TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ April 25, 2017

thank you. Um, we'll call this workshop to order. This is a workshop just to kind of go over the what goals we might have for this coming year. Um, and basically I'm going to kind of leave it as kind of an open open discussion as far as what what people have um for ideas and go from there.

I I guess for me since uh it's we had a lot more new selectman on here than we've had in the past. I would kind of like to know what they are for agendas up there so we get them all on the table, know what we got for agendas and that way there we can decide how we want to deal with them and move forward because in the end we may not always agree but we all got to work together. So that's what I'd like to know.

You know what? I'll go. I I would ultimately like to see is us being able to discuss the school budget on the town floor. I don't think that's too much to ask. And I I think it should be done at the town. Whether we do the ballot in June or not, I think we should be discussing the school budget. a $2 million

u rise in a school budget in one year should be talked about. So yeah, it that's a good that's an a good goal. Unfortunately, we can't have it on our regular town meeting floor. That's it's just there is already a school town meeting prior to the vote in June. It happens typically middle to the end of uh May. It's usually on a Wednesday night and it's it's a town meeting format, but all three towns um are invited any any resident of of the of all three towns are invited to attend. Unfortunately, uh Durham's attendance at these has been very small.

Well, that's a trouble. And uh but that is that is the prescribed method from the state on how how it works. It keep everybody keeps telling me the state the state the state it it is it's this is this is the way unfor uh I would love to have it at the same time as our town meeting and so on because a lot of times uh the discussion goes well we don't know what the school's going to do so we're going to we're not going to spend we're not going to do anything for the town and so on. So yes, I would love to have it, but it's the way things are right now

that can't it's it's not it can't happen. They can't give us a budget to discuss at town meeting. Why? Well, we had I mean there there it's at when we had our town meeting the uh superintendent's proposed budget I mean is public. I mean it can certainly be

talked about people It can't be debated, but you can you can inform people as to what the proposed budget is, can you? Yeah, you can't. Technically, at our town meeting, you're not supposed you're not supposed to be discussing anything than what's on the warrant.

Okay. Um, well, I mean, you can you could put a warrant article possibly to discuss the the RSU5 budget, but the discussion there is going to have absolutely no effect on the RSU5 budget because you can't make any votes. You can't do you can't do anything with that.

Well, at least it would give the town's people a chance to have the discussion at at our town meeting. If we don't vote, we can't vote on it. To what end, though, to what's the objective? I mean, at least get them more um informed.

I I guess I'm I I guess I'm at a loss on that because I know as a selectman, I've tried everything I I've been able to think of to get the word get word out about the budgets, about when the meetings are. Uh they typically have a meeting here at the Durham School before the uh the budget.

This week actually it's uh tomorrow night the school board is meeting at the Durham School. Um and in fact one year somebody donated a bus to drive people from the Eureka Center to Freeport to try to get people there and I think one person showed up for the bus. Um

last year the three town meeting was here at this school and we didn't really get any more people from Durham to the meeting then than when the meetings held in Freeport. So the you know the opportunities are there, the information is there. If if people don't take advantage of the opportunity to inform themselves, then they really have no one to blame but themselves. Yes,

I I understand I because I understand the the desire to have every everything done at once. I mean and um coming knowing the town before and when everything was talked all and voted on all at one meeting, it was it was handy. But when when we look at the school now, we can have a discussion there, but it's only amongst the Durm people and um you

can't make any decisions just with Durm people. We we're we're a union. Um it's it's not the durm schools anymore. It it is RSU5. And I mean it's no different than when before we was RSU5. Uh Freeport used to go to the town council. Now the town council would could say no you need to go and cut X amount or whatever and they would have to go back and relook at it. They don't do that anymore. They that's not part of the process anymore because of the new RSU. the only the only your only really recourse would be to talk to the people of Augusta and I agree that's you know they're the ones that need to change the system that

didn't really appear to be very fair when it was set up and I'm not sure that it's ever going to really be fair in a way but a lot of towns said no when it came to RSUs and got okay yeah wait well we didn't we we we were under and the

town of Durham took the threat seriously of of losing funding and they just they chose to join the RSU5. that's happened that I mean yeah it's I know what's happened and they there have been two attempts to try to pull out and

they failed handily and everyone's taxes show that change well to be the your the taxes the schools as a percentage of your tax bill is essentially the same actually a point or two lower than it was before the RSU so the town side and the county and all that has gone up just as fast right along with it and and it's you know, I mean, this is I I don't think an RSU discussion is that um productive because for the lot of reasons Jeff mentioned, it's really beyond the purview of this board.

Yeah. And you know, unless something changes at the state level like Mark said. So that's that's really the only recourse at this point. You got to get them to change what they only try to get the word out to as many people as you know when the meetings are. Um I think I know two years ago we had about 48 residents from the town of Durham show up last year I think it was in the 40s but and so on and um yeah

that's that's like one and a half% regions used to be a lot bigger than they are. I mean I was actually pleasantly surprised that we had that many people during that storm. I mean last year I don't think we had that many people. Yeah. I mean, so you look at that, you go, well, there's 33, 3,500, 3,800 people in Durham, and you got

what, less than 10% Yeah. showing up to make this. And they all know every year it's the same time, just like Christmas and Thanksgiving, you know, they've chose to do whatever they chose to do. Along the lines of kind of getting things in alignment because I I do think there's some value there. You know, one of the things I talked about, and I don't I don't think it's something we can do in one year. I think it requires a lot of,

you know, like a feasibility study to see if it would even make sense is if we moved from a calendar year to a fiscal year and like if we if our town meeting that would move our town meeting likely to like a June time frame and then we would we would know at that point what the at least what the proposed official proposed budget were and we would

it would get go a long way towards um getting our revenue stream and our spending streams in alignment with each other versus the way it is now where we, you know, were approving a budget in April that started in January and we don't collect any money on until August.

It would take it would take a year of strange taxes. It would. Yeah. So, and I don't know I don't have the answer to it. I don't know about the transition. I did have some conversation with uh you know just kind of hallway conversation after a school board meeting ironically with Tim Gidding from Powell and and um they went through a similar thing several years ago and um they had a fairly you know planned out process to get there and I we didn't really get into the details of what that was but

yes we would we we would definitely need to put together a committee of some sort to look into it so you understand the pros and cons and how you would go about doing it be um There are definitely some pros to doing it. There are definitely some drawbacks. Um and uh

you know then you got to you need to figure out and I actually yeah this would be a good one to put up there. Um is let's look look at what it would take to move from a from a calendar to a fiscal year. Maybe that's the way we do it.

And I mean it would still there would still be two meetings. Yeah. Um and uh take a look at the pros and cons and before you even decide on the pros and cons, try to map out a way that you could get from point A to point B if the town decided to.

The other thing too, Todd, is is every once in a while the RSU has um a three town meeting where it's the some of the selectman go and and um generally I go and then there are people from the board there too. And so if you want to attend any of those, you're welcome to do that, too.

So I mean, and the this so typically they have one in the fall with the leaders of each of the boards and then one in the uh in the winter around February, March time frame with all the boards, the the whole boards in attendance. It gets to be quite a large meeting then. But um and

there were three of them from Freeport last, wasn't there? three or four. Yeah. Well, the one in the one that we went to in the end of February was supposed to be everybody from every board. I did I don't think the invitation was put out quite like that, but um but so the the RSU is looking for

input from the board. Um I believe if you want to have input, you can. Um, it was actually through largely through some of my input that we got the uh meeting over here last year, the big the town meeting part of it because I had been pushing for three or four years for that and they finally they finally decided to do that. Um, I I kind of hope that maybe once every 3 years that's what they're going to do.

I think that's the intent from what I've been what I've been. So, but be nice and maybe maybe people could get used to it and actually come to it because yeah, I think it's I don't know whether it's like the third or fourth Wednesday of May that typically is, but

I think it's like May 24th or something, whatever that Wednesday is. Um, so yeah, May 24th. Uh be besides just school school stuff, what else would you what else do you I'll give it to somebody else from something else. Anybody else?

I have one. Um and this came up at uh at town meeting. I thought, you know, um there was a citizen that made several good points and asked a lot of questions about a capital improvement plan. And um I think I've expressed in budget committees that I've never really been a big fan of the um the unspent budget money just automatically going into the capital reserve account for that uh department. So I think the town is growing at a rate and to the size now where um we should look at stopping that practice and that we should have um essentially a single you know capital improvement bucket if you will and that and that each year we you know we take all the things you know all the proposed projects you know a fire truck a a dump truck an expansion on the building you know whatever it is and, you know, prioritize those projects and have, you know, a longer term plan. Um, so I that's I'd like to I'd like to

explore that. I I think it's a good uh thing to explore. I think we need to look at how to do it fairly because we have already set aside a considerable amount of money for um for the fire department and actually right now for the public works in separate designated funds. and how um

and those should really go to those departments and so on. And I I guess I would challenge that as to why it's all it's all taxpayer money. It's not the fun it's been directed it's been directed to those funds by the taxpayers already.

Well, any any change like this would have to be voted on by the taxpayers. I'm not saying that it wouldn't be. It really and I will absolutely stand on this. It is absolutely unfair to the fire department that because they they were planning things out um 10 years before every other department that we're going to to rip the money that's been a set set aside for the fire department and just throw it into a uh general capital improvement plan.

Well, I guess well we don't have to debate the the actual issue now. We we'll have plenty of time for that discussion, but that's just it's something that I think we should uh I mean, I I I I have I like the idea going forward of doing something like that, but I also have some misgivings and I'll just put one of the one of the things out there and because this year at the town meeting, it was a very stark example of it. When people are looking to cut on

the budget, they look for the big ticket items and they look and they look for the the future looking things. And we saw it this year where they didn't put anything aside for uh fire department and for public works capital improvements. Um, if you combine them all into one article, uh, my guess is that article is going to be roughly $200,000 a year trying to plan out for, uh, for roads, road

repairs, road equipment, uh, fire equipment, town office stuff, and uh, $200,000 I think will be low. Um, and that's going to be a large Wow, look at this number. let's hack this number and it may be but you know they hacked it anyway this year when it was all

separate numbers and I think I think it comes down to you know I think the better job we do of as a as a board and as department heads of you know showing due diligence and prioritization and making the case you know um then that that will end up with a with a better result that the town will support cuz while the town is of is um you know frugal, they're not I think that generally if you make a good case and they don't want to be pennywise and pound foolish. So you know with some exceptions, you know, I mean it happens.

You haven't met some of these farmers, have you? I mean, I give everybody the benefit of the doubt till they prove me otherwise. Three out of four years, I think you're right. So maybe. But every once in a while, uh something happens. This was one of those years. I don't know

what caused it. I mean, it the the fire department has been putting putting out this plan year after year after year of replacement and, you know, keeping ahead of thing, keeping ahead or on time with things and so on. And actually, the last two years they've turned down uh the equipment uh request that is actually 3 to four years past due. And um maybe

it's maybe it hasn't been presented well enough. I don't know. But so it doesn't always having the plan doesn't always work. Um it it can help. Yep. But it doesn't always work. I just think we need to look at capital and everything in context with each other.

So I do know one thing that Panel has has panel I believe has a capital um improvement committee. I'm not 100% sure on that's what I was just going to add is down there. They have the capital improvement committee and so when it goes to town floor it'll be say recommended yes or no by the so it's already been blessed by the committee

so people know and that's essentially what this gentleman at town meeting was referring to is he he asked about the CIP committee and they take it all in like okay what is fire asking for what is public works asking for what is talent office asking for and and these are you know

um this is how we prioritize but they can't be just looking this is what they're asking for this year. It's got to be it's a more Yeah, absolutely. A much more a much forward They're out 30 years. They're I mean right now they're looking 25 years.

I mean and where we're at right now, the fire department's been doing this capital project looking roughly 20 years I think uh for 10 to 15 years now is what you've been putting it together. Mhm. I've been doing it since either 03 or 04. Yeah.

And it's usually out somewhere's around 10 years to 15 years somewhere in there. And we're just we're just getting started with roads cuz um and starting starting to look I mean and it roads had been very low priority on the town for many many years and it's and it shows. Um, we are just starting to look

the town office. We're going to need to look more because we are at the 30-year mark on this town office and there are definitely things that are going to need to be done. So, but yes, I I all part of the discussion I think and do

we got a lot of big expenses coming. How are we going to manage through? Do we look at those two items up there, the fiscal year and the capital improvement plan? Does it make sense to task a single committee to look at at that type of thing or should they be cuz it's hard to get volunteers for committees?

Why can't that be the budget committee? Well, I I was going to have a similar suggestion. You know, the the budget committee is a pretty uh a pretty low demand task on as far as committee assignments goes. I wonder if there might be some it feels like a natural fit to roll at least the capital improvement piece uh maybe into their into their duties. I'm not sure. I think the the calendar to fiscal year thing might um might even be more like of a ruth with the main municipal association or even GP cog like that almost that sort of

exploration. I think I think we need some towns people too. I mean, yes, some MMA stuff and things like that, but I think we need towns people to really look at what does this mean to the town of Durham and and and come up with a presentation uh for when we bring this to if we bring this to town floor. Um this is this is where we are today. This is what we'd like to do. This is why and this is how we think we should get there.

Yeah. might end up with a year and a half's taxes into in the in a year, which is really going to tweak people a little bit. So, that's Yeah, the explanation for that is going to have to go. Um there I I have a um an issue with the capital improvement plan being rolled into the budget committee. I think it's a I think it would be a conflict of interest. Yeah. Yeah.

The budget the budget committees at least they're offering a recommendation that makes sense. Yeah. And and their their mission is often seen as what's the least amount of money we can spend and keep the town running. Um at least that's the way many members look at it. Um there recently I think there's been a a change in how budget committee member some budget committee members look at it but historically it's been

I think you're right. I think you make good points there but I'll resend that earlier suggestion. So all right any other things from you? Uh, well, yeah. Um, uh, oh, well, the one I mentioned last week, and it sounds like that Calvin has it, but I just wonder if we need to be a little bit more overt with the town on what the long range plan for taking care of the roads is like um, and maybe we need to come to them with a couple of options. you know, everything from like you mentioned the other night and I mean like oh we can't do eight miles of road in a single year. Well, what would it cost if we wanted to? Like if you do that much can and I don't know the answer to these questions and I'm not necessarily looking for answers tonight. I'm just asking rhetorically but you know what if we did want to do 8 miles in in a year because some of so many roads are so bad. I can't imagine telling people that on some of these

roads like, "Yeah, I'm sorry. You know, I know your road is like, you know, barely fit for a four-wheel drive vehicle, but it's going to be 5 years before we can get to it. I I just don't know if that's going to fly, you know, and I think we ought to at least look at, okay, and maybe the towel say, oh my god, no way we could do that." What would it take if we wanted to be more aggressive and have and have a couple of options to show the town, okay, here's the here's the 10-year plan or or six-year plan. Here's a, you know, four-year plan, and here's a two-year plan, and here's the cost associated with each one. How much how much is the town willing to bite off, you know, to, you know, so that they really un So they so they so they understand, you know, what the balance is between, you know, getting the roads done versus how much money it would cost and how soon versus how long they might have to wait to have

the road done. So I'd like to see a more comprehensive um layout and communication plan for that. Just so you do know, I mean, I can put that together for you, but just so you do know on that spreadsheet I giving you guys to the budget committee, uh, at just taking our 47.2 miles and giving it a 10-year plan, which is what do tells everyone to do, put it on a 10ear cycle. If it's 10 year point, you're going to have to do something to that road, which is an overlay.

So, doing that without roads, that spreadsheet shows the cost is 500. It's 500 something per year. But but I mean a year just to maintain the road. But but Kevin's actually looking more at let's let's what's it going to take to get the roads so that we are on that plan?

Yeah. Or we're so far behind on that plan. That's what I mean. Like at some point do we do we you know say okay we've we we've gone so long without you know with under spending on our roads. if if we want to get them back to satisfactory condition in x amount of time, it's going to cost x amount of money.

So on next Tuesday, Calvin, could you bring the road survey thing and um so that we can see uh especially the roads that um need uh because we can we can calculate approximately I can give you a per foot price, right? We could because we know, you know, if if we do it all at once, it's um the 3.6 3.7 miles that we did last year would have been approximatelyundred uh 1.9 million or something like that. We can do the same thing with with all of that. Does that um and again I don't know how this works but if you do a larger bond

can you do it can you finance it over a a greater number of years to um you know get the payment out and spread you know what I'm trying to get out over a long we could have um so this particular one that we just did we chose seven years and the main reason we did uh we could have gone 10. We probably could have we might have been able to do 15, but it doesn't make sense to do 15 years on a on something that you're going to be doing something in 10 years. So,

so in order to save some interest on it and so on, we said, let's eat a little bit more upfront and do a seven-year. But yeah, you can um and if you're doing a if you're doing uh like a two to threeyear plan, but taking out one bond, then making a a 10 12 year bond may make more sense.

Yeah. Be-c because you're not going to do all the roads that year, right? So I again I think those are all great questions. I think we should, you know, we should look at what okay, what are the options, you know, financing and and all that. So just

and as some of that stuff moves because if we just go, okay, we're going to do a bond every other year and we're going to do three miles every other year. We are never going to get there. That's not going to get us there faster.

I mean, they'd like to just see a Yeah. So So get us if you Yeah. If you can bring the road survey, at least you can see exactly how many miles of road fall into the rebuild. now because I'm the one that's going to answer the phone every day. And I can't tell you, but

it's it's actually very I mean it's hard to because we've have we have people that call us on occasion and say why are you doing this? Why are you overlaying this road or put actually the question is why are you why are you fixing this road rather than my road which is so much worse and trying to explain to them that um if you

if you don't fix this road at um half to a quarter of the cost now in two to three years you're going to be pay you're going to be paying that much more and so it's it's not it goes from a maintenance Yeah, it's it's it's not financially sound. Um, we should have been doing this

for the last 20 years and so that that's a good segue to the last tube that I have. We haven't um because we just can't get the votes or Well, we just neglected it. There was no plan. There was no plan. So, up until 2010, we

had an elected road commissioner and we contracted everything out. Um, and all road projects were proposed and went to the town floor if you wanted to pave something and so on. Since 2010, we've had um an appointed one, but we've gone through many iterations until we came to this public works. And um it was kind a

lot of the feeling was uh let's not do anything big until we get our feet under us on this. Um I wanted I personally was very strongly in favor of starting the rebuilds at least a year probably two years before we did. But the rest of the board wanted to hold back until we actually got our feet under us. And so, but it it's probably been there's there's several things that are stacking up on us. In the 80s, late 70s and early 80s, the state had a program to turn your gravel roads into

tar roads or paved roads. And they were they were giving um a certain percentage towards that. And so the town of Durham, like many other towns, hopped on that because maintenance of tar roads is um is cheaper than the maintenance of gravel roads. But when we did that, it was done without the without building the proper base. It was they just pretty much they laid the pavement over what was there. And so now we're 30 years out from that and we may have had each of these roads may have had one overlay or something in that time, but there was no base to it to begin with. So that's

I I understand that. I just what I don't understand is how are we going to somewhat navigate that back to public works? They don't have the capabilities of building this. So we're still in a form of subbing that up. Well, we're going to subcontract the paving, but we can do the ditching. we can do um if if we can spread it out over a few years and that's why we need to look at okay what's it going to cost us to do all of this in a year all this in two years cuz we'll have to sub more of it out but we can do ditching cross culverts um all this other stuff and that is what actually when when we uh gave out that sheet that showed we did this many miles of road for 1.1 million plus uh whatever the public works uh employees portion of it and stuff was compared to a similar project that if you extended it out it would have been 1.9 million. And so our savings was somewhere around the 700 to 750 750,000.

That's how we're able to save that because we did the ditching ourselves. We did the cross converts and and things like that. Jeff, if if if everybody could save $750,000 on the same amount of road, why doesn't everybody have a public works? I mean, that that number just doesn't seem to jive.

You know, 1.9 million or 1.9 miles of road. And if the guys from Durham because they're so efficient or whatever can do it, they can save a town, what was it? 700,000. That just doesn't make any sense. I even to a lay person, that doesn't make any sense.

We can we can show you the exact figures. I'd love to see it, but I mean just think about it from the outside looking in it. It doesn't projects were run by the same person, same exact same company did the work. So Kelvin, how do you justify it? How are you able to save the town? $800,000 on a road compared to cuz if that's the case, we should have some pretty good looking roads. I mean, it just the number to me. I mean whether you're putting in a driveway or there can't be that much of a disparagy 1.9 million 1.9

miles. And one of the other things that people seem to forget about a lot is they think that you're going to get all the ditching that this town needs done in a year. This town could have a 10-year plan on ditching and once you got started here and finished here,

at the end of that 10 years, you're going to start back here because that's the way ditching works. That's just the way it is. No, that's that's 100% understandable. It just that doesn't really get back to what I was asking.

So we have if we have 1.9 miles of road and it cost us $800,000 less for the same let's say scope of work. That doesn't make any sense. 3.9 miles. Okay. 3.9. Let's call it 10 miles. Who cares for that matter? We're talking about 800 grand that Durham, a public works that's been established for what, six, seven years?

Three. three years has that much efficiency over anybody else who does that type of work. That just doesn't How do you tell that to people? We're not for profit. We're not making a We're not going to make a profit. Croo is going to make a profit.

That's so Hey, man. I put in roads, I put in driveways, I build subdivision. That doesn't that number does not drive. If we're if you're comparing apples to apples, whether I hire Krooker, whether I hire Labby, they're not going to be maybe once in a blue blue moon, but they're not going to be an $800,000 disparity for the same project.

Well, I can tell you that we had Crooked do the job in Pomol, and I will tell you the one we did over here went much smoother and is a much better product in product than the one over there that we paid the I haven't seen it, and I'm not even going to debate you with it because it's it's

I'll just tell you that it didn't. So we we provided the actual figures of what we paid what we paid crooker what we paid our employees what we paid for the the equipment that the town equipment we used and added those up compared to what they paid per added those up divided so showed it was $61 roughly $61 a foot the same the same type of project that was done in panel was $100 a foot.

That's the going rate 125 a foot and so I mean it's the numbers are there. I So I am a I am very much a numbers person. I hear you and the numbers are there. What we provided are actual numbers. are actual um if you wanted us to even go and say that all of the work all of the time that was spent from April to no to November by our public works was um will count towards

this project even though they did other things you would I mean just knowing what our budget was and what we spent for and so on you would still see $500,000 or more of savings um because if you just said everything that they will throw on to this project. Then then

but Jeff, you'd have to have the exact same variables in the road, the exact same build, the exact same depth of ditching. There's no way. There's no road in Maine that's the exact same road that you would have those variables.

What is it you're looking for? I'm looking to try to figure out how what am I looking for? Well, when I hear numbers like that and or and when anybody hears numbers like that, it just doesn't make any sense. But if if we give you the numbers,

give me the numbers and show me the roads and and she has the numbers and you don't believe I mean you can go look at the road. The road's done now. Run around Pond Road and Rabbit Road in Maine in Durham. So you good with $800,000. We I tear into that

Yarm project. You take the numbers and you tear them apart yourself. That's all I can say. I don't, you know, I got to have some faith in the guys that we got working for us and and and I and I I write around, look, I heard the same I heard the same excuse from past. The ditches are too deep. You don't know what you're doing. Blah blah blah. You know what? I wrote around this town. Nobody's arguing that. We're just trying to figure out why there's an $800,000 disparagy when we have a crew that's been working together collectively, let's say, for three years versus and the argument is the only argument to be made is, well, we're not making any profit. Well, we should be making some profit because we made quite a bit of investment in public works. We just can't count labor and on gas and our truck. No,

we are nonprofit. We we make no profit. We got to make we got to make sure our basis is covered, right? Profit is, if you want to consider our profit, our profit is our savings by being able to do these these smaller parts of it with our employees rather than paying a contractor to do it all. and and that the only difference between these two roads. So we the thickness of the

asphalt that was laid was the same. the uh ma uh Durham did as uh concrete or asphalt injection concrete injection the same cost and and pounded asphalt injection but they they were the same cost and um I don't know the specs on the ditches necessarily but um the so Durm did the Durham did the ditching and the cross culverts and all that stuff ahead of time

had a lot less ditching on that project. So it actually would be even more of a savings if you want to compare foot but by footage. Um but if I mean you can look at so these were very close the projects were very similar and you can look ex I mean you can go down to panel and ask them for the the bill or how much it cost how much they paid crooer to do this job and we have the bills here. We have the we have the hours and things like that. And

if you add those up and you see the difference, you can't argue the numbers. I mean, you can say it doesn't make sense, does it? I don't care if the No, I'm just asking you. If I told you I built that house right there for 100,000 and I built the exact same house right next door, but it was 400,000, would that make sense? Now, you said you built it for 100.

Did you build a second one for 100 and you got 300,000 profit? Either way, it's costing me. No, it's it's costing me for the same project. And it's not like I'm putting sweat equity out there. We're still paying these guys. It's not like I'm swinging the hammer. It's not like the people of the town is swinging the hammer.

It's just you're talking about not that large of a road to have $800,000 roads identical. Exactly. Exactly. But there are rules that are as close as you're going to get and to be able to compare how much you're going to do it.

How so you you can't argue does it make sense to me if if we've got hard and fast numbers. I'm not asking to argue. I'm just asking but your qu to be honest I was surprised at the amount. That's all I'm asking. I haven't seen the numbers. I'm just asking does that make sense?

You were pres you were presented the numbers at the last meeting, right? It wasn't here at the last meeting. No, I mean at the first meeting or the rest were at the town meeting because the numbers I was at the town meeting. I heard about it, but I haven't

because I'm not entirely sure whether we just presented the front page or whether we presented all of the pages. Um, can can you provide look at it? And if you want me to figure explain, listen, it's it's a very simple question. I'm not looking for a smoking gun here. I like I said, I asked Kelvin, what makes us so much more efficient? It's not profit that we're able to do that. It doesn't it doesn't really correlate.

I'm not sure if I'm not sure what you're really asking because you said why wouldn't any every other town do that. Well, every other town has their own public works does their own ditching and whether or not they do their own ditching on a big project like that. I don't know. I don't know what their plan is and what they plan on if they don't. I don't know what their time frames are, you know, compared to us.

That's understandable. It's just if there was that much savings. I mean, it typically is when I which is one of the reasons why this town decided to go to a public works. It wasn't to save money. It was to get more done with the money that we have or the and um and I think we've clearly shown

that that is happening. My I talked to the engineer the other day on the on the cross culpix putting on Auburn Palmer road and he is just he just was elected to the water bell city council and he said I'm asking for these same numbers. I showed him that spreadsheet and and he said this is exactly what I'm looking for. He said I want to compare apples to apples. He said, "Even if it's the same cost for our public works crew to do it that a contractor would be, I'd still rather have a public works because I know if you guys come across something, you're going to fix it the way it ought to be fixed and not say that's an extra or we're not doing that because we didn't bid this job for that. We know you're going to fix it." He said, "So even if it's the same," he said, "I don't care. I just want to know. Bottom line is I just want to know what the numbers are." And so that's that's I

even if we were the same as Krooker, in my opinion, we'd still be better off with the public works crew because we have a goal and a plan and we're getting there. We have the best interest of the town that hard and that's what we're shooting for.

Are you for public works or against it? I guess that would be a question. I have no idea. I don't have all the data to make that make that I mean I can tell you this. The biggest complaint I got when I was running was what's up with public works? But I don't I don't I don't have a formed opinion. I just when I hear numbers like that. I've been in construction. Um

I know you have I've I own several. But I I it just it just doesn't think about one of the things that I would caution everybody on especially our new Flutton is because I've had some of these same rumors you have. Remember we know some of the same people. So some of the rumors still can all get around

and I'm not a rumor guy that I'm just you're hearing out there may be presented as fact when they're not. Some of that rumor may be partly factual, but you don't have the rest of it. Kind of like what Todd asked. And then when I gave him the rest of the story was a whole lot different. So I would caution us to be careful about that.

So may I Kevin asked about who runs the town channel. We don't have a town channel, but there's one put up there like we do. So I don't know town Facebook channel. We don't have a Facebook channel in the town, but somebody's put one out there presented it that way. So,

if the information that is coming across, but this information came from this desk. I'm not sure where you're going with this. I'm just asking about the same road. We're talking in an $800,000 savings. I'm not I'm not I'm not questioning.

You'll have sounds like you question everything. I would think you would question something when somebody says we saved $800. Chief, if you could build me a fire truck for $800,000 less than your guys in the shop, you got nothing to do on Saturdays, could you do it?

Could I do it? Yeah. Could you save the town $800 grand? We just pay the guys over there. That would have to be my profit margin. Yeah, exactly. It's just it's that's all I'm getting at. I'm not saying there's no innuendo from outside sources or towns people.

So, I guess what I'm what I'm Does that make sense? What I'm going to ask you rather than keep asking does it make sense? Can you can you look at the numbers? If you have questions on the numbers, come and verify. They can show you on this TRIO system. Um, Panel, you can ask, you can do a FOY FOY request from Panel and they have to give you that information. Yeah, we

just so that he gets it from them and so on and and and verify that our numbers are correct. And if our numbers are correct, at that point it doesn't matter whether it makes sense or not. It's true. Just go straight. And and um I mean I profit the contract.

If if if it doesn't if if you find out that oh we made we made a mistake or we forgot to count. I want to know what the real numbers are. But at up as far as I know, these are the real numbers and what I'm seeing makes sense to me as far as what we're paying our employees, what it what it costs to run the equipment and things like that. Um but I I guess rather than just saying um

it doesn't make sense. Um well, I I think the doesn't make sense got a little carried away here. What I'm what I'm what I don't what I'm asking Mark was I mean and you just admitted the same thing. I mean yeah it doesn't jive with me either till you saw the numbers right?

Right. I didn't I didn't know I didn't know. So I don't have the numbers and I ask and all of a sudden it's like hey you're getting too much influence from the town's people and you get there's all this little innuendo. I think it was a fair question to ask when somebody says hey we got the exact same job but we saved $800,000 by using our guys. I I maybe I I may. So the question kept coming back does it make sense? I was I had assumed that you had seen these at the town meeting because uh from just what I what I had picked up but um if you hadn't actually seen the numbers then um

yeah that job costing you know you had you had talked previously regarding the cost of public works as it is um and the job costing does not take into account um the cost of the building and stuff like that. um the snow mo the the snow plow costing I did take into account the cost of the the loans that we had out. So that's in there as well as um the cost of actually running the building

and I'd be more than willing to go over the numbers with you and and where the numbers come from. No, I was just I think we're getting back again to it there. I just heard a number of the exact same road. So, I I did actually have one other question on something you said. Um, and just for clarification, because you said you kept hearing from towns people, what's up with public works was the question, what's up with public works or what's up with my roads?

A little bit of both. In fairness, a little bit of both in fairness. Both public works. Um, some people were concerned about the ditching over on I think it was Quaker meeting you guys did last. Um, but you know, not not a ton of not a ton of folks, but mostly it's the roads. The roads are bad. But

what I guess as a town I think Kevin hit the nail on the head here is what's the biggest as we're seeing here, what's what's the biggest concern for the town and how do we get it fixed? What's which roads do we have strategy? Which what's the worst roads? I put together

and and we've talked about that numerous times and it was brought up at a couple town meetings ago and people asked the same question and I said, "Well, it's really up to you guys. You this isn't the Sluckman's budget. This isn't the budget committee's budget. This is your budget, ours. We all pay taxes. It's a town's budget. So, you can take what we've put out there that we think that's going to make this town run. They verified it and then it's up to you if you want to leave it, add subtract as they did this year." So,

in the end, it's a matter of do you want to pay 17% taxes or 37%. We can do all the and bring up the stuff and I'd like to I don't want to pay 37% tax. So, there's the there's the question though. How do we fix it? Well, that's it.

That's the million dollar question. Get the town to go along with like, these. But if you're not going to increase tax and there's no other way of getting revenue, how how are you going to fix these roads? Keep spending, but there won't be anybody left here to run the roads.

I mean, it's just a you won't be able to afford it. You got to maintain what you got and you got to pick away at them the best you can. So, so this this whole conversation kind of gets us to like another like goal is that just the um communication that comes out of town office. I think the new website will be a great

vehicle for that. But I think if you know I've been involved in enough issues to know that in the absence of a narrative provided by the leaders people will make up their own. Okay. So when it comes to things like you know like on the website I could see something like you know a road commissioner's blog or something where he's saying you know this is what we're doing and why and you're probably wondering why we're not doing this other thing. Well here's why. you know, just, you know, efforts like that. I mean, you're not going to get to everybody obviously, and it's more of a challenge because we don't have like a single common media source that everybody reads cuz you've got, you know, that end of town's Sun Journal and this end of town is Times Record and this end of town is Portland Press Herald, you know, so it's a real challenge. So, that's I'd like to see as a goal is like better communication

strategies. That's good. However, just so you know, like last year, we um we sent targeted targeted messages to certain because of the Davis Road, the Davis Road, we because we uh re we re overlaid the uh first part of Davis Road and knowing that

the second part of Davis Road was is terrible, but um so we actually sent out targeted messages to everybody along there. mostly wellreceived with a couple of um so I mean it is it's a big challenge um if if if you don't get a tweet about something that never happened in in a lot of people or so you've got those type of people or you get the you have people who don't know have anything to do with um new medias and stuff like that and it's really hard to try to hit

target everybody. Yeah, it's definitely a challenge, but I think I think there's more. I'm not saying we can get it perfect or even get it great, but I think we can get it better than it is now. And I mean, we we have been attempting um it's it's amazing uh even on things that we we put out in

multiple venues uh for several weeks at a time and people still come. I didn't know. Yep. I get it. I'm not trying to put anybody on the defensive. I'm just I'm just trying to put out there with a new website and you can try you can try every you can try everything you want and there's still going to be people

abs. Oh, understood. Don't get that school budget that not enough people know. Well, what you know, I don't want to get into the school thing, but the school does try like they there's I think it came out last week, the week before. They send a pretty detailed um brochure to every

address in town about, you know, these are the priorities and this is what the proposed budget is and this is what's going on. And so, you know, so um they're they're they're trying. Yeah. Yeah. But that's the thing, the communication is tough. It's Yeah, it's very hard even. Yeah,

I think actually so this may lead into something that I was kind of wondering about. It's not communication with the town's people necessarily as much as uh communication within within the uh different departments and committees and so on. And one thought I had had, I've actually had this thought for a few years now, is that maybe each selectman

take on being a leazison for um a set of committees or a department. And I'll take calm plan committee. Well, would you take the uh planning and appeals as well because that's kind of all that's No, I only because they they all have this I hear you. I hear you. But

but um so so it would be one for uh one for the fire, one for public works, one for the town office, um one for those committees maybe, and then the other committees which um I'm not there's Eureka Historic District Cemetery. Um are there any other committees on that? Memorial Day parade.

Um, and is that is that a separate committee or is that out of the fire station? No, that's a separate committee. Okay. The historic society is not a town committee, but I I think it would be interesting. Oh, yeah. Well, that that could be district commission.

So, you've got the historic district. They could also be a leazison with the historical society because even though they are not a town committee, they do have some interaction, especially if they're wanting to get monies to help improve or save some of the historic buildings and stuff. there's a lack of communication. I think you know there's there's several historical buildings in town that probably need some repair um and also need some upkeep and things like that. And I think that if there was more of a communication between the historical society who who looks at those buildings and they also keep most of their stuff up here and um is it the old Methodist church?

No. Uh Union Church, Union Church in town hall. Yeah. I I think that that might be a Yeah. So, so yeah, the one that takes on the other committees could could probably do that one cuz it kind of falls in the same same venue type stuff, the cemetery historical. Yeah.

But again, we don't need to get into the who's going to do what committee tonight, but the idea the goal the idea is like to have some selectman representation on the various Well, not Yeah. not not necessarily representation but communication.

Yeah. And and the the goal is to would be to um help improve communication between the selectman and these departments or committees. Uh not to direct the committees or the departments or anything like that. It it's to you know if they've got a concern bring it to the board. if the B board has a concern, bring it to them, but to open up the lines of communication because

it's it's a fine balance between the communication and trying to step in and run things. And um I think we've to some degree almost been overboard on a we want to we want to be withdrawn so it doesn't appear that we're trying to um micromanage the different departments. and we've gone and so we've lost a lot of the communication.

I don't think you would um even it would help to for the selectman to have a good ear with the planning board and the appeals board. There are things that yes that should be discussed as select and I don't think it means that if if you're the leazison for that board doesn't mean you have to be at every meeting.

Yeah. But You have to have an open communication. You got to be up to speed with what's going on and the issues they're dealing with. Just talk to the chairman after the meeting, see how it went, right? And and if the board has questions for them, u

yeah, things like that. So I mean I I think have that having that communication would be could be good because um we have had in the past few years there have been some communication issues that have um come come about that

have caused a some ripples at times and I think it might be a good not not saying anything. I think that's a good idea. You could have asked. I I have to ask a question on that though. To some degree though, I guess what would the intent be like if the fire department had a liaison if in regard to me needing to come every couple of weeks to do a report and stuff? I would think that would remove the necessity to come before the border.

I wonder if where we have a department head. I'm not sure for and I'm not sure I think we have a liazison with these guys. No, actually I I I I actually thought having somebody specifically communicating with the department head um and maybe with the department at at times and so on or with with the uh office um that that's that's their role um to um I I know at one

point a couple years ago I had kind of wanted like what you were saying I kind of wanted to go um to a once a month um for department heads reporting if we could do it. And we tried it and for some reason it went right back right back to the every every meeting. But um especially if there's not something that you need a you know you need to request a vote on or something like that, a written report should would probably suffice. Um, yeah.

But isn't isn't part of the the intent of them coming, not that I want you guys necessarily to have to come every meeting, but isn't part of the intent to inform the public as well, you know, as they watch the videos. Yeah. But if there's nothing uh super major going on, I don't see why once a month wouldn't be enough for each and maybe all. So maybe one one meeting would or every other meeting. So, one meeting would be like road commissioner and the other meeting would be uh fire department or something unless there was something pressing that they needed to address. And

um but I mean we can we can discuss that at at meetings and and that's just one of those uh that's one of the things I did want to throw out there as a possibility. Um and we can discuss how things work at a at a regular meeting if we if we want to go down this road.

Yeah, I think the layers is a good idea. I just as long as it doesn't, you know, get misconstrued as, you know, you're coming across as the chairman, you're there to maybe sit or say and and just so and just I mean we almost have to be a silent observer unless we ask for help

and and I've sat in some meetings that Kevin was chaired way back actually when there was some school stuff and I just kind of showed up. I think I was at probably more meetings than even some of the people that were on them. you were, but they just, you know, and that's basically what I did is I just kind of listened and I I probably a couple times asked if I could make a comment, but most of the time I didn't say nothing. And I think that's really the part of it.

I will say, you know, we never we never saw it as an intrusion. In fact, it was it was often times I thought it was helpful to have a selectman's ear there, right? And Josh Libby was there. One of the one of the biggest things um that needs that should be stressed to select men and so on is that you you do not there is no authority as an individual,

right? We we act as a board, right? So you may be a leazison um to communicate things from the board to a department head or to another board or and communicate things back. But as a single individual selectman, you don't have the authority to tell the the fire chief what to do,

right? Or the road commissioner what to do. you you might you might make suggestions or if he asks or something you might make a suggestion but you don't have you don't have the right to do and um sometimes sometimes that understanding is very clear among board members and sometimes there has been a little blurring of that

about yet but I think I don't know if we need to articulate it or not because we kind of already know is that um we need to deliver that the um health insurance comp analysis. Um that's something that we have to Do do you think you could have the uh

the MMA um salary survey stuff on health things for surrounding communities and similar size communities by like the 16th the May 16th meeting or um Yeah, that's easy enough. Okay. I I didn't want to I didn't want to make you have it by next meeting, but by May 16th or something like that, just so that we we can have and

yeah, I think that's that that would be good for that meeting and give us a good starting point anyway. Yeah, there. And this is uh and I didn't even know you could do this, but I was reading in the forecaster last week or the week before and there's an article about North Yarmouth and their budget or something and and um they have a program where if the resident is, and I might get these numbers wrong, but the gist of it'll be right. But if the resident is 70 years old and has lived in town for at least 10 years and in their current home for at least a year, um, then they get a,000 bucks off their property tax bill.

Look, that's legal. Yeah, I believe it's an ordinance. Yeah, but that I didn't I I'm surprised that didn't fall under the uh the fair the fairness act. No, it's it's it's legal. Many towns do that. Yeah. So, I I throw that out there. I throw that out there as a uh an acknowledgement that Yes. I mean, I absolutely get

a $1,000 off their tax bill. Yep. Yeah. Wow. That's Yeah, cuz irregardless of the they're paying a,000, but they get free taxes. I mean, well, I don't know about I don't know if it's a you know, like you probably don't get the fair

income. I don't think it's refundable credit. They don't get a refund. Does it matter if he's a millionaire or not? You know, I think I think it might help cuz we're if we're going to, you know, we know we have a lot of stuff coming down the road where, you know, roads and fire trucks and town office and all this stuff and, you know, it might be a little easier, you know, for the town to, you know, kind of say, you know, understand that we got to do it if we're helping out, you know, the the senior citizens on the fixed incomes that people, you know, cite the most often, you know, as being concerned. erned about it. It might

be way to help balance that impact. It' be interesting to It would be interesting to uh investigate that. Um the Yeah, I'm not even necessarily advocating for it, but I think it's an interesting idea that we should look at.

It's got to be paid somewhere, though. Exactly. That's That's the point. I mean, it we're trying to figure out how we're going to pay these things and now we're going to decrease tax. It's I'm forward. Well, it's kind of like people say, "Oh, we're concerned about, you know, the senior citizens." Well, okay. Here's a chance to put your money where your mouth is and we're all going all those of us under a certain age are going to pay a little bit more so that those of over a certain age will pay and

they'll actually stay here instead of going to I mean some other things making all their money and going maybe maybe making sure everybody understands the uh homestead exemptions. We work very hard for that. Yeah. Yeah. because um that's that's a fairly substantial

exemption and we get is it 75% of it back from the state now. Right now it's 62.5% this year. Okay. Cuz it's it's gone up to $20,000 off the Okay. assessment value of your home. Yeah. Well, so or so maybe an effort is, you know, maybe we uh if that's the case, do are there are you saying there's a fair number of people that are eligible for and not taking?

I I don't know what the what the percentage of people that use it that use it are. But there's no income requirements. The only requirement is that it's your homestead, right? But I guess what I'm getting at is if if there are would it be worth you

know you hire an intern or something you know somebody a part-time or you go through the tax hey this person's not like make an effort to go out and encourage people to take the homestead exemption. It would be interesting to know what what percentage of uh properties uh residents what percents of uh properties with residences on them h use that because and it's not going to be everyone because if you have another residence that's your primary residence you can't

you can't right understood but but it' be interesting to know I I think a probably more than 50% of the people eligible are are using it but yeah so in the mail I've gotten them in the I mean, I don't qualify, but I've gotten something about the Homestead Act.

Oh, that's something I'm talking about. Some So, the um what I'm talking about is anybody qualifies if this is your primary residence, right? Um you on the fir basically on the first $20,000 of value, you don't pay you don't pay taxes. Um it does there are there are very few eligibility requirements for it. There are some where you can reply, you can apply for a tax credit from the state and that's

tax fairness credit. Tax that's much harder to do. There's much more. Yeah. Um but anyway, that was the little final idea. You know, if you guys want to get into that kind of thing, um Gardner used to put out um a flyer with the tax bill. We used to send out a flyer that had information about the homestead exemption, about the veterans exemption, about any other um things that are going in town

with the tax bill. With the tax bill and it's also in the annual report. So every year in the annual report, it is outlined there in the assessor section that those are options. Are we still doing the mailing? Are we doing the mailings through a uh company now or are we doing them ourselves? Yeah. So So we could get them they flying.

It wouldn't be substantial amount of money either. Okay, that that would that might be it doesn't help him this year, but it would it would help them in next year because you have to get it in by April 1st, right? So, what just out of curiosity, does anybody know the demographics in terms of what is our population that's at 70 plus?

It's pretty low. It's we're below 9% or below 65. we have it's actually a much lower percentage than surrounding I'm surprised uh because at all of like the comprehensive plan committee meetings like over at the school and so on they talk about our aging population and I don't I don't believe that's true we've got we've got a lot of younger families moving in um and so on we have

one of the highest median incomes and one of the lowest average ages in the state I think our our our most population though Kevin isn't it within like 35 to 55. I don't know. I don't know. I don't have those numbers committed to memory. They didn't like stick out, but I have all that stuff. I can I'll

Well, that stuck out to me because I, you know, it's like a second home. It's like not your first starter home. It's your your established now. And this is where you're going to live. Yeah. There's no doubt that um we know, and Bill did some work on this, too. I think we know that there are not a lot of what we would call affordable starter home type places in Durham. no

or rentals or we know that's that's something that's very that the comp committee is talking about you know quite a bit and is definitely on the radar. How do you how do you address that? It's difficult. Yeah. Exactly. Right. You know

and actually what I found is actually the most recent information is actually from 2015. It doesn't go all the way back to the 2010 census. There's information from 2015 that's out there. Yeah. A lot more. Our ordinances discourage discourage duplexes.

Yeah. As rent discourage rental property, right? Right. Um and affordable housing at 4550 $60,000 a lot. Affordable is tough. So yeah. So those that's that's all part of the equation, you know, down the road dealing with that.

It's been it's always been difficult. Yeah. any other items to touch on? Um any uh anything that I mean it's it's kind of hard at this point because you for the ones on the new on the board and so on as far as uh how meetings are operating because you you really haven't had a a chance to see too much on that. Um, any any other comments or suggestions on what you might like to see?

Is there any way that we can include the budget committee during the year so they're more in tune with what is happening in January? We can we can try. We we have made an effort in the past few years uh we send out quarterly reports. We've invited them at least one time like midway through the year. This last year we invited him midway and near the end of the year we had had some like we invited him when uh Pine Tree Waste and Tice Waste were here presenting. So

how did that go? Did you get a We actually got a fair number of them. I found it Yeah, I was on the budget committee at the time. I found it very valuable to be here when the t during the Ty um Pine Street thing and there was a meeting last July kind of like after the commitment was done and everything. I personally was not able to make that one but I think I was the only one who

most most attended I think. So I think I think you know they uh the budget committee I think has just as a lot of people on the budget committee would share the same goal. They would like to be more involved in and more kind of in the loop so that everything's not you know fresh and new on for three nights in February or drinking from a fire hose you know. So would a a municipal finance workshop be handy

for uh and I would if we did something like that I would also suggest inviting the budget committee um because there are I mean quarterly no no means like a training uh uh municipal so that when we come to budget times or we're looking over things when we start talking about undesated funds or um restricted funds or um some of these other terms that typically don't get mentioned out in the business world because he and you don't have undesated funds necessarily. Um you wish you had undesated funds. Not that you want to talk about on camera.

irrelevant. Yeah. And if if that would be something that would be handy, um I I I think maybe um sometime m uh early late May, early June or something like that, we might be able to schedule something, invite the budget committee just to give kind of a heads up so that or maybe we wait maybe we wait until December or something when we're getting closer to the budget season so it doesn't all uh doesn't necessar all get forgotten or something. But it it can be especially when you come into it new uh confusing uh when when certain terms are thrown out that aren't explained.

I I would find that valuable. Anything like that that helps us understand. I remember I mentioned it before and I know we set some of those quarterly things that I think that if you could get together with the budget committee each quarter when they got that packet and maybe that's better.

I don't think we've gotten one of those packets in a while. You haven't. Okay. I didn't have the numbers. I just put the budget numbers in. They didn't put anybody on the spot. Well, you're only you're you're only a month beyond the quarter,

but I think um I think a quarterly budget committee meeting to like kind of do a quick review of I think that would be a great good first step, you know, cuz it's get that cadence going of uh you know, regular touch base. Maybe maybe actually save on

maybe save on some of the questions at the budget committee times when they when they start going down through well why did you why did you spend here or something like that if they already see what we spent and they can ask the questions early.

So do we want to invite them to May 16th? I think that we we could invite them to the second, but it's actually May 16th would be good because they could be there during the discussion on what we find for the health insurance comparisons.

We think you think we're going to have results by May 16th. No, no, no. This is just the comparisons compared to other communities. What other communities? That's what But you'll have Well, I guess that's what I meant by results. You'll actually have a comparison by

Yeah, cuz so the MMA Oh, really? Okay. They part of the salary survey they also do. They compile that. Yeah. I thought you were going to have to call towns and Okay. No, only the ones that aren't on the survey. All right.

Um, anything else? Chief, can I maybe throw a couple things out there? Some of them have been discussed but it uh I guess one of the things I wanted to throw out there is one of my things as a department head that I've always found difficult to work with and you have discussed it but I just wanted to give you my angle on it is the um our budget year our budget year is very difficult not operationally to work with but rather from the perspective of if you do any capital improvement of capital projects

and there's not something in place for non-lapsing in reality we look at it that it's a year-long project and it's not a year-long project. You have perhaps 7 months, 8 months to actually complete the project and get the invoices turned in and cleared. Um, which in municipal government that that's pretty difficult.

The other put together the the the um proposal, the request and everything and to get it approved by the board, you're looking at a month to four weeks to six weeks just to get somebody hired in the first place. Then scheduling and then the actual project. It it really

that is one piece that in all my years of being chief that I have not liked in regard to our budget the way we do our budget is that window to get the capital projects that don't having a non-lapsing budget attached to them completed.

So speaking of terms and so on that's a new one non-lapsing. So, uh, your typical budget that's voted in in May, in March, uh, April, uh, ex expires, all that budget expires on December 31st. Um, if if you haven't spent it, the money basically either goes into your capital reserve fund or it goes back into the undesated funds. It lapses. A non-lapsing fund is like the uh, fire department capital reserve fund. uh that money goes into and but it

doesn't it doesn't return back at the end of the year. So um next year we could take we can appropriate money from that. It still needs to be reauthorized but it has to be authorized but but you could then um but that money doesn't dis disappear,

right? Uh per se. The other money doesn't disappear but it can't be spent. it has to be reallocated and actually everything has to be reallocated. The only other thing that you can do is if you know the expense and the work is either started or you or whatever you can encumber it at the end of the year and actually pay it in the next year. Um but

but the work has to be substantially finished before December 31st or your account you on the end. But so yeah that's that the non-lapsing refers to it doesn't it doesn't uh disappear and can't be used. The other advantage to having a fiscal year over a calendar year is you can have more than one due dates for your tax bills. The reason we only have one due date is because I can't commit taxes until the summer because I don't know what to commit for the school, right? But if you're committing um in the fall, then you can have a tax due date in the fall and then you can have a tax due date in the spring, which is a lot of towns do that. Um some towns even do monthly.

That might be a selling point if we decided to go, you know, that way just so people can, you know, spread it out over. Yeah. Do you want to do you only want to get one bill and pay it all at once or do you want to get build time after time?

Probably a 50 Probably 5050 thing. You only get one bill. Yeah. If he was going to do that, that might ease the pain of the year and a half's worth of taxes. So, you end up with 3/4 3/4 so to speak. That might not make it

well. You're still in in a 12-month period, you're still going to have to pay uh for 18 months change over. Yeah. Because you you're adjusting your time frame. So, so you like if you like you pay your bill in August and then instead of waiting till the next August, your next bill comes 6 months later and then you're on a six-mon schedule from that point out. So that's

most of the town sends you off one bill and then you have a little slip that says right that's you can pay the other half and and actually like with uh when I lived in Lisbon that's what they did but I actually got a second

correct I got a second bill when it was yeah I got a second bill when it when the second part was due but um to remind us but yeah a lot of a lot of the times and after after something that happened today I I think the reminder one would probably be good. Yeah,

we had we had somebody that was here that was I ra about something that after closed after Oh, after the office closed. After the office closed. Yes. Yeah. To go along with that, it's not, you know, I I stated capital or projects and but it's not just that. Sometimes it's operational things because you're it's you're authorized to spend a certain amount of your operational budget, but if the next calendar the next calendar year you have a project that's within the operational budget, but if it's outside the parameters of what you did last year, I mean it you're yeah it's operational but nevertheless the only thing you can assume is that you have this 312 412 last year's budget. So if it's outside of the normal operational parameters, the funding really isn't there to start the process either. So it could be not just capital, it could actually be in your operational budget and it's just outside of normal

operation and you're in dangerous ground if you try to fund it beforehand if you don't absolutely have to. So that that piece is always I've always found difficult to manage. Uh, another piece that I was in in some aspects it's shooting myself in the foot because we've always had the capital improvement plan, but my opinion is that I've always advocated that the community overall I should submit a capital improvement and plan and the selectman or or whoever the governing board is should actually put together a communitywide capital improvement plan so that

we're not fragmented. I mean, you compared a lot of what we did to business and the private sector. No, no business, no private sector business is fragmented like that where uh the fire service represents theirs, the town office represents theirs, the public work represents theirs. It actually goes to the management of that organization and they in turn prioritize and put together the operational plan and the capital plan for that business or organization. So, even though I'm shooting myself from the foot to an extent, I had it there because we needed to have it, but I have always advocated for the rest of the community to have one as well.

Yeah. And I think I hope still want to keep our funding separate, though. Of course. Oh, that makes sense. I mean, I hard to disagree with that. Well, I I can, but now it's not today's night's not done. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I uh the funding aspect of it I you know part of marketing where it was the only capital plant part of the the funding aspect of it is in order to market the the the apparatus needed to be upgraded bad and part of the marketing process needed to be to identify the funding sources. So a lot of that came along with that. By no means though I don't want you to take what I just said as a reason to have a rescue. I've told other communities that have talked to me about it and stuff, the reason to have a a transporting rescue unit is not to generate revenues. It's to provide a better service to the citizens.

If that's a reason, that's okay. And then if you generate revenue beyond that, that's great. The revenue is basically secondary. What's that? The revenue is secondary to what you're trying to do. This revenues are secondary to the service. Make sure the service is what the citizens need. It's better. it's in the best interest of them and then if you can generate revenues great

revenues are irrelevant even though I gave up some of my turf and stuff I do government revenue that's what we decided earlier revenues are irrelevant because we're running a town not a business right well no yeah let's not go back there uh I I wouldn't say revenues are relevant because then you're telling people in don't bother pay your

taxes right you know revenue is from his service is what he's saying the only thing that's relevant is the service it's not what we make from the service because we're not a business right but I think the re people the reason I think people have

well it came up quite a bit the town hall I say the reason people keep bringing up town hall is because it was used as a part of the argument for doing it years ago so that's I mean you know they have minds like steel traps remember everything that was said at town meetings for the last 10 years

remember everything that was said something you want to know what the income source is. Chief, how much in 1997? So I presented the first responder service. I never represented and I would challenge anybody to come back with a recording whether written or

recorded of me ever saying we need to do this to generate revenue. I have seen we were spending money before whereas now instead of spending money we are bringing in money. We were spending 20 to 30,000 to other comm community to the other services just having a first responder service and it only made sense to we were basically giving the money sense it still makes sense.

Well on the town floor they're always it's a wash paying for itself right obviously that's what everybody wants but it doesn't always work that way. It it can't, right? Um, it's the rules of inflation, I guess. As far as roads go, which one are you getting the most complaints about?

This is a rhetorical question. Hill Meadow probably plumber mill. Yeah, that's I because I've gotten emails on plumber mill even though I mean it's a it's a low traffic road, but it's the people that live on it. Yeah. But as far as the complaints I'm getting here right now, Bowie Hill

number one's probably Bo Hill. Boy Hill. Boy Hill from Davis Road to the stream. Yeah. Is there anything we can do to get started on that ditching? And I'm working on a plan hoping to have some extra money, but there again with what Kevin was saying is is

how do we get from here to there? And sometimes that requires a band-aid here even though you know it's not the best option because you know that you're you're you're kicking the can down the road. But right so there's going to be a certain amount of we're going to have you know suck it up buttercup. Right. We're just going to have to

30 or 50 to it next year. That's that's still paying for a roof on the school that doesn't exist anymore. Right. The other thing is, you know, people people are talking about things like that, but most people in town, including myself, don't remember when these roads were much worse than what they are today. I mean, I'm I'm not old enough really to remember a lot of that, but

Yes, I know. I'm I'm like I'm like at least what, three years younger than you? At least three. Calvin, when you prioritize the road, do you go by the worst road or how is that prioritized? Just so uh well, right now going by this I just have them categorized as rebuilds m. So what I'm looking at is if it's a road that's in a maintenance plan, preventive maintenance plan, I'm trying to keep that road before it. So in other words, I I don't want to sacrifice those roads at the expense of fix these at the expense of my good roads, the worst roads. This road is already gone. It's already gone. So let's not say a lot of towns get in this trap of worst first. Let's go get this road's completely gone. So let's go after that one next. That's that's only stands the reason we should go after the worst one first. Well, what happens

in that mindset is all your roads that are in the maintenance category now all end up there. It's a vicious cycle. So you've got to figure out how to maintain your existing roads that are still passable without and get your other ones rebuilt. It's an intricate.

That's one of the reasons why we put in a a substantial increase in the budget for public works is to to continue the m maintenance on the roads. And then as far as the rebuild roads, um your the program that you use takes into account the condition of the road, the um the

how traveled the road is. So if you have two in in the same condition and one's uh much more heavily traveled, that would float to the top. Traffic count, traffic count, number of taxpayers affected. Is there a school, a fire department? Is there some public safety, right? Fire chief.

Well, is there is there any way we could I know it's all flat through there, but is there any way we can stack at least show something done on that road? working on that because I know that's what so I mean irritate people you mentioned like at the last meeting you mentioned

that the what came in from all states was um lower than what we had expected so there may be some additional funds available in the budget that we can try to do something plan to try to do a heavy cold mix drag shim hope overlay through that section

you did that on another road last year didn't you those were just shims of just wheels. I mean, this would be more significant than that, but yeah, they would be the same. The trouble is there's no base actually. So, yeah. Any

anything that we do other than ditching um anything that we do on that road is going to be throwaway. Yeah. I mean, but we it may be throwaway in two years, three years. Who it's a band-aid? Yeah. Tourniquet is throwaway, too. But the patient survives

Yeah. So costbenefit scenario will have something to discuss. Can you can you ditch that properly enough so that lower the water table, right? Because where it's already sitting in water basically. Can you really can you get that deep enough to do some of that? I mean there might be a couple spots, but

you best be careful. Yeah, they would. Well, that's the thing. It's pretty much sitting in a wash the whole thing. Yeah. It's right there. Yeah. And you're not going to change the water. That's what I'm saying. Not with the budget we have. I can tell you that right now. I don't know.

The water table's going to stay where it's going to be. You can't really ditch it. If there's no place to ditch it to get it out of there, correct? That may not. But that piece the piece from Davis down to Cops Pit has enough. That's about a 2 and 1 half 3% grade there. It's that piece in the field that's

that piece is the worst of the worst of the road. I guess I just so I'm clarifi but the maintenance aspect is priority but are there I guess for lack of better words and I'm not trying to is is there roads that you or chief or anybody in service deem as a public safety they're that bad that are on the priority list.

That's a discussion. Well, I think that discussion is warranted if we're if we're saying we got roads that bad. The other end of Davis Road on Bo Hill. I mean, we've talked about public safety from a standpoint of is this road significant? If if this road wasn't here to get from here to there, how does that impact your transportation needs fire? But as far as is it passable? Is it a public safety risk because of its condition? We haven't had that discussion. No.

Yeah. I mean, that's a discussion we have. For the most part on most on most of these roads, the only public safety issue is people going too fast for the road conditions. So, the roads are still passable, but you might have to slow down to to a much slower speed than you want to go.

Is there a speed limit sign on my road map? Did you see that? I guess I guess that's what I was getting at. a road public safety versus other than other than human element. Well, to me, I I would find, you know, if you've got a two foot sinkhole, you never know a large sink, that's a public safety.

It's got a rough road. Did you recently safety? Cuz you can slow down. That'd be a public nuisance. It's a public nuisance. But I guess what I was getting at, do we have any roads that we would quote unquote deem as a public safety?

35. Would do you have any roads that you would deem that are basically not safe to pass? I have a road right now that my plow driver said he didn't have a plow anymore. Said he's not safe. He got stuck in the road. We had CJ Steve CJ got stuck on one of them. The plow it picked the back of the truck up and go

that was we just redid that road now but I was running around the road. Okay. So currently do I mean do we have a public safety issue out there I guess is what I was trying to get at. pulling over the plow got stuck in it and okay.

So is that at the top of the list? Yeah, that must have been that is uh because if we have a public safety issue, you got an obligation, right? That that has to be the fastest that we attack. that deteriorated quickly this past year, as I say,

and and that's why you're looking at doing some sort of a band-aid, some type of of there's also there's there's politics involved and there's people that have lived on a certain road that have been promised for like Davis Road for example.

There's no politics when it involves public safety, right? Well, there there is there is when and there may not be at one level, but in another level there is. Well, maybe there is, but I mean I I guess maybe we're just using the word public safety too broad. I I was just looking. Is there something that the town deems that's dangerous?

And if so, is that the highest priority on the list? If the plow's getting destroyed on that road, it's probably a public safety issue because that plow is pretty tough and you imagine what a car goes through going through that.

I I don't know about the car. I was just It's just a general Yeah. Chief, can you get your fire truck down there? Well, actually that's what cuz that's what I would call a public safety issue road that we do have roads that we have one road in town that the last three or four years once cold weather sets in and we start to get any frost teeth whatsoever in the summertime with the patches is usually not too bad. the New Brunswick road and that actually delays our response to that

125 section of town by having to go down the Quaker meeting house road delays our response by anywhere from what's it take 3 to 5 minutes to make up that distance maybe 3 minutes 5 minutes so it delays our response because of that the other side of it is it actually changes the mileage but

that road is so bad that if I don't I mean we got to go five or 10 miles if you think about it in a big truck you got to go 5 to 10 miles an hour across that road. That's why three to five minutes going the other way. We're actually gaining town versus old Bron Road. That's the only one I'd really deem that we don't put

this time of year. We don't put fire trucks. If you watch us, our response is I'll go to Quaker meeting house road and cut across. The other side of it is is that adding that time delays the response. But the other piece of it is I actually just talked about the five miles from the fire department. If we're deeming that a certain number of months out of the year that road's actually out of service, does that change the mileage to those residences over there? I'm not going to volunteer that information.

Yeah. No, I No, I probably lives as far away on that road as possible. I appreciate that. Yeah. But I guess you two are really the only I I don't want to generalize here, but I I think you two are the only ones qualified that could deem what's public safety.

Absolutely. Um, so that's why I asked the question and and the question is if we have a public safety issue in the town, we have an obligation to put that at our highest priority, do we not? I don't think that we have a road in town that the fire department couldn't get to if it was a fire or or a rescue call. I don't think we're that bad. But

that's fine. But it's just slow. It's just a little bit slow. So So we have no roads that are public as far as we don't we're not rebuilding any miles of road this year, right? We don't have money to rebuild any miles of road. It's all maintenance this year.

Remember, the plan has already laid out. It's already been voted out. So, but moving forward, you guys will have the you guys are the ones that will choose the roads moving forward, and we'll have the meaningful discussion on what our next year's plans are.

Yeah. Seemed like maintenance was a higher priority. That's that's why I was asking trying to just keep So, when next next meeting when you bring that survey to us, then you can see how they're rated too. And and I mean, DOT will tell us over and over again, we should not be spending our general road maintenance funds on rebuilding roads. It should be bond. They tell you to bond those bond because

once you start using your maintenance funds to rebuild those so to be honest, I'd like to get away, you know, it's we're we're many many years away from that. Get away from bonding it, but it should be a separate capital item because I mean bond anytime you bond, you're paying interest.

Sure. Yeah. and panel doesn't have a road capital plan and you know we've tried to get that started but it just really there's some friction about how that works but so oh thank you so we're five after 8 now um you call it

operational planning as well that for the growth of the different aspects in the community and stuff like that for the financial end of it um what do you mean by operation Well, operational like operational I talked about my operational budget and the need to NFPA every 10 years I need to replace

turnout gear. The state isn't enforcing it yet, but I think that should be part of our planning process for the future and everything because that's an expensive ticket. Oh yeah, that you know we're talking $35,000 to outfit a person with a set of turnout gear. Well, if every 10 years, you know, so I've managed to incorporate that in my budget, but one of the other pieces that's coming up is, you know, we have a thermal imaging cameras. Yeah, we've got them there, but now we need to maintain a replacement program as the technology changes and they age. SCVAs, I actually have some SCBA, self-contained breathing apparatus that um I can no longer get maintenance done on. have been holding out okay and I have to provide one for each seated position but anyway the the

basically the I have carbon fiber cylinders which I put in for a grant 15 years lifespan on the carbon fiber cylinders and even if they're still serviceable I have to take them off the shelf so I guess from an operational perspective and the same thing operationally to me the operational aspect of it is the you know the staffing issues and stuff and the coverage issues. To me, these are pieces that as a community, I should be providing perhaps feedback to the board

or input to the board and then in turn, we should be developing a municipal plan per se. You know, if we're looking at the capital aspect, I think the operational aspect Kevin talked some about, well, you know, you do maintenance on this road, that road, and the other thing. I think this should all be weaved together.

makes Yeah, makes sense. Okay, nothing. Anything else? Um, okay. We'll call the I don't think we need a motion because this is a workshop. We'll call it uh over.