is being spent on laptops no how much is being spent on laptops laptops workstations okay i so although i don't have specific numbers i wanted to get at least something for you so i asked bek which is our it company if they could give me a rough estimate and they said we could be looking at to replace every computer 43 000 somewhere in that

that is the 2500 yes um but for computers specifically we're looking in that range now 43k include the firewalls the 45k isn't that the warrant amount that's 45 so the 45k is 5 000 for the firewalls 2500 to upgrade our phone and internet system 35 000 because it was a a guess to replace as many computers as we could hopefully sixteen thousand computers six sorry sixteen computers not sixteen thousand everyone for everybody right everyone gets six computers um and eight thousand dollars for bek to install the software into the computers and install the computers into the workstation and those are very rough right that was extremely rough like splinters yes all over the place cacti so that came to 39 500 and they upped it

to 45 000. right and i think what devin said at the beginning was the phone internet has to be done at 2 500 bucks that's and i can do that within yes within the budget that the firewalls have to be done right yes so that's and then after that 45 000 minus 8 500 whatever that is is what we buy computers with so we may not get the support of state we may not get 18 and we won't be able to replace them all so we might be back having this conversation at town hall to say we got 10 we need another 8. so was your 43 that you just quoted a conversation that you had after the select board meeting yes because that's all that's what i wanted to know thank you it kept getting pushed and i didn't like that so i was like can you at least give me without being able to give me the actual quote can you just give me something um so that 43 that would replace every computer includes their fees for doing the

install so that would be roughly the total that's cool um but again without the exact number i can't really tell you oh 43 versus we're looking at 30. so as long as the town manager brings his own computer in we're good yeah but what i think is a little lost in this conversation to me the the the the the need that was we needed you know we needed a faster internet we needed a more secure internet we needed we needed these um firewalls i mean the emphasis was on the on this communication and i'm just not hearing that emphasize i'm just hearing about hearing about workstations workstations that are only five years old that it really in and you'd in the real world devin not to be disrespectful that is not old that might be in a computer text frame you know world that could be you know i got to change my computer you know every four or five years some people believe they've got to change their cars every two to three years i

don't believe that's that's the necessity necessity is to speed up and improve the communication so that people can connect fast to us and that if we want to run something on cable that you know people can connect to it uh we want to make sure it's safe that nobody can can can um invade our system we need the firewall i mean the things that i think are the most important i'm not even hearing about they're just you know they're just like these add-ons i want to spend 43 thousand dollars to make sure that nobody can corrupt our system that nobody can hack it um that that that communication is fast and i i want that to be modern to be right up to date that we we get the fastest internet system people can communicate with us and you know without batting an eye that's the problem not that somebody has a five-year-old computer and jesus is still on windows 10 and we need to upgrade that that is and i know i

probably just purchased the choir because none of us here except we get two select board members i hope you are hearing me because we're missing the boat there it's not the laptop that's going to improve communications in our time it's making our time more secure with our communications to afraid to be redundant but you know the firewall and the speed and oh i'm not i'm not a geek on this i don't know but all that internal stuff making sure that those those systems that run the town are all up to date who the hell cares about a workstation being five years old get to the internal stuff and spend the money on that well you would hope some of this does i mean i think it does well i'm not hearing it i didn't hear it i didn't hear anything about that i just heard laptops and phones and all right so i'll be able to hear the i'll be able to hear the person on the other on the phone a little bit better and i'll be

able to transfer a call a little better you know so what i'm gonna watch someone hack in our town and all of our files go into hell he's not yelling at you he's just very passionate about what he's talking about so let me let me throw something in here so yes i am a geek when it comes to this and yes the infrastructure that we're proposing to put in will have all those safeguards which is i guess in my mind knowing what i know it's just a given the fact that you upgrade the equipment you get that security with it so what devin's been talking about the whole time why it really hasn't come up is he really didn't pitch anything that led me to believe i'll say me personally knowing what i know about technology that it was going to compromise the town so there was no really discussion about it because it was really the right thing to do so yeah maybe we should have actually pitched that a little bit um that from

the security of the town the security of the data in town that the firewall was really important it really didn't come out that way but it it is very important and i agree with you um it is going to make the infrastructure safer for the town it's going to provide you know desktop safety so that you have more secure access to the internet from the back office it's it's a whole package deal phone system included it becomes more of a you know they'll be able to do things like getting voicemail from different avenues like on their laptops or their computers right you won't have to listen to a phone to get your voicemail but it brings all that into the whole realm of technology and communication so it is five years old as he's indicated so moving into something that is you know most both companies municipalities stay up in the three-year zone on technology we're really behind at this point we've got an

analog system out back we need a digital system to bring all that security into the network here so i'm not in disagreement at all but it wasn't really a highlight because it it maybe it just didn't seem like a selling point but you're right it probably is a selling point it is a secure issue for the town to make sure that everything is locked down other municipalities have had issues with that we don't want to be one of those so it just seemed like the right stages to go and it was the right time and it's the right funding vehicle thank you joe and you were the right person to answer thanks for i just like to chime in on what he said we uh we actually did have a situation that ended up costing the town money to remember when the email was hacked and we were getting you know emails from two years ago and all you know all this stuff the other thing so you're absolutely right that it is important i also feel like one thing

that's been touched on in a very small way but is equally important in terms of this upgrade is that everybody knows i was here at multiple meetings including our town meeting filming streaming making that these meetings accessible to our residents because the town didn't have the capacity to do that and i believe with these upgrades that will significantly change that situation i know that devin's been doing his best with what he's got um but in terms of residents being able to be informed and in a timely fashion you know this this i do feel this is really important to get done you know so that we can have those meaning jill was trying to look back on notes or meetings um that she like couldn't find anywhere because at that time we're really having issues between march through may with the ability to stream record you know our budget meeting look what happened with our budget meetings this year right that

situation absolutely needs to be addressed and i i believe that this does a large part of that so one quick question does this include a new server for trio uh no that has not been brought to my attention at all like this is the first time i'm hearing yeah we had a problem i i don't know if there's a problem oh okay we're talking about all computers

basically is the backbone to our accounting system our taxing system information systems but it's not on its own computer at the time at this time just the town manager's computer and on the treasurer's computer and i totally agree with milt's passion because some communities have had their public records hacked in a way that it affected the billings going out and it really made a mess of everything but i have to give devin the full credit because he came on board and recognized all of these weaknesses and we're addressing them and as our member of the board has pointed out we thought that was a we didn't emphasize it enough because we think that the other issue is the investment we get when people are on the phone and they say look i've tried calling you three times and i can't even understand the message that i left you let alone anything else and these are important parts of that customer service

so to get back to my question are you familiar with the trio uh i am not super familiar i haven't been given training um that's something i don't know if we need a new server for trio that would be a question for be careful we do not no no we asked that question i believe in our last meeting on whether trio as a result of a computer upgrade needed to be upgraded itself because it's a software platform that runs on top of all the individual computers the answer is no we don't have to upgrade or run on them who told you that b e k b k so the software gets re-upped every year don't we pay a fee to do that yes upgrade the trio yes yeah maybe i missed something trio does not have its own server it's on the treasurer's and the town manager's computer so if they're upgraded yeah then so is it cloud-based how do those two computers chat with each other i don't know that would be a question for bek they handle everything with trio

whenever we have an issue we always go directly to them if i understand the daily application part of it all the tr the transactions that are taking place under trio with the two counters and the treasurer i also have the ability to monitor that any manager coming in to do that i can change it they can i choose not to change anything that's totally inappropriate but that gets to the heart of the issue that we have no degradation of time and transaction so the issue was whether we need a new computer for trio but you don't know if trio requires a server here or if it's cloud-based it doesn't require server it's probably something that's internet-based so you open you open a browser and you get it and so it automatically connects with the next person who opens the browser so it's cloud-based

with patches and upgrades we know in events and then they offer their training program so we make sure we understand how they apply okay i'd encourage you to get up to speed on trio i would love to yes any further discussion

it has been moved and seconded that the town appropriates 45 000 from opera funds for communication and information technology technology upgrades for the town office public works and fire station buildings all those in favor all those opposed

and since garneau has come on board things are a whole lot better on the i.t side so i started watching the conservation meeting and he somehow managed to make it hybrid i don't know how they did that but i was impressed i got to see whoever was like at home on the computer from her home so i thought that was really i don't know how they did but we are doing a very good command calvin for the work on the first two articles yes i agree getting numbers yep because he wants to now leave

the town will vote to appropriate sixteen thousand dollars of opera funds received from by the time from the federal government for the following project gis tax mapping work i make a motion article 6. been moved and seconded my jail seconded by john uh that the town votes to appropriate sixteen thousand dollars from opera funds for gis tax mapping work discussion

so this is a ten year deal how how long is this cover this is for the creation and digital digitizing of all of our maps in two years of the subscription all built into one package so so basically i believe it's fy25 that you'll be working on that you'll see a line item that indicates a subscription rate showing up for the first time but we packaged it all together which is how much right now it's 3 000 a year yeah and that means it upgrades all of all of the transactions in that particular year and we then have less mistakes in our tax billing and lots and laps so does this include all of the mapping for the um ordinances that we're going to go through with like the um aqueducts and yeah it's made in layers so that from the tax billing perspective it's built on top of generally the map that you're looking at on the wall and then you put another layer on it where depending on your query your question of

the computer software itself but if mr chairman if i could i had to talk with the town planner today are you asking is it tied into the stuff he's already worked on resource protection and all that stuff i was under the impression that he said at a meeting and correct me if i'm wrong that he developed this gis mapping so are we

utilized a free software okay that is basic okay so basic that john and joan citizen or realtor really can't go online and draw down information for them so that means we get the calls can you locate i live at 644 royals borough and i need to know matt lautner and real estate agents are the one of the primary users people who are buying and selling and people who want to update and know what their tax bill is defined as that's why you're seeing it as now a annual upgrade far greater than what our planner has been able to do with the free software so when when and if we get this gis software anyone in the town office would have access to that [Music] anywhere the internet anybody for read only purposes they can't

the year in which we develop the information so year ends december 31st they start working on all the transactions for that particular year and you're in a new year and the old map stays up until the new layers are updated so when you go to other towns websites a lot of them have argus gis that you can go to um but they're all different so is there a town example so we know like what we're getting for the money norway norway yeah when i talked to the town planner today uh he said that what you see on norway that he actually sent me some pictures but norway norway was the same consultant and it has the same information that we're planning to put on there yeah so my understanding trying to think from a townsman's thought process is

kind of see where all the lot numbers are and things like that so then if you're a hunter you gotta call the town hall and say i wanna ask for permission to hunt on lot you know map six lot 27a and now you'll be able to get that information going online you won't have like address and phone number and date of birth and social security number of the homeowner it's just their name and you have to do the legwork to again get a phone number no they don't have the address so if you go in like when you search norway you just pick one of their parcels so if it's like an out of town owner it will have both it'll have the address for tennessee yeah where the tax bill goes too late all of that information on one layer right index so that using your example where are all the hunting areas of probe if we ever did that later it would be a separate layer of information that would be superimposed on the map and the person

would query that and get that information right but if you just want to contact the owner you'll be able to get that through the gis go to norway and get the rest of it answered so okay but you can also check naples bridgeton who are redoing theirs as well they're using the same company and layers and also take a look at gray but norway has the layer that we're going to get because you're right you can you can find you know towns that have multiple layers that'll have resource protection that'll have a whole lot of information that's not part of norway is is what we're looking for okay some history is john o'donnell was the preeminent mapper for most of maine especially small communities they're not getting into the gis and they're upgrading i guess i don't know what's going on and that's what caused us to say oh my gosh green gray and some of the other ones that are being pressured with growth

need to have maps that are upgraded annually and we can't rely on them anymore and that's why we're through this so then maybe it was the gossip tree telephone game but i heard that we're paying like an 80 something year old gentleman to hand draw our maps and he has cancer and is dying so we need the gis system to replace him he's actually a hundred so [Laughter] actually is true that's what the assessor told me about the problem she told me this last budget season that we had a major problem coming in that the guy the only he's the only the only guy left in the state that's still doing it with a pen and pencil and reading and drawing them out and making the edits to our map that way he's like one of the last guys doing and he's ill and he's elderly and he's not going to be able to really works off the satellite points so she said we have to go with this so we're not going to have any matters

correct me if i'm wrong mitch this is we're one of the last hold ups in the uh state no that's not true no there are very small things yeah using the john o'donnell equivalents of hand-written maps and some of them then have another index that has a separate attachment that says and these were the changes in the lots over the last year and then every 10 years it gets so bad that they have no choice but to go out and do the whole thing and they will eventually come over this way and unorganized territories aren't using gis online mapping so you you were right in your statement jane though that that um the town planner did bring up gis mapping in our budget meetings that we had um as part of the justification for his increase in hours and supporting the planning board work i actually brought that up because i worried about the has this already been allocated allocated um because if it is then we can't use funds

for it but it was he didn't get it he didn't get into tax mapping yeah you're coming to the 21st century a little bit slower but you're getting there too bad we're in the 22nd century i would like to move the vote second okay

it's been moved and seconded that the town appropriates sixteen thousand dollars of opera funds for gis tax mapping work all those in favor follow the pose second follow us in favor anyone opposed thank you everyone thank you all very much