TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ February 2, 2016

Okay. Thank you. You have this. Did you give one to Jill? I did. I did. She's got me trained. Well, we're ready. Shannon, are we good? We're all set. Okay. Thank you. All right. We'll call this workshop to order uh for going over budgets and I think we'll start with the uh public works and roads. Uh the review of the operations budget and you want to go ahead and present what you've got and Yep.

rather than just lump sum numbers I've broken it down uh the subcategories. So, um, the top of the page, the first six items, the salary down through road insurance. I had Ruth do those numbers. Uh, she did them last year and this year, so if there's any issue with those, I can talk to her. So,

was was there any thought to any uh raises in in the calculations? 2% Okay. So, all right. That's what you added in, right? So, it's a a 2% change plus the shift from a 52h hour or 52 week to a 53 year to a 53 week. So, so it's actually it ends up being a uh 4% change roughly. Okay.

breaking it down winter and summer labor is that just uh well there is a if you go over in the winter I know where I've been is usually the winter's broken out from the summer for the reason if you go over the law allows you to go over without having to go get meet with the town people to get more money if you're in the middle of plowing and for winter operations you can go over by 25% % and uh without having to go back to the voters to get money if you are have a bad winter or

Okay. So most towns will separate the winter out from the summer for that reason. Okay. And I see you added janitorial. Um I I realize that we need that over there. Is that uh what three four hours a week? It budgets for four. She's been doing it in

Okay. two to three. Okay. But I know I is is it is she getting enough done in those or do you think it Well, last week was her first week doing the entire building and she seemed to get it done and I I figured she'd probably need four hours but if she can do it in three that's great but

Okay. So this will be like the first year on it. So yeah. Okay. got them I've got them both all all here. So, but just tell us which one you're referring to and I haven't looked at this one yet. So, okay. This is uh Okay. Yep. Um,

was um this kind of tells where the changes are where the big changes are and explains them and the top I kind of left that for the um administrative support help Um, but I'm looking at the numbers and the budget first and see see where we end up.

I mean, you can see the bottom line where we end up so we can just go through the rest of it anyway? Yeah. Are you So you're going to use that one there first to go through or do you want to Well, you can refer back to this one if you have any questions.

I I'm just cuz the this what we have here and and this one are laid out quite differently. So I just need to know which one you're looking at. So yeah. Which one you want to use? You want to use this one? We'll look at this one.

Yep. Let's go with that. Go ahead. Okay. So, any questions on that? Too much. Yeah. Go ahead. Well, we What is the difference between that and last year? So, 40,000. 40,000 roughly. Yeah. Or exactly almost. Yeah. Give or take a couple thousand depending on whether my numbers match.

difference. I got to figure out how to read yours. You got to go on the second page. Yeah. To the Oh, the Oh, this is just a Yeah, there you go. Was like that. Okay. All right. It's a book. So, walk line 30, I see there's a big difference in uh professional services,

engineering and surveying. What the the notes in here say? Is that looking at at rebuilding roads or Yep. We're going to have to have some money for engineering people to go out there and do some do some work surveying and uh engineering. So,

uh, I don't know if you want to. I'd hate to wait until we want to do the job and then find out whether we need to have the work done. We should be probably getting that done now or back into that does uh fuel the fuel account gasoline and diesel. Um you decreased it from last year by 10,000 but it's still 11,000 more than we spent last year

and plus I think prices are still going down quite a bit. I didn't know whether there's there's room for any more there. Yep. Well, if I was going to make a cut, that would be one of the places that I would go to and say, "Well, maybe we could uh

and see what I My my initial thought on that was splitting the splitting the difference at about 55. Well, you'd have to add 6,000 to that 48,972 because I I um took 6,000 of it out to put in with um facility maintenance

um I I the heating fuel and the propane for the heating the building got moved to to the utilities line. Yeah. So, and out of the the fuel. Okay. So, that was so that would actually be more like 42,000 or 43,000. Right. That So, so we could probably come down to 51 or 52 easily, would you think?

So, you're at 48. We're looking at a 42 or Yeah, I would say so. As long as fuel everyone okay with 51. As long as it doesn't go up to $3 and a half again down, it goes up a lot faster. I have no idea what's No, no. And and we we don't. But that still gives us a uh that still gives us an $8,000 buffer.

Yeah. The one is the way it's going right now. I trucked this in. Yeah. So So where are you changing it to J? I'm looking. So it would be line 33 reducing it to to 51,000. 51, right? Or 52. Everyone 51. 51. Everyone okay with that? Final enough.

Yeah, I can live with that. Okay. Okay. The last 51. Okay. but yeah, halfway through the year. They might be going every day like they did last year. Well, next year it's different budget. I don't understand. But uh All right. U

Well, I meant Yeah. When it starts this year, right? That's right. Which could be next week. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Equipment maintenance is the next one. Um I see we expended 20 roughly 27 and you're you dropped it from last year uh but it's still at 415. Are you expecting more repairs because of the age of this trucks or

Well, there's a lot of things we didn't get to uh this year that I would like to get to next year. Um, I'd like to be a little more proactive. Uh, which line is that? Uh, would be 34. I see that. Trying to get it on this one. Oh, 4,000. Okay. Um, yep. And I wanted to add the Freightlininer diagnostics. That is a uh

Okay. $1,500 a year. Um, if you'll see it on the Excel sheet, you'll see I put in there a note next to it that Freightlininer diagnostics $1,500 and it uh um would allow us to plug our trucks in and tell us exactly what's wrong with them.

One one 1500 not not per truck, right? And we could plug all of our trucks in and know exactly what was wrong with them. Is that a one time or is that a uh subscription each year? Well, actually that would be this year. It would actually be cheaper. The first year is $800 to buy the um software, buy the uh the system, and then it's uh $600 and something a year or

to renew it after that. Okay. Because it's online. So, yes. Okay. So, it's $600 a year subscription fee, but you have to buy it initially at 800 and something. So, so I just figured 1,500 bucks would give us the room to get that going.

Okay. So, that would be bring us to 285 if we add that in. But you said there's a there's other things that work done. There's notes about it in the supporting documentation as well. Okay. All right. So essentially I'm cutting it by a third. I'm cutting I'm cutting the budget for that item by a third and I've but I did add the tools back in. Um, and what I could do is have him give me an exact It's hard to tell the tools. You just don't know. You don't know what's

so you were at uh last year we were at 48,000. This year I'm asking for 415, but I'm adding the 5,000 for tools for mechanic tools and the 1,500 for the freight liner. Okay. So that Yeah, that brings All right. So we're down to 415, but I've added

you've added 6,500. You took 6,500 off plus you added 6,500 to what? To additional from what we spent last year, right? Yeah. Right. rental equipment and you decreased it and you're decre because you're mowing's you're decreasing mowing.

Yeah. Gone from two weeks to one week and I think that's more than sufficient. Um LA what did we how much did we do mowing last year? One week. One one week. I re I renegotiated the contract with with HP Fairfield and uh 7541 and we're you're asking for

13,000. Well, and I added 5,000 back in for uh for um bulldozers and uh where is that line? I added 5,000 back in and that note was on there. I don't know where it went. Line 4,0002. 4,0002. Yeah. Oh, right there. Okay. It's under Yeah.

Roll those whole compact. Okay. Yeah. That So, all right. That puts it at the 15,000 or 13,000. in. Yep. I reduced it by 8.95. So next line that we have here is the utilities electric and heat which what line is that on here?

So the way that was set up last year was everything was under electricity. Everything from CMP to Fairpoint to Comcast to Verizon to Yeah. Everything was under electricity. Heating oil to So So I just kind of broke it down.

Yeah. what each item is. I went through uh what we spent on each item last year. The propane for the uh generator, I don't know what that's going to be, so I just threw a number in there. I have no idea. Okay. Um Comcast, I assume that's for the for internet. And is it No,

I it's uh Comcast is for the television. Okay. And uh Fair Point is for the internet. Fair point is the internet, I believe. Yeah. So, we were thinking of looking in this year of getting a three in one. I don't know. Yeah, cuz I'm just That's

And I don't know that we need it. I mean, I can see I can see having something at least basic so you can get the local weather and news and stuff or something. But yeah, that's I only thing I've ever seen anybody watch there is the local news at

and and I think you can get that for a basic or something. Um I mean I know where I was before we had it but it was because we needed it for the internet anyway. So but you you're doing internet through fair point and you're you're satisfied with that.

Yeah, everything seems to be working fine. But that is correct. All right. I'm not happy with mine through fair point. That's why I'm asking. We haven't had any trouble. Okay. Um, and so the increase in that line, that utility line of of 4,710 reflects adding the propane for the generator

and the heating oil. And the heating oil that had been previously under fuel, the fuel line is now under gasoline. Okay. So, the the actual maintenance, anything with heating the building and and the generator and everything got put back into that line and out of the regular fuel account. Yep. I don't know why they were ever mixed together. It should be

gasoline before, so it's like this doesn't make sense. It's almost diesel. It would work. Okay. Um, I I don't know that we'd touch that because it wouldn't affect it that much, but I would suggest, you know, looking into either cutting back on the Comcast or or as you said, a uh a three in one if that might save anything. But

Yep. So, we want to look at striking that. Huh. We'll look at striking that. Yeah. Or or go to I mean, they have basic packages, I think, that are 20 or $30 a month or something like that. Yeah. I didn't know if we could get the cable the internet through Comcast like you can with time one or I don't know if that's

you you can. Okay. Um I'm I'm not sure that you'd save any money that way, but I think you'd get uh better speed. Yeah. Well, it would be better than having two separate bills and Yeah. Okay. So So Okay. So look at merging these two.

Utilities, electric, and heat. That's what we were just looking at, right? So, facilities maintenance. is the is doors for the salt shed $3,000. Well, and the bad news there is I just just got a price today and it was 5 to 8,000. So, could we get down the road without fixing it this year? I mean, I suppose Can you

We could probably get by with I mean, it ought to be done. U does it have to be done this year? Well, I mean I think we could probably go another year with we could probably just something I think we should be aware of. It needs to be done.

And is that something that falls within and I would defer to you guys that know more about this kind of stuff. Is that would that be a capital improvement type of I mean would that be funds that would come out of the capital account or would that be an operational dayto-day?

That's the whole back door that rolls open that we can get the loader in on the upper level. Oh, okay. to dump it in to dump the sand in. That's a rolling door. Yep. Back and forth. Yeah. And it's just a mess. It's a mess.

So, we got a price today to fix it. 75 to $8,000 he said to fix it if we delay it a year. Are we Is it going to increase the amount of work that's going to be need to be done? And No, not that I could not that I could see.

Is it the door itself or the tracks? It's the whole thing. The wood behind the track that the everything's attached to is rotten. So, it's got to have some It's not That doesn't have a metal outside on the back. Guess I've never looked at it.

It does, but there's a piece of wood there somehow that that they nailed it to and that's all rotten. Probably from improper flashing or I wasn't there with the guy today, so I didn't know he was coming. I He just happened to show up over there while while Ron was over there. So,

next year, it wouldn't kill us. I'll spin down a peek at it just so I get a bird side. If I can see anything that'll help, I'll pass it on. Oh, so I'll put a star by that one just to Yeah. not note that, you know, we might want to come back to it. And is that door just is that door used every time there's a storm loading and unloading or is it just used at the beginning of the season stocking up?

Pretty much once a year when we put the sand in and it's closed and I don't think we're going to have to open it. We have to open again till next fall. We've been in there trying to get that sand away from the trusses that the main municipal

wanted us to do. So we were in there doing that. But you know, I just asked everybody to think of anything they could find that needed to be done and so I didn't miss it on the budget and we could discuss it and just so you know that it's out there.

Okay. Dump dumpster service. We're dumping it. We don't need it. You added it in the facility. Oh, that was Okay. Okay. Thank you. I thought I had that note on there. I guess it's over here. Yeah, I just Yeah, I I thought I had it on there as well, but anyway. Okay.

So, moved that item. All right. Signs. Um, do you have anything written on that? So, we will actually be deleting that. Uh, he's getting 20 replacements. Okay. Oh, dumpster service. I'm looking at that over here. Oh, wait. Let me look over here. Dumpster service. Yeah. Move to facility maintenance. Yep.

it gives us that on the signs for the Y the signs. Yeah, I had to adjust that because of the new regulations. I added some more to it because we've been buying them and putting them up when and and I don't know what the board wants to do with that. Um, I know where I've been before the town has put in their ordinance that the that the applicant had to pay for the sign and then we put it up, but they had to pay for that up front. Yeah, they had to pay for that upfront when they went for when they went for their private road maintenance uh private road approval with planning board or when they went to get a building permit, that money would be put into an escrow account.

So, so for new new developments or new place that require it, you you had the applicant pay. What about uh replacements? Well, that's the problem. Once you got it up there, it's like who are you going to charge? We for I'll give you an example. Right now, we have one up on uh Auburn Panel Road. I don't know the name of that one off to the right there, but the people that built it moved Seway, I think Cy R.

Mhm. And the new people that just moved in want a sign because they don't know how to give people directions to their house. So, if it's a 911 safety issue, it's like, well, how do I tell them? Well, you got to go pay for it. drone sign up. It's is it how does the town want to deal with that? Do we want to do we want to go put up the sign? And I mean, if we're going to have a public safety uh do we want to just do one a year and if do we want to have a limit of Well, you want to just go and see how it goes and we'll just assume it's going to go well. probably something we need to look at at another

and as of right now it does not provide in our ordinance for for people to pay for it at the time of the development. I don't think so. I think that makes sense that that one we've put these ordinances into effect after people have already put in things and to after the fact to require them. That's

that's not really fair. I mean, if it's a safety issue, then we're going to have to Well, and it is deal with it deal with it on a regular basis. If they So, we have to just make sure that the town number one that the sign is in the public right away so that we have license and we have legal means to get to it and replace it.

Okay. All right. So, minor equipment. Don't see too much in that. That's what's hand tools and that kind of that's hand tools. Um lasers um construction tools. there. I don't have any questions on that one really. I got to get I'm trying to follow you on this one here. Admin.

Yeah. Where where did that? Unfortunately, I don't have your your budget line or your your line item on this one. But next one up is uniforms. And if you look at I'd like you to look at this. This one here on that one. Yeah.

Let's see which page. Page two. Page two, the bottom. than having people pay up front and then get reimbursed to ensure that everybody's getting the safety equipment that they that they need. Problem is we wouldn't have enough money in this budget to do that. But uh to do that I'd have to add so I didn't know if I could maybe

They just buy their stuff and we reimburse them. How much the limit? They get five pair of jeans and uh there's no price limit. There's 150 on the boots. And I mean there got to be a price limit. I can go buy Kelvin Klein jeans versus Russell. Come on.

I think it was 120. It was 150 on boots and I think we bought t-shirts and Yeah, we buy that stuff. Jeans it was was it 120 or sounds familiar? $20 a pair basically seems like but up to I mean they can buy as many as he wants but that's the most we're going to reimburse them and I don't care if they buy Calvin Klein. We're still only going to reimburse them for

Wranglers. So and we buy the t-shirts and actually the boots are the same thing. We give up 250. We do 500 a year where I am. I think that this is is per person 3500 is sounds like about 500. I think it's five. There's four.

They don't buy us no t-shirts. That's our t-shirts and everything. We go through winter people and we have them. Yeah. I was just baffled that the money didn't get spent. I mean that the people didn't go out and buy their stuff. So, I felt bad, but I was seemed like every day I was like, "Did you get your stuffed?" I mean, coming up to the end of the season, didn't happen. So, I have a feeling that I Well, I think it might be like I've described here that

I mean, they don't they don't look like bunch of bumps out there working, do they? No. Well, they don't want the new clothes. I'm not going to force them to buy them if they don't want to wear them. They don't look like total bumps. So, I think maybe next year we'll look at they'll give you some prices on the uniform, but the uniforms you're looking at five $6,000.

to keep that budget line the same because we we allow a certain amount per per employee. So, yeah. um training professional development and I I saw you had a note on that that you didn't get all the trainings or if you all go it's like $260 and

Yeah. So I see that you apparently you only did like one training last year or something. Yep. And which there's a lot more of them we'd like to get through. It doesn't looks and that's a slight reduction probably because we've bought a lot of that safety equipment already would be my guess.

Well, because we didn't spend it. 18 they spent 1,800 and that that makes sense. supplies and materials. And this is one that jumped uh before everything was under supplies. Everything from custodial to office supplies to crush stone to which which which was crazy. I've never seen anything like that. So I said, "Well, this is going to get we got to get this so it's manageable year to year so we can

take this budget and next year it should be much easier." So that's broken down in in 451. It looks like uh operational supplies. Yeah. So I changed the title from materials to operational supplies. Yeah. Um materials and supplies were very confusing. We had supplies and we had materials

and stuff was getting coded to supplies that should have been materials and vice versa. And so we um so I redid this and restructured it to I changed supplies to administrative. Mhm. I got rid of it for the most part all together and kept my office supplies administrative stuff in there. And then operational supplies is just to do with the construction side.

Yeah. not not janitorial or anything else is now last year there was a mistake. I looked at what Sean did and he put in the title patch but then when he got down below to add his stuff up he didn't add patch again. He only he missed it because if you look at just the patch alone

in 2014 we spent 20,000. Yeah. And then in 2015 we spent 23771. So how could you possibly only have 20,000 for supplies if just one of those products is more than that? So it was an oversight. Okay. I I still do have a question cuz according to this we spent 31,000

Y 318 and you're asking for almost 48,000 and is that because of projects they've got planned or Well, I just think that that's where it should be and maybe I can trim if I had to trim some maybe I could cut that thousand yards of gravel back to u

1.5 inch gravel. I mean, maybe I could cut that back to You have a storm, you got to go out and fix all the gravel roads and all your We just seem to be filling it up and and and we and we use it. So after the first year, if we had some on hand, some stockpile, then we could say, "Okay, let's cut that back."

setting up the operation, this is the way I would set it up. And once you had that thousand yards there, then you could uh look at that over the next couple years. If next year we only use half of that, then we could adjust it. Okay.

But if there was a place that I had to cut, that would be a place I could probably make some. guessing 600. I could probably live I could probably live with that. So that brings it to 78 instead of 13. Yeah. I mean, Pommel Pommel has 20,000 just for that one line alone for gravel. So,

they've got a lot more dirt. Gravel roads. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. 1300. We got 132. So, that maybe we could cut that to 10. Well, that that's what if I was wondering if we um did if we cut it back to 800 yards. Um um kind of in between there. That would be minus uh 2600 off the line.

104. Yeah. So if you 800 units so that would be minus 2600 off this line. So that would be 45 325. Mhm. Okay. Um, culverts and drains looks na. You're asking basically for what you spent last year, so that makes sense. And

we spent more and I'm asking for the same. So yeah, I think I can make that work. Yeah. Um, paving. We didn't spend it all last year, but um it's it's not a line that we really want to cut because we need to get we need to we need to get

whether we're doing whether we use this line for keeping good roads good or if we use this line to to help mitigate a capital project on Runaround Pond Road or something. I I I don't see decreasing that line any I wouldn't. In fact, that's why I put uh I put a note there that's um subject to review and uh I thought that line might actually go up, but I don't know how you we need to have a discussion about how we want to attack the the the roads and that's

and the erosion control is like the ripoff and stuff and that got rolled into the operational supplies line. Yep. I moved that I I moved that from erosion control because I didn't think it was an appropriate place for it.

So that's why the it's $8,000 less uh than what you spent last year cuz it's the the line item's the same. It's right I'm sorry I'm looking at surface treatment. Sorry. Uh surface treatment. You spent 8,000 more than you asking for this year. Yep.

That's the reason for that is I did not know that there was I I didn't know that was the first project I did when I got here was a crack seal. I did not know that it did not go I didn't know where it went. So, okay. So, then I went and spent what was available in surface treatment. Didn't know that was part of the surface treatment. So, that's where that went. So, now now it's spelled out in the budget from now on moving forward. This will be right in there. That's

either. No, no. I mean, because that's that's part of the planning to keep the road the what we do have. Good. Okay. So, erosion control. You explained that tree cutting. Um, there's another one that if I had to make cuts, that's

what ours. I mean, we we didn't come even close to spending that. We have a lot of trees in town that ought to be cut, but I just haven't got to that. That's I haven't got to it yet to get out and mark them and get them tagged. And

we if we took that down to four for this year. Yeah. That gives you an opportunity to do some Y almost three times as much as you did last year. So, so four. Any anybody have a different number they want to suggest? Okay, now we got to find it.

22. There it is. 406. now we're on to the fun part. Winter roads. so see you've reduced sand um to about what you spent this last year. Yep. Okay. $11,000 less than you spent last year. I split it right in the middle. Right. And I saw your note about really trying to to change

Yeah. methods. Uh because they were just putting down straight salt versus treated salt versus treated salt, which is more effective. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's it's we've been doing a lot of training on salt application and usage. And when I first got here, everybody was doing their own thing. So, we've nipped that in the butt, got us all on the same page. And so, we're I'm hoping next year I can come back here and say we don't need nearly this much again because here's what we can do it for. But, you know, a lot of that has to do with with temperatures and the warmer it is, the less you're going to use anyway. So,

liquid deicers um you increased the budget amount by 2,000, but it's uh and I'll tell you why. Because last year they were putting out straight salt. They should have been pre-treating it. And and I did the math at Well, I think I got it in here. I think I spell it out in here. At $139 a gallon, at 8 gallons per ton, at 1,600 tons, just that alone is 17792.

That was just those two trucks, right? It has sprayers. Yep. So, just to pre-treat the salt alone with this product, I mean, 17792. So, I think I can cut that back. I'm anticipating using less salt. And so I'm saying if I go up just 2,000 that allows me to buy the magnesium, which is $3,000, and the salt brine, which is, you know, probably a,000 bucks. So you're looking at uh So I am actually cutting it. I'm actually cutting the budget there. I know the number goes up, but I'm I'm I'm telling you that what that number should have been.

Yeah. And it didn't happen because I got here late in the game and things were already in play that and by using by using these judiciously and the and the way they should be. That should help reduce the the salt line as well eventually.

Exactly. You can use 800 lb per per center line mile to get rid of salt at with just straight salt or you can mix it with ice beon and cut that to 400 or 300. looks basically we we change we change them pretty much every two or three storms we're changing every storm we're changing blades on one truck or another. winter equipment maintenance. Uh we spent uh we budgeted 12 last year. You're asking 12 again. We spent 10

and I wouldn't we've had a pretty mild go of it so far. I wouldn't dare to move that one. Okay. Now the truck's going to be a year older. There we go. They're all going to be year old. And there's already quite a difference in hoses and air cans and we're having a lot more breakdowns this year than we did last year. The trucks are another year older and and they had a lot more use. So, it's starting to reflect the

weather technology and systems on our trucks that tell us the road temperature and the air temperature. Yeah. And is this Did you split weather meteorology out of that? Cuz because I see they add up to almost the same. So, Okay.

I took weather meteorology out of that column. is kind of funny because it's the same weather weather, but they're really different. I suppose I could have taken and I think next year I probably would. I was thinking I could have taken the weather technology and just put it in winter mainten put it in with the winter.

And that's just so that we have funds on hand if one of those systems on a truck go out to replace that's that would replace one of those systems. Yep. I'm just coming over here now. My mind just acted up. It's reading 97 below zero. So, it's uh

I I saw that when I was standing next to you. Yeah, I wasn't doing that yesterday. I'm like, "Wow, it's awfully cold. I thought that would I wasn't doing that yesterday. You You better be out there uh standing there." No. All right. The the rest of this is actually um the contract, which is no longer there, and the building bond and the equipment bond. So, those don't change. Um while we're while we're here, the other portion to this, this is your operational budget, but we have uh capital budget and um we're talking a little beforehand about the uh about some things, but um also besides road capital, uh equipment capital.

down. So, this comes to $24,000. I u was a bit surprised and I think I can get that number reduced from HP Fairfield, but these are what they're telling me to go with for budget numbers. Okay. What I mean that's it's 5% more than what we paid two years ago or something like that I think.

Yeah. Um I I Is it roughly the same equipment that we have? It's identical. Is there anything that we can shave off by using um pieces from what we already have or we need all the we need all brand new at this point? Probably

we need all brand new. Anything we got isn't worth. Okay. suggestion or a request that we put out there that we that we purchase y one this year. Yes. We're already having a tremendous amount of breakdowns and it's really becoming a problem with

with because then we lose the mechanic in the middle of the storm and then we're having to overlap and it's cost 205. You said 204 204 204 395 395 and I assume we would put this out for I mean we would put this out for bid with specs anyway but this is

Y and I have I have a spec package about that thick. So we must have a uh copy of the specs we used for the other two. That's what we used. Oh, that is okay. So all right. So that's so documentation towards uh how would we would we take the capital?

So would that come from capital? That would be we would have a separate uh warrant article for that and I would um we can take part of it from the capital funds that we've set aside. Um we've between last year and this year we have somewhere around 230 set aside. Um and I would suggest a portion of that go towards this and maybe a portion of it go towards uh um improvements on on uh capital

improvements on a road and to help cut down on how much we're going to have to u put in taxes. Would we be wise to leave some of it in the reserve in case we get into a bind with something? We had a road blowout or something or um

had an emergency repair we had to do. We just did pound we had to replace a road at 60 something,000. I I suppose it depends on how we word the uh how we word their questions cuz we if we word the question um we could say um we could say at town

meeting the intention is to use this x number of dollars that we're allocating for this particular road. But if we don't put the road name in the in the article that gives us a little more leeway as what we use it for. The the problem is there are a lot of people that want the specific road name in there so they know exactly where it's going. So it's

I would just say that in panel we just had a road that blew out and the beavers blocked the culver and we tried to fix it and we lost half the road and lost the road in the process and so we had to come up with 60 $67,000. So fortunately we had some money in different places that we were able to get to the FEMA money and

so so the question I have that I'm not understanding from what you're saying is are you talking about um essentially paying cash for the truck approp taking some out of capital and appropriating raising the rest or are you talking about using the money in the capital account directed toward are you talking about bonding the truck and road repairs and using the money in the capital account for bond payments.

Personally, I would on the truck, I would use part of the capital, what we set aside for capital, and I would I would raise the rest because at this point, we're going to need to get on a on a cycle. So every year if we put roughly $100,000 aside. So this year we we we already have $100,000 roughly aside for it, we put we put 100,000 in taxes towards it. We buy a truck. Next year we put 100,000 aside and the year after that we add we we use that 100,000 plus the other 100,000. So so that it it basically levels out over the years. Um I I don't think we want another bond.

Right. Well, I'm not sure though that we can c, you know, the first year we it was a brand new department and we didn't really know what the costs were going to be and so the budget ran so we we returned $100,000 at the end of the year. In year two, Calvin came on board midstream and was finding his feet and sorting out what the budget numbers meant and so probably didn't do as many projects as as he might otherwise have. So, we returned a little over $100,000 from the budget.

I don't anticipate as we move forward that our budgeting process is going to continue to be over by a hundred grand every year. I think that number's going to get smaller. That's actually not my suggestion. We we have that money set aside now because that happened,

right? My suggestion is starting this year, we add $100,000 to the tax levy basically every year. Every every year. So this year, so we have h 100,000 from last year. We take $100,000 this year. Next year we don't buy a truck, but we set $100,000 aside as part of the budget process and so that we get on a I mean

so that we're not having a payment on a right on a new one. Right. I would agree with that. Yeah. And that'll be for you can do that for six years or whatever. Then your trucks are going to be leveled out. You want to replace them trucks.

Right. Right. You're going to the old ones. You hope. But we have seven. And if they have a 10 quote 10 year life cycle, I I don't know how long you can actually get out of them. But between 10 to 12, once they hit 10 years old, they start getting blowing hoses and they just they become very undependable in the storm. That's not where you want to find out your problems. So, um, so we would need I mean that's

it's going to that's a we've got a lot of things that are going to hit hard this year and and I think that we have to look at because I know the chief the fire department every year asks for a big chunk of money to go to the capital account and you know we talked about this a bit last year. it didn't something else ended up happening. But I think that that we need to look at having a townwide capital account to cover the instead of each department having their own

well siloed account. I I think that if we're going to be setting aside big chunks, you know, of money, raising big chunks of money to to go into savings of taxpayer money that it should be available for townwide events. there there's no money for the roof on this building. There's no I think that we just keep setting each department kind of has their own little pile of money squirreled away and and I think we need to look at at a a broader

yes and no plan and schedule for for all of the town's assets. I mean if if you're planning ahead for each department and setting it aside for each department or if you lump it all into one sum, you still have the same spending needs. um you know, you still have the same needs for a roof here. You um or and so on. So whether it's

No, I was just thinking it's more transparent for the taxpayer to see that that there is a a set of a pile of money to for lack of a better term, a pile of money um that is is set aside to deal with maintenance and replacement for townwide assets. since I think it becomes well you know wait we're setting money aside for this department and then on this Warren article we're setting money aside for that department and I was just trying

I would almost think it would be more transparent for if you're setting it aside for each department though because that's the money that you're you're expecting you're having to pay. Um I'm it can go either way. I think in the in the long run it's semantics or or whatever because you you've still got to lay out for these capital whe whether whether you have them separate accounts and you're you're tracking them separately and you're saying okay I see this need for the town office we better start setting aside or you set it aside for the whole thing the the total amount that you're going to need in the end is going to if you need to re if you need to replace something or redo something it's going be the same.

I I would say that the town of Panel has a very comprehensive um they have a CIP committee and they are just I mean they they pull up on the screen and you can see 30 years out, 25 years out whether there's going to be a bubble or whether they need to start adjusting back here to offset that big expense coming up and it's it's 30 years out and it's pretty impressive. One of the things that I've heard over over the years, and we heard him again last year, is a lot of it uh people want to know what that department's really costing them. You know, what their budget for that department is. So, the only thing with lumping it in, and I don't have a big issue with that, but we still need to be able to show if that's how we went. We still need to be able to show what that by department's costing. You know that's I know cuz people are always question we really need this new truck or we really need that. So as long

as somehow and whether we leave it the way it is or we loop it we still need to be able to show how right. The only I guess the point I was trying to make is that it allows for if we have as a town if we have money saved we can address priority priorities

as they arise instead of priorities within one department or a different department and and it's just straight up town priorities as they arrive as they come up. whatever the the current replacement, repair, maintenance, whatever the the current sort of big ticket item is, the the access to the savings that is set aside, it's available for for whatever the town issue is rather than being exclusive to a particular department.

That might be something we should look at. The thing with having the committee is the thing with the committee is it makes it easier for us at budget time because if the committee is sponsoring or supporting it makes it easier for and the budget committee and they kind of all work together and there are no surprises. It's already we know years in advance what's coming and what to expect and these guys are just phenomenal at running this whole

right and there was a a draft and I don't know if it's something you've even seen there was a draft capital plan for the public works department done at the time that the public works department was set up and I don't know that it was ever finalized but but there is a a working draft of a of a capital plan and replacement schedules for the equipment.

Okay. I haven't found that yet, but I'm sure it's in here somewhere. So, with the uh changes that we've made so far on this, we're down to, if I calculated it right, 1 million55,841, year's budget of $26,587. Oh, I had it down 3,000 more coming out of facility.

Um, hold on. I think line 38. I may have missed something. Line which line 38. Oh, I had a star there. We didn't actually do We didn't actually do anything with that. I just had We talked about reducing it. Just left it there.

The salt shed door. Do we want to do that this year or you want to just hold off on it? Is that what we're talking about? Yeah, I'd hold off on you only use it once a year. Yeah, I I think maybe we can go off on that this year. I'll still take a peek at it. See if I can make any suggestions.

Minus 3,000. So, that would bring that down to 20. the difference to 23587 and uh 1,52,841. 2.2 2.3% increase. I think I'd have to calculate. So, what did we decide up on utilities with the Fat Point Comcast? Did we Um, we I think at this point we're going to leave it as it is and let you

see what you can do. Okay. know that we've talked about breaking runaround into two parts and doing part one would fit into the existing budget, but doing or doing the whole thing would be somewhere in in the neighborhood of of a million dollars if we farm it all out or about half a million if we do it in house.

So those if do we have enough time to do if we were to do it in house? Is there enough time in the year for our workers to do both sections? be off too far. Well, 28 28 28 should be looking at might want to think about that one for a little bit.

So, should be looking at 28 take us about a month to do that piece if we did it. Um, so if it was planned properly, I think we could do it. additional the only way I could make that happen. I mean, if I if we just hired someone to come in and build that, you're looking at $771,000 for that piece.

If we just went with a going rate 125 and have somebody come build it. Um, there's a possibility that we could do that ourselves. I would need the help of panel crew and I would have to make sure that we get those two schedules together to match and coordinate that. So that's I just would have to coordinate the work and make sure that we had appropriate work from each town to make it offset.

oneweek project with them and a month with us and then we end up upside down with. So that's part of what I have to get through to make that happen. You would have a crew of seven working on it for a month then. Yeah. And so roughly 160 hours per I'm just

trying to figure out what it would what it would actually be costing us in labor. So, um,60 tons. And if we were to to farm it out, for lack of a better term, contract it out and have somebody else come in and do it. If we're talking about it takes our crew a month to do all the prep and then they come in and pave. So, that's another however many days or week or what have you, right?

What are we talking about timewise for for if Kroger came in and did the whole thing? How long would it take them? Well, we would still have to do the ditching and stuff, but it would take them a couple weeks. So, so I', um, if I'm calculating it

outright, uh, 160 hours, saying four weeks in a month, that's and times seven, that's roughly 1,200 hours. And using a high using a high end on our on our scale is at $20 an hour. That's about $24,000 plus insuranceances and all that stuff.

Yeah. But I mean Yeah. But there's another option and that is an injection of cement injection where we can increase the um pounds per square inch uh at the surface. Um that is something I'm still working on. And then that could cut that. That would be that we would just grind the pavement and we would put um cement in there and then they would wet it, grind it and that becomes then they have to fracture it and I think u I could get you some literature on that but it it u

is an alternative to building a rebuilding a road. you when you were talking about that before you had some questions on how is that Bennett song Bennett's company doing that? Yep. Bennett's does it. Croos does it. Um do we have a track record on it?

Well, that's what I'm working on. Um they kind of have to do some um test borings to find out if the if the soil is sufficient. And I'd want to do some I'd want to see some other projects that were done or have an engineer tell me how this will support this.

So I don't know how how recent the test borings have but that that engineering report we did test borings on there. I found that and I'm going over that and that is one of the options that it's says in there is a foam um asphalt. So

you can do a liquid injection of asphalt or you can do cement injection. Uh the truck comes from Canada or some and he just lays the cement in there. So I haven't done it. I don't know. But uh I know Freeport just did it on 125.

So this would be an alternative to to rebuilding rebuilding a the new a new road bed and taking it all the way down. And Sean and I looked at what we did on the picket road. We had about, you know, 10 bucks a foot and that would I think with the injection we could have been about 550 a foot. But one method I know works. It's kind

of it's almost like you got to wait and see. And you know, I mean, it's a little more to it than that. They they would do they would look at our test borings and their engineers tell us whether that would work or not. You know, to me it's just uh I'd have to do a little more research. It's cheaper than rebuilding a road and it's quicker.

What's What's the projected longevity of this one without not without having the history? That is a loaded question because someone can say, "Well, I did this road. I went and looked at one in North Yamouth the other day." I and you can say, "Well, we did this road and it was 5 years and it still looks good." But what did the road look like before? Maybe the road was a good road before and of course it's going to look good. But if we're starting with something that ought to be rebuilt, you have to compare apples for apples and without seeing a road that looked just like this one and comparing those two. I can't compare a road that was in pretty good shape. Like 125 obviously was in nowhere near the shape that this section of Run Pond is. So how would I compare those two? Anybody can say come look at a road that's been five years, but it might have been pretty good road before. So, is this a relatively new technology

that there's just not a lot of strong track record on or or a lot of history on? It's finding a candidate that had a similar starting point. Me finding a a road that okay, these two I'm sorry for whatever town that is. And that's the hard part is any road I've seen in this kind of shape, it's been rebuilt. So, I would need somebody to show me a picture and say, "Okay, this is kind of what I'm looking for is show me a road that was like this one." I don't have any local knowledge and I haven't found anybody that can give me any. They said, "Oh, yeah, there was a road just like that over there and it looked just like that one and it's been 5 years."

at with Sean as Mill Road in North Yas. But I highly doubt that that road ever was in anywhere near the shape 5 years ago that Runaround Pond is in. In fact, I don't know if there is a road mistake. I don't know of any roads that look like run around.

There's got to be some way up north. It's to me it's just uh Jesus, you're putting this in there and now what if it doesn't work? So, another question I have because we're talking a serious amount of money and we don't have enough in capital reserves right now to cover. I mean, if we used 100 towards the uh the truck, that would leave us with 130 that we could use from capital reserves. But even if we're talking about using our own crew, what was the number that you had on that if we did for the second

uh if we did it? if we did it. Yeah. Uh 38750, that, but somewhere around the 325 330. So that that's still $200,000 more we have to come up with. And that's the second section that's from the culverts to the panel town. the first piece this year, the first over a mile to go in from Route 9 to the

pond, the middle of the cul to the culverts to the bridge. Um 176854 and then the next year you have the the next year you'd have to go in for another 80 85 and five 90 $91,000 the year after to go back and put a inch and a half surface coat on. and uh

so and shoulder. So we're either talking some major hits to our tax base this year. I mean between if we do the truck and we do that um that's an additional three 400 thou three $400,000 right with no other increases anywhere and that's a 10% increase on our budget. Well, and that was goes to my initial question about why about whether or not we would look at at bonding some of it rather than depleting our cash flow completely.

That's where I'm going though. But that just bonding that one, taking out, you know, five-year bond or something like that. Well, next year we're going to have to do another road. Are we going to do another five-year bond on top? And and so or do we do we take a bunch of

them that we know we need to do and bond them all together so we have one one bond and we're not coming back every year saying, "Hey, we need to bond this road. We need to bond that road." And um well, I have a question actually about that and it goes to to how municipal bonds and I know it varies from bond to bond. If we did it that way and say just for point of discussion, say we bonded $5 million for road repairs just because it's easier math.

And I know when we did the original public works bonding that was set up so that we could draw down on that and nothing it the only part that acrewed interest was the part that we had drawn down on. And in that situ I don't want to bond

$5 million for however many years and we're only doing one road project a year and we're paying interest for years on end until we start till we do the next project the next project. But if it's a if it's a situation where we essentially like a line of credit where we've just got access to the money but we're not being charged interest on it until we actually use it. That's a little bit different.

But even then, they usually have a limit on how long you can hold it with and not you know, we did it with the fire truck. Yeah. And fire truck that we have, didn't didn't we do it with some of the some of the uh public work bonding, too? We didn't

We did it with some of the equipment. We didn't do a draw down one on that. Well, it is a draw down, but I believe that the entire amount was was charged interest from the beginning. That's not the way a draw down's supposed to work then. I mean if I mean draw down is supposed to only charge interest on what you

that's how that's what we did. I was like, I'd have to look, but I could have sworn that that was and and that was why I I was asking then we would have access to funds to to to move the road projects forward without completely a crushing the taxpayers or b using all of our our money in our capital reserve account. And I just don't know how that counting if that works

or paying tons extra to have crooker come in one year and do a whole bunch of projects that we couldn't do ourselves in a year. Well, right now if you had crookers or somebody come do that second section, section two at 771.

Um, and then we did um did this other one at 260. Well, it'll be 267. So, some of that some of that would be wouldn't be until the following year. You would have your surface payment would be the following year. But, but let's just say we had to done at 271

and 267. Uh, 771 and 267. So, we looking at uh 1.03. 038. So, I mean, if you wanted to just bond that and go for it and get that done, but and we could back out the paving for the second year, you'd back out 85 for that one. You back out 91 for that one and back out to

But there it's more than just that road now needs to replace what Jeff was saying. So we we have 40 miles of road. Um saying that let's say you you have 10 years on a project, you get 10 years out of it. We should be doing four miles of road a year.

Yep. And we're right now we're talking about a little over two miles. Yep. And so the next question then becomes looking at the roads. I mean everybody knows that that Runaround Pond is is a disaster. So then what's you know if we were looking at doing something bigger and doing that then we look at what are the roads that that really need a complete reconstruction or or a more serious intervention like runaround versus roads that that certainly need

work but are more in the venue of of work that that we can do or the bulk of which we can do ourselves. Not a rogue scavenged. Yeah. Rabbit Road, which is kind of an extension to run because that's that main thorough way. Rabbit Road right across 136. So when they keep going,

well, you got Brunswick, Bowie Hill, Davis, Hill, you got plumbers plumbers, plumbers mill road is bad and uh just we've got roads, but my your main roads I would say from a priority standpoint are going to be runaround, rabbit, Davis. Yeah. I mean, you got those are the what needs to be in the immediate radars

mean, run around in um Bowie and uh just run around in Rabbit and uh you know then Davis u I think from a taxpayer what affects the most taxpayers. I think Davis would be and it's it's heavily used even though you've got you can use Route 9 as a to go around many many people go up Davis even in the condition it's in

I think think looking at number of taxpayers that each dollar is affecting you're getting pretty good bang for your buck on Davis Road versus some of your more rural right and if we did run around and rabbit and we've already done Quaker meeting house so that sort of whole

corridors now east west corridor so to It would be done. Done. Yeah. Which is a pretty heavily traveled What's the length on rabbit? Just over a mile or uh miles? It's uh a It's No, it's 8,000 ft. A mile and a half plus.

Five and three. Yeah. So between So you're talking total of five. No, two and a half and one and a half. Yeah. Total of five miles along there. reconstruction as I didn't think it was quite as bad, but not quite as bad, but does I'm still

a year. still, you know, I've I've looked at a lot of the roads and it for the most part um I think they've got some gravel under them. It's just that they it took them 40 years to get here. I think um um for the most part they could be they could be ground and reshaped and I think you'd get another 15 or 20 years out of them, but they would just let go too long.

years for it to get in the shape it's in then you know I mean it's not like not like old Brunswick road where you have clay coming up through the pavement that I mean some of them I don't think are other than that piece on on uh I think rabbit route is going to be more I think we can do more in the lines of the grinding and shaping and um more in the lines of this uh section one

box cutting and drainage work. what we've heard at town meeting in in the past and and people that have come to to select my meetings, I think we've got to sort of put together and and most likely Bond I mean it would seem to me most likely Bonnet, but I think we've got to put together a

a plan to start, right? Every year we talk about it and every year they get worse and I think we got to Right. We need to do something this year. We got to have something. Um it's I don't say I don't see how we can't do it without some sort of bond. Um just for how how it's hard it's going to be hitting the taxpayers.

So as soon as we get this done and I'll put together a a plan similar to this and what the costs are going to be and what the different options and scenarios are. Can you have that for two next Tuesday? cuz we need we need to have something to to we need to finish up next Tuesday so we can present to the budget committee and we need to have

numbers in there. Yeah, I'll put some numbers in there for each road with with with options. Yeah. For Yeah. Yeah. Give us the options and we can decide what we'll put out there. But yeah. Yep. Um okay, I'll put that together.

Um the other thing that I don't have on here is the P parking lot. uh needs to be paved. No. 23 come up with 20 $23,000. Well, the thing is the fire department went too long. That just went too far and that's why that cost I don't know if you've seen that cost yet. But that went too far. And what eventually ends up happening is you end up paying it's the same as the roads. We've got 19 mm aggregate down there. We've got uh a binder coat. It's been down there for 10 years. Starting to come apart. Once they come apart, you're you're not just doing a simple overlay anymore. You're having to uh shim and

consider grinding it up. And I would just try to get by another year with that. Well, I can go another year, but I'm just saying I put pavement down on your your parking lot, not on any of these roads. I don't want anything thrown at my car. I can say I'm just saying think about you need to be thinking about uh that that's you talk about the capital improvement that's part of the building but I'd hate to lose it's starting to come apart you're starting to get some holes in the pavement that big and those eventually once they start it's a compound situation that's starts deteriorating much more quickly as time goes on once water starts to get into it. So when with a something like a a

bond for road repair, what are we looking at? He's going to get the numbers for us. No, no, I'm just I meant as a as a municipal accounting question, what term? You know, are we looking at a 5year term, a 10-year term, up to

I think some of it will depend on how much we're doing. If if we're only going to do some like runaround pond, if we only do runaround pond, I wouldn't want to bond that beyond 5 years. Really? I like your idea getting a couple roads together.

If we if we get $3.5 million. Yeah. If we get several roads together that we do over in the next couple of years, uh next two to three years, then I' I'd be more I I'd be more willing to accept a longer term. But if we're only talking one, I don't want to I wouldn't want to do it more than five years.

Absolutely. I was just thinking that that it's because we are on a time crunch for numbers for the budget committee that that Ruth could start looking at what some bond rates are. We had some idea of our term that would be more useful for

well term and term and amount. Yeah, that probably amount probably makes a difference on the rate too. So, if you tell me if you want to do 3 million or three and a half million, I mean, I'll give you the numbers. So, you can uh but if you give me a number not to exceed, I'll figure out what roads I can fit in there and give you that. You want to go that way or you want to go the other way?

I really just take 10 roads or whatever the worst to the to your top 10 worst and then just give us the prices on the or five or six or whatever. I can think of six right off the top of my head. Yep. I don't want to put a coffee on a dash and try to drive down them. What would be the priority?

Priority would be rabbit runaround are the priority. And yeah, I mean that's that sounds good to me. And then we can we can look down and say, okay, we're going to go from here to here or we think this one's move this down. Yeah. But um and I would put numbers as um for both what we can do and maybe how

long you think it would take for us to do it and what it would cost for a contractor to come in because um when you're looking at that many roads, we can't do them all. No. No. We'll be I mean we might be able to do a mile or a mile and a half in a year, but that's about it. Uh, and the other thing you kind of need to know is the more you do, the cheaper it gets.

Well, I was going to say, is there an economy of scale? If Ker's coming in to do four miles versus they said three quarters of a mile, they're going to sharpen a pencil a lot more. And if they're coming here and if you're not splitting the projects up various places, if you're like if they said if they set up on runaround pond and run right down through Rabbit, it's going to be a lot cheaper for us. So they don't have the mobilization costs and they can. So that's something to keep in mind. And then you're going to have the overlay you're going to have your binder coat one year and your overlay the next. So

right, it's really a two-year process. So yeah, if we're doing a bond, we got to take both into we got we got a bond for both, though. Do you want to break it down into do one bond for the binder coat and then one the next year for the surface coat or

one bond? One bond for both. Yeah. One bond for the whole one one bond to do the whole kitten. So then what happens with the money that sits for that second year? Do we pay interest on that? That's what we got to find out.

Yeah. That that's our homework. Okay. And and even even if it does if if you do both if you do all your projects in two years, the amount that you pay in interest on that first year on the stuff you haven't used isn't going to be all isn't going to be all that much. But it's it's a lot less of a headache to the town than come come with one bond and then you come with another bond and it's

the new account really gets messed up. Well, and you also don't want to get to a point where you've done the first part and then the second the bond for the second part gets turned down at town meeting and then you're in a pickle because you've got, you know,

so I I have another question on the roads, the operational budget, the 225,000 for paving. Do we have a road or or roads and towns that are good enough that that we could use that money on and and keep keep them longer? Are there still roads out there that that we could use that on or

that's that's part of what I'm working on. I'm trying to figure out trying to figure that out exactly cuz the more that we can keep from going bad, the better off we are in the long run. Which roads do we want to do an overlay on to preserve them? That's what I'm I'm right now. I'm working on let's get to the damaged goods that people can't drive on and

yeah. Uh but yeah, so I will I will look at that. So if if that's what we want to do is keep that money in there for keeping our roads good and bond the reconstruction. Yeah, if you have something a good candidate for that, I would like to see that because the rest of it is is capital and it should be kind of identified as such and not

we've got a bunch of subdivision roads that were put in 15 years ago that are starting to get to the point of if we don't put something on them. Now, those roads that we we're going to spend that money on, should they be ditched first before we go ahead and spend that money on it? I mean,

well, we'll do that sim simultaneous. Well, it'll be a mixture of both. I mean, we have our guys over building a road. I mean, how we going? A lot of times we'll ditch them and then let them come build it, put the binder coat down, and then we'll go back on the binder coat and continue ditching and they'll come in the following year and put the finish top surface coat on. So, I would say we'll be we'll be busy. Okay.

Anything else on the road's budget right now? Okay. Thank you very much, Kevin. So, when do we meet again? Um, Tuesday. Tuesday night. I Unless we have Unless we have to do a Monday night one, but I think I think we had Monday.

We already got a Monday night. Fire department. Monday's bill. Monday's fire department. Okay. Thank you. At 6. Okay. Unless something's changed. All right. Well, make some changes here that we've discussed and bring this back. And

Yep. And then when do we meet with the budget committee? Uh, we haven't set that up yet, but I'm I'm I'm hoping that we can meet starting the week, the next week, which would be school vacation week. Um, probably not Monday because that's a holiday. And if you

If you got to do it Monday, I'm Okay. Can't do it Monday. Okay. Monday's coming. Monday's holiday. No, the 15th. 15th. Yeah. That's Yeah. The issue is my son's nth birthday. I'm not going to budget meeting. Have Have you had any communication with uh Milt or on

uh Yeah. He said the only day he wasn't available was the 11th. Okay. So he he seemed to it was kind of vague cuz cuz us in the last couple years they've had a a premeating before meeting with us just to go over and look at the overall picture and so on before we come in and start presenting. But

I I'm not necessarily sure that that's necessary. I think like if I get their books together and give them the books and then if they have any questions they they can ask me um so that they can look at the books and go through them before then they sit down with you guys.

Okay, Cy, does that sound right? If if like I give you guys the books first like last year with the meeting it kind of seemed a little like it was over. Ran right into it last year. Yeah. So just give you guys the books to look at and then

Absolutely. Yeah. I thought so too. Yeah. Okay. If there's any way we can do it before school vacation week that Well, we're not going to finalize it until a week from a week from today, which is Tuesday night. So that kind of

is there any way to set up for Thursday night? Mhm. Um it becomes difficult cuz that would be the second week in a row that I have every night booked up. But um and it also makes it difficult on her to get your but your books ready in time.

Well, they're all they have all these in there. They just need paper. know it's running late and well, I have to get it all together and and sent to the printers probably by the 3rd of March. So conceivably if we wanted to wait until the week after February vacation if we could. Yeah, I know it's it's pushing it, but I mean if we could do it all that week or maybe go to Monday of the following week

because we have a regular meeting that week, too. And we'll have to finalize the warrant, too. So there's going to have to be a date that we finalize the warrant. So well as actually the um the calling of the dates of the meeting is actually up to the budget committee I believe.

Right. Yes. They the the the chair from last year basically I think sets the meeting date. Right. That was my understanding. Yeah. Because we we don't set the meeting date for them. All right. Thank you. Thank you. So back to administration.

Yep. selectman this year? I don't care. I I've said that in the past. I mean, you know, it's not that I I'll say it, but I don't know if a second I would just because honestly why cuz this is the money that we was getting 15 years ago when I was here. I really don't think a $50 increase on each check is asking too much after all those years. And I'm not saying necessarily for us now, but you need to be thinking about that going in the future. I mean people don't get into this for the money obviously but still

I mean it's the only thing is it's it feels to me it feels funny. Yeah, I agree. Making a recommendation. I wish the recommendation would come from if if they if somebody thinks it's it's needed or should be done, it should come from another place and not us. And but um

else we should Well, I'll send an email. The the place where it should come from doesn't get anything. Yes, I know. So, you have a good evening for all your hard work. We do appreciate it. It's a lot of time that you spend doing all this.

You're you're getting a preview of what you're going to see. Thank you for coming. It's Yeah, it's great. I much better more prepared this year than last year. I don't think it's going to be pretty. No, I think it's going to be a real big mess, but I mean, not to not any.

Yeah, it's You're on camera. You're on camera. Yeah. Yeah. See you later. Good luck. All right. I do. Walk away. looking at sal do we want to look at salaries? Um everything's been this is this is a 2% raise plus 53 weeks listed on each of these. Okay.

Yes. um the code enforcement we went. So one of the the first question I would have for you in terms of salaries rather than getting into discussing actual individuals is do are do you want to look at at doing a pool again and then looking at individual positions based on reviews and what have you or are you just looking at the the

I'm I'm okay I'm okay with this budget doing it that way. Um because everything's split out like that. I'm okay doing a a raise pool and if if it passes with the raise pool, we meet and decide what what each admin what each person in the administration budget will get. And that's that's fine with me. Um

agreed. And um the only issue is we would if we give a raise to the code enforcement, we need to uh we need if we're if we're planning on giving a raise, we we need to plan on putting in more than 2% because we we need to plan on cuz his hours will be going up considerably. So, we need to put more into that pool to to cover that,

right? And and enough. No, increasing the hours and and the benefits that then become with that. Well, that's what I was thinking because if it's not just it's not just the hours, then it's the other benefits, too. which in in sense is a raise.

Puts him on the full time. So it shouldn't shouldn't be any raise. It should be the increase of his of his of his pay and plus his benefits. It shouldn't be a 2% raise on top of it. I guess what you're trying to say, right?

That's kind of too. That's kind of what I was thinking. I'm right along with you on that. I don't I don't really know how that normally works. Not that I want to go with normally, but that's how it works over our place. So if we did a

section here but uh 2% of what the salaries were last year into the raise pool and then you calculate well there's going to be a small issue with that and the issue is that last year when I had done it because it was my first year doing it I um only had calculated the raised from town meeting on. And it's my understanding that in the past we'd always had a full year's raised. So after town meeting and it's been voted on, then there's a retroactive. So I can figure out what it would have been last year if it had been a full year and then put 2% on from there. Does that make sense?

It makes Yeah. Um so keeping that in mind, uh because that's going to take a while for you to calculate. Can you can you come back to us on on Monday or t Monday or Tuesday with what those what the new numbers will be in each of the salary lines keeping in mind that the that the 2% raise would have to be calcul the amount is not just 2% it's actually 2% plus one more week of that raise. Okay.

So yeah. So okay um we can so that way we can move on and we can come back to that. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, do we want to talk insurance or Well, cuz we have a whole bunch of options which initially are going to cost us more.

Well, can I ask of back up for just a moment to the the salary discussion? Y do you want to do a similar do you want to do a pool public works budget reflected a 2% across the board rate? That's all in one line. It's not split out by each individual. So, we can just keep it in that line.

Okay. And that's that was my that was my thinking on that. Thank you for clarifying that except for Calvin Calvin Calvin will have to we'll have to discuss. Okay. Um and maybe executive session or something, right? I was going to say I think the rest

and we probably should discuss with panel. Yep. And I think the rest of them has to be discussed in executive session. So, okay. Um, somebody that's real good with healthcare needs to really explain all this. So, um, now there are whole bunch of there's two plans that they focused in on other than the two 200. There's the PO 10,000 and PO 2500.

And basically those numbers reflect what the deductible is on the plan. Um deductible being being what you pay upfront before any insurance kicks in. Um these well let's let's all look at one of these. Um you got option four PO 1000.

Yeah. Okay. Uh 9 months. It said the first line says 9 months of premium. Yeah. Okay. POS 200. Yeah. Everybody that yours says 6 months of premium, right? or nine. Nine. Okay. So, yeah. So, you've got the premium amount for the POSOS 200, which is what we're currently on, and then the premium amount for the 1,000 uh plan, which would save the over

the 9 months would save us 50 almost $5,900. So, um roughly $750 a month maybe. Then so flat funding of the deductible out of slashout of pocket maximum by the employer and this is basically by flat funding you mean that their liabil their their financial liability stays the same basically.

Sorry I was flat funding flat funding. Can I just see what that looks like? It's an orange one on the top. Okay. So if they they do you mean the break even funding? Well, is that what flat funding of the deductible out of pocket? Is that what the flat funding means?

I got six months. I have six month too. There's there's a nine months was given later so it may be further back in your book. I only have a six month. I I asked for the 9month one because I figured we could make the change um earlier if we needed to to see if it would help on the uh difference.

Let me All right. funding. our our out of pock pocket expenses the the maximum out of pocket expenses Mhm. for doesn't change us doesn't change. So you're funding our additional risks. Have to look at that one. Look at yours.

Yes. You don't mind looking over a little bit? So what now? So So there's a there's a deductible and then there's an out-ofpocket maximum expense. So our out-of- pocket maximum right now is $1,200. So, what the flat funding does is now the out-of pocket um maximum would be 2,000. So, what it does is it it takes that extra $800 and it alleviates our exposure to that.

Now, one thing that was not calculated into that, which should be, is your premiums go down too. That should So, your premiums go down. So, you're you're getting you're not paying as much. So that should be that should be calculated into the flat funding,

right? And we do have a Well, okay. Because you know what I Yeah. Well, no, but we do have a a form that has it. So, right. So, yeah. So, if I look at the premium analysis, so for our savings for 9 months on a PO 10000 for me would be $108. So, what you're saying is you take the $800 and we take the 108 off. So that would make it

because that would be truly or or make at le or take a $100 something, you know, probably an even number, but that would truly make it. So and this money we would be we would be funding the HR with, right? This the 24. It's an HA though all of the money that you would be funding would be held held in an HR,

right? So which means it would not be subject to taxes. Correct. uh HR is employer held not employee held. So, but yes, they they would submit it and they they would not probably not have to pay taxes on on right. It's pre-tax earnings rather,

right? But it's but each employee does the the employee does not have interest in the account. The the does not hold the account. The employer holds the account. I just was trying to figure out if if that funding would have a tax implication for the employee

if if they if they dipped into it wages. Yeah. So um so let's call it would be 700 for the three and that would be 2100 and probably it would be uh let's see what about a uh employee uh for a family it's 240 so 240 or something out so

um times five 240 * 5 is $700 so that would be a savings of about a,000 an extra $1,000 saving on that. Um, so it would be like $4,46945 and the employer the employee still would not have any more exposure. In fact, likely they would have less exposure unless they have high medical bills because the first up until the we would have to set say, hey, uh each each single can only with can only get $700 back from this account. Yeah. Max. And each of the uh family can only get $1,400 max in a year.

Now, would you be agreeable to make that as an upfront? Like, so say we have a $200 deductible right now. So, say the employee is is responsible for the $200 deductible, and I'm just talking single right here because it's easier. So, then after we pay the $200 deductible that comes out of pocket, which is what we had to pay out of pocket before, then that next $700 goes towards the rest of the deductible. So, in other words, our our immediate out-ofpocket deductible expense,

right? Well, typically if you set up an account like this and and if you pre-populate if we populated it right away, then you you wouldn't even need to you you wouldn't even need to pay the first 200 to be eligible. And that's why I say the actual um for some people the actual exposure is going to be less if they don't spend a if they don't spend a lot. um for people that do need the care and so on, then the overall exposure would be would wouldn't change, right?

Um and um so that's if we flatfunded. Um and there's two on this page. There's two there's one if there's three employees, there's one if there's four employees if we added if we added uh if we went to full-time for the codes enforcement officer. And that's why there's two numbers there.

All right. I say yep. Yeah. Now, um there are other sheets in here that say 50% funding of the deductible. Um let's see if there's one for the P po 1000 flat for 6 months. So, there's it's it's just there's a ton of information here and but what they all tell us is our first year is going to cost us money. is um

absolutely and um depending on which plan we go with. If we go with the uh the PO 2500 actually funding that doesn't say flat funding. I was hoping there's one in here that for nine months for flat funding on the 20 2500.

I can figure that out for you guys. Okay. uh ju I just want to know the bottom line number and um 1750 but we so that would be 1650 and or and then we'd subtract and 240 out for for each uh once because uh no actually we'd have to look at the the premiums are much less for this so they'd be in yeah

so I I guess the risk Mhm. sounding stupid for a moment. I will step up to the plate. It sounds stupid. Yeah. If this is costing us, money in year one? And why will it? So, when you fund the HR, if not all the funds are used,

next year we start with a balance in there and we only have to fund up to that up to, right? But if we have for whatever reason employees that are that are using medical care and are using Y there's no guarantee that this is going to save us money over time. We could be funding the whole thing every year.

So it will save us a little more if you went to a full year rather than six rather than 9 months. Um your savings at the top would be a little bit less. So you drop your number down here a little bit more. But um there is no guarantee. However, I did uh I did have we were initially told that you know roughly 50% of the funds aren't used on a year-to-year basis and I asked a more

direct question to be asked and that is if we 50% funded um which is um funding 50% of the maximum out of pocket and if we 50% funded How does that line up? And so she'd go back, she they'd have to go back and look. And I think it was still within that 50% range.

Was Yeah. Yeah. Somewhere in that 50% range. So if we were putting in 10,400, $5,000 left. So we'd only be so that would actually break the question becomes is we are looking at jumping through hoops to a certain degree and paying a third party administrator to to administer this and and do this whole shift to save maybe

$5,000 on on yeah on the 10 and it just seems like you know what I I I got the sense that the budget committee was looking for a much more dramatic shift than if if you go to the 2500 plan, you might you may be looking at saving closer to 10,000 a year um after after the first year. Um so,

and this is one of the reasons why we didn't go with these plans, right? just I mean it seems to me that this is an incredibly convoluted and and and accounting heavy process that we are talking about at a maximum saving you know assuming nobody use their HR saving $5,000. So now there is another option

for more savings and this is one that becomes harder to swallow because you're require you would be asking the employee to take to take on additional risk and that is not funding the HR as much or you know things or things like that. Um

not unheard of um place people there are many many places around that are shifting more of the cost of the of health care to their employee employees. However, it is also one of the things that has attracted some good workers here and and you start you

start changing that on them midstream and it it can cause ripple effects as well. Absolutely. And and that's I guess part of what I think about all of this is this becomes for a a potential maximum savings of somewhere around $5,000. I think we're it makes our employees go through all these changes and and do to me I I guess I feel like if we were going to make a big dramatic shift I'd like to see

more savings or just keep it the way it is. I think that it's I mean this kind of shows and and it's and maybe that's the point of it is the argument when when we looked at this three years ago. That's what we're looking at which is why we went with the 200. It

it it really gave the the best bang for the buck for both the employee and the employer. Um well unless you just say who cares about what the employee is going to have to pay and then you just go to 2500 don't have the HR and good luck

right now one of the other things on this which is different than the way most um the the way most at least private companies do it is the the uh funding for the HR was based on maximum out of pocket and like doing a 50% of maximum out of pocket. For most places, it's a

percentage of deductible and cuz after the deductible, your insurance kicks in, right? And so, um that's the way many places do it. And so for like the 2500, that's a there's $1,000 difference between the um deductible and the maximum out of pocket, which would which would uh convert to if you were doing 50% funding, that would be a $500 difference in it. But it would it that would be a shifting of some to the employee, but at least it would be after their insurance kicked in. So if it uh whatever their insurance kicks in at whatever rate if it's 80% 90% something like that the insurance is taking the the brunt of of the cost at that point. So I mean so that is another option that you could look at and um is not

off the track of the way it's being done. But I'm I don't know I don't know what to recommend on this. This is um and while I certainly understand that that companies do it, I think that that hiring somebody with a statement of that that they get X as benefits and then

changing that. Yes, companies do it all the time. I think it's it's kind of bad faith. I think you you've hired somebody under a certain term and then to to suddenly say, "Yeah, not so much." So, and then there's the other the other thing that's always thrown to us from the budget committee is what about adjusting uh single spouse single/family

uh coverage and um so you raise single to 100 and you drop spousal spouse or family to 50%. Right? Something like that. You'll gain some, you may gain some on anybody that does family, but you'll be actually paying more on anybody who's doing self. So, we have three self and five family right now. Um, so, and we'd have four self and five family. And

towns with what they're paying. Mhm. He doesn't say what their all of them what their plan is, but No. Um, and to be quite honest, we probably right in the middle. We are. Yeah. Of all of them. So, there's there's some that do 100%. There's there's a couple that do nothing, I think. But,

yeah, there's a couple that do 92 92, which is kind of an odd number, but 85, 90, and then there's a 9488. That's a strange number five. flat fee that they they apply a flat amount to the premium and that's just how the percentages work out.

So, and I I don't and I know that some companies I mean my my out of pocket went from 500 600 last year, but it's a private company. I don't know that you can really compare private companies to municipal that that close. See,

so I switched I'd like to do a lot of things, but I show I can't do it. I have the option of two plans. I switch plans this year to a higher deductible ones and I can save some on premiums and I get I get half of my deductible uh given to me throughout the year and so on. So if I if I'm in good health, I end up in better in the long run because that money can roll over and things like that.

If I Oh, this does say plans. They do actually. So it's kind of it's kind of a gamble either way. It is. If you're healthy and things are good, you you'll do good. If you have a hiccup, then you know, but either way, it's there it is. I was I was looking for Oh, yeah. They do say which health plan. Um,

yeah, there's a couple that tell what C or 500, 200, AC or 500. So, there's a couple that do the 200. There's a bunch that do the 500, but the 500 doesn't save you much really, right? And the one that does the 2500 deductible pays 100% of family and

and that's not even and the town pays the that's not even MMA. That's Anthem. I don't um it's kind of surprising cuz uh I know we we checked around a couple years ago and there was no comparison in costs. Yeah. Leave it the way it is.

That's that's kind of all right. I mean we got answers to the questions. Yeah. gotten the information that the budget um question. Would it be possible maybe for Pam to be here for the budget meeting when we first go when we first go over it cuz she's the one that put together the sheets, right?

Yeah. She's the one Well, she's the one that put together the sheet on the surrounding towns. Oh, she did. All of No, all of these H are put together by our our people. Oh. Oh. From by the MMA. Yeah. Debbie and and maybe we if Debbie can come, maybe I can invite her and see if she can come.

That would be that would be fun. Yeah, would be cuz um I mean I I understand it. There's so many numbers. Yeah, it's it's very hard for me to actually explain it to somebody. I I I I've done enough research on my own trying to figure things out that I understand the numbers on it. But

it's very sounded good what you said. I don't know if he was bologoneying me or not, but but you Somebody mentioned something about the fact that we're paying administrative costs on this too because you're paying a third party to hold the HR, right?

And it's a it's a upfront fee plus a monthly fee per employee, right? And and that's on the 9-month. It's almost an offset of this the premium savings is almost a direct offset. The only savings then comes with how somebody does or does not

use the HR and that's if we had more employees it would probably be a much bigger savings but we have a very small pool of employees. You you'd have less pe you you'd have more like you'd have a more likely chance of people who don't use it all.

Right. And yeah. All right. So, we're under uh regular insuranceances, general insurance, no change. And that's a set number, I assume. Yeah. Yeah. Um workers comp increased. We've already discussed that. Not much we can do there. Computer hardware, we left $1,000 and then we decreased it, but um

yeah, that that $1,000 is is in case any of our printers Yeah. quit or anything like that. You know, printer itself. Yeah. I mean, depending on what you get, but Well, those the the matrix printers are 300. Those are expensive. Yeah. Even though they're old technology, they're expensive.

Yes. Yeah. The the um motor vehicles is talking about going to a laser printer system. So, that'd be awesome if somewhere in the future. I I there was I don't know how they do registration forms unless they change the change the format because

well maybe like maybe like tax forms you know where you do them in in duplicate or there'd have to be some special paper about it. Yeah, cuz cuz that's the that's the way matrix you can do multiple copies, right? Yes, that's why they do it.

All right. Um, computer software, that's just in case something's needed. Um, TRIO is a contract. That's right on there. Yeah. Yeah. Equipment lease. That's a contract, I assume. Yep. Yep. That's the copier. uh publications you went we went up quite a bit and especially on exp you I think you explained this

this was because we're supposed to have three copies in in uh and they're going to change this year the pre the additions are going to change and we and this isn't a change that's in the uh we we didn't change could we change it in the land use ordinance that we don't have three copies since we're about to have a public hearing on the land is it is it land use defined Okay. And well, the issue is the public hearing is tomorrow night and we if we were to change that, we'd have to have another public hearing, I think. Right.

I don't I think so because this is the second public hearing. So, well then the next question I guess is can is that something that could be changed on the floor at town meeting? Could somebody move that the land use ordinance be amended to only require a single copy? I don't know if that's I I I I think you ha I I think you actually have to have motus of changes to ordinances like that, but

well, you know, we're we're doing it as a repeal and then um putting out a new land ordinance. So, I'm wondering if when that warrant article comes up if it it could be changed in that way. Can you check it out? Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So, for now, furnishings and equipment. That's a chair or something. Office. Yeah. We have actually some ergonomic stuff that we're going to have to probably invest in as well. Office supplies. Any any room for

trimming that at all? Or you think that's about right? Well, see, it was 33 last year, right? But 3685 then the year before 27 the year before that. So it kind of bounces around. I think I trimmed it last year a lot cuz of paper cuz I do everything on both sides.

Okay. We hope selectman's discretionary and that's pretty much used for flowers for if somebody dies. Yeah. Um there we death fund. We I think we we used it for one other I think we used it for funding the uh award for the logo contest. Yeah,

something about uh janitorial. is that just supplies or is that is that her janitorial supply janitorial? That's her that's her salary. Okay. And that's so that's in the supplies is the $400 is for the janitorial supplies.

Okay. So that's factoring in for a raise or something. Yep. All right. Supplies. That looks about right. Yeah. Any if anybody sees any that as we go down generator maintenance, they're all coming out zeros. I can't argue too much with that.

Telephone. Um, you said you're expecting an increase in the telephone. Yeah. Okay. We did we did come very close to last year's number. So, yeah, we did. Propane. I not on contract right now. I I wonder if you though are we would we'd be putting ourselves at risk if things I

think you'd only cut 500 and I don't think that's I mean cost down it now but you know how quick they go up. I mean I wouldn't if it if you're talking thousands I'd say yeah but you're talking couple 300 I wouldn't mess with it.

Maintenance and repairs. This is where you're expecting painting to come out. Yeah. So, we didn't do any last year. So, this year we're really hoping to get the Boy Scouts to paint or something or Mark. We could get Mark.

I'll get you the other colors. I already asked where the thing was. And that although it's not a huge amount, that is just something to note. Grounds, the 4,800 that we had in grounds is now encompassed in right in public work. So, it reduces that increase a little bit. It's an absorption. So 20 uh town buildings, it's gone down a bit uh for electricity.

Street street lights gone up just a bit. But that does that include the uh new new light we put at War Memorial Park or is that in War Memorial Park? That's in the recreation budget. Did I put it in the recreation? Okay. Okay.

Um security. Same for Union Church. Same for electricity there at the Union Church. Telephones roughly the same. Yeah. No issue. Election payroll. We have quite an increase in that, but that's because this is going to be a Last year was a year with two two small elections. This year is going to be a year with one small and two big. Uh the primary I expect would be

there. There's the caucus, there's the town meeting, and then the other thing is that the primary election in June last year was completely offset by the RSU because that was the only thing. But since it's not the only thing on the ballot this year, we'll have to pay.

What's if we have a caucus? Do we have a primary as well or just Yes, because the caucus is for presidential and the primary is for the state races. Okay. So that's why the increase there and and it's going to be a huge election.

Yeah. So that that pushes Medicare and FICA up, voting machines, nothing. Election expenses. And this is where we the booze. We talked about the booze and I I would suggest we only go with two two this year. I agree. Yeah.

Okay. So, we'll cut that by 2,000. Yeah, that sounds because without an additional machine, we can't have a backlog in anyway. So, okay. And, uh, legal expenses, we already have a couple things out there, I think, right? So, um, even though we didn't spend all last year, might as well probably keep it.

I just sent him some of the warrant articles, too. So, that's going to audit expenses is Yeah, that's Yeah, the contract MMA do. MMA dues. So, that's going up this year a bit. That's set. That's We already got the bill and AVCOG is based.

I left it the same. We'll make it different somewhere else if we have to. Yeah. Tax billing. Um I think I can do it for about the same same. Yeah. La last year was a well the last two years it was 1,700 or almost 1,800 but

yeah it was a little less last year because she had some supplies on hand from the year before that she could use. So we may have to get more this year. Okay. Tax leans and discharges. I see you dropped it down. Uh, and looking at cuz

2 years ago we spent 34 and last year 26 3,000's right dead center. So that town reports been moved out of telecom to telecom I mean. Mhm. Mileage and dues and mileage and training and that was already explained postage. Uh

there's a lot of well you over spent last year and you're asking for less than you spent. So and advertising um might be able to save something there if we don't have to fill very many positions, but you never know. Well, there's also the advertising for um like elections. We have to do some advertising for elections and we have to do the road closure advertising in the newspaper and then um on top of that if we well the public hearing should come out of the planning. So I did some quick

calculations cuz there's a be because of um so this brings us down to a 25 914 difference and 353 807. Um because we have the um large amount for the codes officer um it's roughly uh you know somewhere around 11,000 in um wages

plus 6,000 something in um insurance plus FICA Medicare and so on. So you're talking 1920,000 increase, right? The bulk of that Yeah. increases between the 53-hour work week or 53 week and the Yeah. and the increasing to a full-time

Yeah. And and bulk of it's increasing to full-time. But um but if you look I I did a quick calculation on building permits, electrical permits, and plumbing permits that we um the increase last year cuz I had this paper here. Um building permits

increased by about $8,400. 3,100. So that's 11,100. And plumbing permits increased by 2,3 2,300. 11,500 2,300. So that's 13,500. So, of the 20,000 that we're asking for, um, 13,500 of it realized in increase in fees. Yes.

So, um, and the fact that he's already seen a major increase this year over last year, had five more permits on Monday. Yeah. So, so there's been a there's been a large increase in permits this year over last year. So between that and the fact that permits tend to relate to more taxable over overall and things like that um and the fact that um with the if we increase the hours I'd expect that we would also change the job description to be a to be town planner and to do things such as start start work and make making recommendations to the board of how to start the comprehensive plan and

things like that. if we decide to put money towards the comprehensive plan this year. I was discussing with Paul because he's so busy now. I don't think that he's going to really have a lot of time to work on the comprehensive plan. But if we put money towards comprehensive plan, maybe he could work five days a week, but that fifth day come out of the money from the comprehensive plan instead of I mean I know it's like apples and orange, but it's for a specific reason, you know, because we really do need to get the compreh

It it is I don't but planning and doing a comprehensive plan are two different things. Well, and I expect that a compre the comprehensive plan deal will be we will probably be forming a new committee and um and having them

start to work on it. But I would expect that they would work very closely with Paul. Okay. Then we have to I would also anticipate that we are going to have to add some money to the budget for the expenses associated with the comprehensive plan.

But the the problem I I I I understand what you're saying, but we don't have any idea what those how much those expenses are because we haven't even looked at it yet. And well, a round figure that I've heard from people is about $20,000 can get it done. Um, I know it depends on whether you do it in-house or whether you farm it out. Um, Paul and I have been looking at the state website. There's a website on the state where, um, if you have a comprehensive plan committee and they ask the state, the state will actually put together a packet of information. Um, it's this huge file and and there's many different towns that are have already done it before that you can access. Richmond being one of them, which is somewhat similar, although they have much more commercial. um that could assist us in doing that kind of thing. So, it's possible that maybe if you put 10,000 aside this year,

is there a fee for accessing that material on the state site? No, the fees would be mostly for mapping and things like that. One, one other thing I had wondered is what if we had a plan that come September is when we would form the committee and they would start looking at it and then they could they would start looking at things like you know what is it going to cost and what do we have to do and then they could bring that to us and we would have okay next year when we come into budget season okay this is what it's going to cost this is how long it's going to take uh you know things like that so we get the we get the ball rolling this year, but with all the other things we're with all the other things we're asking to add, add adding another I I don't know.

Agree. I mean, I know we do have to have that cuz it was kind of surprising to me that we had already had that approved like I was at somehow I just believe that it was done. Let Paul Nibble on it. But I'd say right now,

you know, I feel like the fact that we are are several years out of legal compliance because we have put off dealing with it. I am concerned about kicking the can further down the road and I understand the financial piece. I I just I I feel like we're kind of walking up a little bit of a fine line on that as far as as potential liability. I would agree with that. Yeah,

I don't think we're alone. I I I checked your link and there's nowhere near all the towns in the state along that are listed on that. And so I think we're we're I think we're actually in the majority of towns, but I and I

guess I see that's where I see if we start making the moves this year and next year we we start we really get rolling the ball. I mean, I know it's I know it's a multi-year process and there's no guarantee at the end that the town's going to even accept it,

right? I'd actually like to see the the committee get together a little earlier because some of of the uh process is is pulling town members and I'm thinking maybe the November election would be a good time um to get the committee members out there because there'd be so many of the towns people.

So maybe maybe June or July or something and and that's what I'm thinking. There's a lot of stuff preliminary stuff that can be done without that can be done on this to get the ball rolling that doesn't require the expenditure of too many funds.

Absolutely. Do we I so I wasn't necessarily even the fund piece but I was just thinking getting it the process started before September. We don't necessarily have to spend. No, I would but at least getting the I would think getting the

starting in April, we might want to start ad after town meeting after we get through this, we might want to start advertising for members or just announce it at town meeting and that to announce it then and and then start advertising and see see what we get. Do we have to set money aside tentatively just to to get so that we have it built in for the legal negotiations for the withdrawal should that pass by the day before this meeting

part that's part of that has to be part of the uh article or the uh the question it says do you it would be say something like do you support Durham withdrawing from RSU5 um and allocate x amount of dollars, right? So, we have to figure out what that amount is and then sort of just I I something to keep in mind as we look at these numbers and what mill rate sort of tenatively looking at mill rates

that may be a player in it. At least we'll know the answer before we are at town meeting. I think the number five minutes before the number I've heard thrown out there from different areas is around 15. That's what I was thinking.

Yep. That's what was used last time here and that's what was spent in Freeport. Okay. So I 50 or 50 50. Yeah. And and on that note, we probably should see if we can get uh four or five people to put something together. We are statutoily obligated to have a public hearing couple weeks before and at this point we as a board have not amassed any information and we don't have any information to present at a public hearing.

But you I mean it's basically a place for people a public hearing like that is for people to ask questions um of you know what it's going to what it's going to mean. But we don't we don't have any numbers and there's no way we're going to be able to pull together numbers even even if we had started in December. How long did it it how long did it take the other committee to pull stuff together? Um, but we can

I think we if if we're required by statute to have a public meeting, I think we're obligated to do something to to to have some information to present to buters you don't need any you don't need anything financial. That's that Freeport proved that

they did not talk anything financial before before the vote. Yeah, they didn't the first vote. before the first vote. They were very nobody nobody did anything like what we did with the other committee and there's nothing in the state law that requires you to do that. you're required to have a public hearing and to be honest the selectman called the public hearing but it should be the people who

right who who you know they established started the petition I mean really but um I do know that free they they cuz they did not want to talk numbers I mean they did have I think they had some consultant do a a quick run of things,

but it was not in depth. I can ask Peter. Yeah. Find find out what they did and find out what's can you find out from the Secretary of Education or from somebody at at the Department of Education what what we're required to present or do at this public hearing cuz

I mean there's not all we know I mean we can all we know basically is Yep. somebody. There were enough people that wanted this on the ballot. If you do this, that starts the process. We we have we will have $50,000 set aside for the negotiation and there's no guarantee on what the outcome is. Um,

right. I mean I think there are some fundamental questions that people seem to have that I hear a lot that that we may or I mean one is the bond which we are on the hook for whether or not we can negotiate a compromise on that is is

an unknown at this point and also the other question that I hear a lot and I don't know the answer to is does that mean that we can return to school choice and there have been a lot of people who've had a lot to say on that topic and nobody seems to have any real basis.

I don't think it's something nobody nobody had nobody had the answer back when Freeport was doing it either. You know whether or not that is is can one thing one thing that would be helpful to have from the RSU is how much

does it cost to operate the Durham school, right? and um and the cost uh including the cost of labor at the school, right? Um the new um budget RSC 5 budget is out too. So if you guys we have it in the other room if you guys are interested.

But but that I want the total cost to run just just to run that school, right? And that includes the bond payments. That includes Do we know how many kids we I've heard I've heard different numbers especially lately heard like 4 450 over there. 225

or 150 high school students. That sounds What is the What is the enrollment at DCS and what is the the Durham enrollment at Freeport High School? I heard one time it was declining, but it seems like the numbers here lately are all over the place.

And does the DCS enrollment include? My understanding is that because Panel doesn't have a middle school, the panel has a choice that they can send their kids to Freeport Middle or DCS. That's not what I heard quite recently.

They they at least unless things have changed, it would they were they said they didn't have room at Durham for them. They go to Freeport. I got to work with a guy. So, um, so are there any other Oh, there is one other change that we need to make at the bottom of this on the, uh, on the appropriations cross out the telecommunications 2200 cuz that moved over to

Yes. So, will that make it 351607? Or is that included in your 35387? It's still 35387. That only um the the amount to raise would go up by $200. and uh I believe and so the 88,362 would come down to 86,162. Okay. would go to 267645

Okay. Thank you. So, I assume you did the animal control last night. Yep. Yeah. No changes. Assessor, no changes. No, we did. We added 300 to animal control for a Havahart trap. Yes, we did actually. in line 20 for supplies.

Okay. Assessing nothing. Cemetery. Nothing. Um I did make a note cuz you at one point had said you wanted to follow up with them about capital projects. Yeah. Whether there's any cuz I know there's no show on Thursday. Okay. conservation

changes. No changes. Uh donations, we cut that back to the 3,000 that we generally do instead of 3,71. Did we instead of the 5,3 that we did last year? Yeah. 3 3,000. But um so you cut there's one in here that had 71 seniors plus,

right? We just went and made put them all back to 500. That was the one that got changed on the town floor. Okay. So, gotcha. So, we went with Leo Leo Anderson Community Seniors Plus. Seniors Plus at 500 and Life Flight and Safe Voices.

Yep. Okay. Oh, the Western and Life Flight. I'm sorry. Yeah, I read it across wrong. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Eureka. The Eureka. Um, we talked about whether or not they needed to reimburse the emergency fund for the $1,650 in foundation repair. So, we added that to their capital projects line.

What was that was 650? Yeah. 50. Okay. For foundation repair. assistance. That's a new new amount, right? Parks and recreation. We had a um Jake Webb who runs the Durham Boosters that he had offered to come in and discuss his proposal. I didn't think we were getting to this tonight. I thought we were just doing public work.

So, he'll be back. So, he will come in next week. Oh, I need to take a quick break. that either. So, club is an RSU uh thing and they have a stipen for the woman who runs the outing club, but they don't um contribute any other funds to it.

have is is in large part what they want wanted the funds for was to offset the um when they take the kids on outings, the outing club and they go to events. Um the the whatever the admission fee is is just a straight through 100% pass through to to the kids. And so there was at least I heard not from anyone connected with it through a third party that the fund part of the request for funds is to offset the the cost of some of those events to make them accessible to to more kids. Um but again given the the amount of money that we pay into the RSU, the fact that the that the RSU isn't funding their own organizations is

is that all RSUs is that 3.2? They don't get funded either. No, just the specifically the outing club. I don't know what they fund other clubs. Well, I would think that this kind of fits under the same category as that's one of the extracurricular things that the parents pay for or pay the extra.

No. or at the very least maybe a a a query to our town representatives on the school board as to why the the school board can't fund $700 for the outing club rather than the town. I mean, when we used to go on trips, my parents had to pay.

I mean, I know that was a long time ago, but bring your money in your teacher. I remember that took extra drum lessons. My parents had to pay or I had to pay. I don't know. Just everybody's got the hands out, in the school system.

Yeah. So, um did want to talk one other thing on the parks and recreation. we can postpone on the uh on the request for the uh recreation stuff, but on War Memorial Park and we need to talk to Joe how on some cuz we wanted to do phase two of the Boy Scouts project and so on. But we also need to do something to the

gazebo. Gazebo, which Paul is estimating at somewhere between $3 and $5,000 um to to do and repair to repair it. I know the boy that's uh wanting to do the project um still has several years before he before he has to complete

it off maybe. And I don't know where he is on the planning stages. I need to talk to Joe, but I'd wondered if we as a way to kind of smooth things out if this year we did the gazebo though, we do need to put in one more flag pole.

Yes. Oh, ask Jones. Yeah. So, I can ask him about that and see see what his thoughts are on it. Okay. Um, and if that's the case, we still probably would need to um increase the flag upkeep maintenance. We might need to increase that a bit, but um we also need to look uh last year we put uh we used a recreation fund to fund most of what happened over there and we're using more much more. We're using more than what's coming in. So, we need to we probably need to take less out of the recreation fund this year.

Did I have some mention of of a national god flag? Um there so there's been a lot of talk as far um discussion back and forth. Do you add one flag and put the Coast Guard one pole and put the Coast Guard flag up? Now you're because it wasn't planned for the fifth poll. Everything's symmetrical right now. You add one pole, it's no longer symmetrical. So, there was talk about, well, what if we add two poles and so on. And then the question is, what do you put on that other pole,

right? One of the emails said the merchant marine and other a bunch of different Yeah. So, so um well, the National Guard is kind of I mean, I I work with some guys that are in the National Guard and they've spent time in Afghanistan. Granted, it might not necessarily be they may not actually be fighting the war,

but but they're over there. The National Guard comes under each of the other you've got the Air National Guard, Army, National Guard. Um, they're part of the other branches of service. Is is there a flag that just encompasses all the services instead of, you know, like each branch?

I don't know. I mean, but I mean, we could talk about it personally. I think I mean, and which is if and seal on a if we if we put one if we put one flag pole up this year and then we can see how it looks. Um make sure we work with the scouts to make sure cuz however they want their path to go and so on to make sure we have it along the path and it's it's evenly split out and things like that. But um I think we do do need to put up a flag pole.

Yep. Do do we repair that gazebo or do we look to the future and change it to the point where it's lowered down? No. Well, that's my opinion. I I think it would look I I think it would look odd. I mean, and it's now we do it every few years and so on. Um, last time was 10 years ago or something like that. They did redid the lower part part and

and stuff, but they're they're trying I mean they're trying to keep it with the historic I'm not against leaving it the way it is. I just kind of been looking in different areas and throwing that out. So if we do do that then we have to come before the historic district commission. If we change if we change the way that is um but I mean it's a it's we can

discuss it. Is it because that's part of the historic? It's in it's in the historic district cuz that's not historic gazebo. Yes. Yeah. I mean it is in the his in the No, it's in the historical design. If you go back and look at the pictures from uh over 100 years ago of that gazebo, it looks almost identical. They um the if I know I've read some some newspaper articles and things over the history. It fell in repair in disrepair in the 1920s, 1930s, it ended up in a ditch. And around the 1950s, they were they hauled it out, rescued it, re repaired it, redid it, probably basically rebuilt it. But it's in the basic design that it was. Um, I'm sure I'm sure there's they pro there's probably things that have changed on it, but it's it's the basic design.

I'm not opposed to live the way it is. I just But but yeah, there's probably no timber on that that existed 100 years ago. No, I'm not. Well, I don't think they had any pressure treated and I'm sure there's some over there.

But um so I mean I guess that's a that's a a topic for discussion. Um get the answers to all some of that stuff. So that 5200, we might need to push it up a little bit to include the flag pole and and the uh the setting of the flag flag pole, but

I'll look at the prices that we paid for the flag poles last year. Okay. I don't think we paid anything for the setting because the boys Yeah, but I'm not sure if if it's not part of a boy scout project, which this if we're pushing the project off till next year, it's not might not actually be part of it.

But they might be willing to do it. I'll but I I have to talk to Joe about service get the whole troop over to do the gazebo um planning and appeals board. Did we do anything in that? Nope. Okay. And we talked about whether or not to add money for a comp plan, but we've already discussed that. So,

okay. Um public works and roads have already done um solid waste contract contract and yeah and telecom and um did you get the newest version? I got the newest one. I'm a rather cons I I understand that what they're trying to do and we we do have funds available but there's it's a as long as this is not something that's going to cons continue. Now, I see the uh like the security camera for the fire department.

Yep. Um I'm fine with it coming out of here, but I see this as an ongoing line because next year we probably want to do the public works year after maybe here. This this was in and Sarah brought this up. This was in Yes. So, we could

in there last year in some way last year. No, it was in the fire department capital budget. We threw it in. Okay. And it's it's actually back in the capital budget this this year for the fire department, but we could remove that from their capital budget and do it here. Sounds good to me.

Yeah. So, okay. So, that's it. Anything else we want to discuss tonight? Um, one thing I would be looking for is a sheet that shows um the budget, how much is coming out of designated funds, how much is coming out of taxation, and the difference in taxation and designated fund usage. I I actually have that going. I just really didn't have a lot of figures like the fire and the roads I didn't have. So,

okay. So, so we'll have something we'll have something to go see next year. Yeah. I mean, sorry, next week. Next year. The only things um in the telecom that we did talk about um was the big screen TV. We just weren't really sure.

Where was that for over the Eureka? I just had about it. Well, there's there's two TVs that Jeff had been talking about. One being replacing this little teeny weeny television. That's fine. Um, not with a big screen, but with a

Yeah. something similar size, but flat screen. Yeah. And then um he was also saying that in the past there had been discussions about trying to make the Eureka um a wireless place so people could go and get internet app access and also um a big screen TV so people could teach classes or give talks over there and have you know the the capability of setting up a computer to

that's that 4200. Yeah. So our super party you know that might but even bring people in. Oh, I can bring people in the name of the cake. But the um the total bottom line is less than we took in in franchise fees last year.

No, it's not. Well, it does if you subtract out the $10,000 grant that was No, no, cuz we it's it's like $3,000 more cuz Okay, I had it right here. It's 47,000. That includes the $10,000 grant though. Oh, that that includes the grant. Yeah. So, yeah, it's that. So, um yeah, so it's a little more, but we we we have been saving. Um we've had we have approximately 90,000 set aside right now. And my my intentions on this is

that on a year-to-year basis, we use less so we can put money aside to replace and upgrade our equipment. Right. But but and this is what he's trying to do here is to upgrade equipment and so on. All right. Anything else tonight? Who wants to

move tojourn? Second. All in favor? Motion carries. Thank you and thank you all for coming last night. not well. Not well. Yeah.