TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ April 28, 2026

oh, this is a better picture. Is George? Okay. They're they're he's on first thing on the uh agenda is on his way and lock up. Okay. wait till George gets here. Give him a few minutes to get over. There's not enough interest for girls.

So, if there was here doing Hey, John. How are you? I'm good. Joe, how are you and your family? Excellent. The little one talking. No, but she's very much the laugh is coming in. So, she's very vocal all the time. Four months. So, definitely like I'm giving George text.

Definitely like all smiles all the time now. Yeah. Laughing a lot, you know, like she she was she start she like laughed in her sleep the other night. This is the cutest thing ever. So, we're good. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Um,

if only that'll last another 15. Yeah, 18 years. But we are fortunate. Uh, she's sleeping 12 hours straight every night. So, I know. Yeah, I know. I'm just waiting for George to get here. Um, cuz he's the first on the agenda. And so, we either start a minute late or we wait for him to get before we start and then you said he's on the way right over.

Jerry. Yeah, he didn't. He hasn't responded yet. But when I was on my way out, he says, "I'm right behind you all." Catching up. Cool. I still can't. All righty. Well, we'll get started then. Do we have documentation from George?

call me in order here at 6:31. And we have a quorum. And so we'll begin with the pledge of allegiance. America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

agenda? comment? we know you but for the people at home Joe Gaston stack pole road I would like for the select board to consider making road maintenance um a capital a CIP fund so that the you know money is set aside specifically for that I do feel that's one of the historically the biggest bond items we've had to deal with and looking forward I think it's going to become a concerning financial area. Thank you.

Thank you. Um any other public comment? All righty. All right. Uh, do I have a motion to approve last meeting's M minutes? So, move. We have a motion from Josh. Do I have a second? I'll second. All right, Rebecca. Any questions or discussions? Seeing none, all in favor? Any opposition? Passes unanimously.

George to go over um the recommendation to amend fee schedule to establish a per acre site plan. And I see George coming in right now. So, we'll give him three seconds to get in the hot seat as soon as he enters. You can sit right here. You're up already. So, yeah.

you're important. Uh we'll give you a second to settle in. Yeah, pretty much. Okay, cool. Um yeah, so uh we just see here that you um want to go over the recommendations to amend the fee schedule to establish a per acre site plan reviewed for solar energy systems. since we'll give you the floor and give us a presentation of your material that you had emailed in in advance.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members of this board, I did provide the town manager and I believe he forwarded a memo explaining the proposed fee schedule changes which relate to three issues. First is the uh fee charged for solar energy systems. the current uh application of a per square foot fee for the uh panel areas which is how we base the sizing uh would end up with a very out of out of proportion fee for what is uh required for town services. So rather than going with a per square foot, uh our recommendation is to go with a per acre square footage. And basically we calibrated it according to how you would review a typical 13 lot residential subdivision. It's probably about the same amount of workload for staff, the board. Uh and so and similarly the peer review system. So basically uh that would be the first part. The second part would be some of the fees are missing. We currently have no fee for um

subdivision sketch plans uh which involve some time for the staff as well as the planning board. Uh secondly, amended plans when they come back and then thirdly private wave maintenance agreements. There's currently no fee for any of those which involves considerable staff time. So and then the third part and final part would be dropping the fee that was uh adopted for penalizing someone who comes to a meeting unprepared. Um it I mean a typical part of the process is to determine the completeness of their application. So many many times most times if not uh uh always the there's going to be some discussion about the planning board requesting additional information. So it's really very hard to administer when is this proper and when is it improper and so uh we would recommend just dropping that at late or extra meeting fee because there's really no way to predict it or calibrate it. So those

would be the recommendations and I'd be happy to answer any questions. All righty. Um, before anyone asks any questions, I'm happy to see this because I know that the whole process of developing the solar ordinance was a lot of work. And then, um, at the town meeting last year, some folks came forward at the very end and said, "Hey, upon review, it seems like some of this stuff is a little too harsh on the solar developers or the potential solar developers." and you know with ultimately it passed but this nice to see this come around and get adjusted reflecting the community feedback and and the hard work on the the the folks involved here. So um does anyone have any questions on what George has given us here?

I think Gohead go ahead. Did we have a situation where we did charge someone a fee for not coming with the proper materials? Again, it's just it's hard to judge when when how would you do that, right? So, we haven't done it. All right. All right. And is this proposal coming from the entire planning board?

Uh, no. This is primarily coming from staff. Okay. Although I have reviewed it with the planning board chairman and he supports it. John, you had some questions. Yeah. What I was going to say is uh I was just looking for other towns other fees uh for solar fee and there's not much except the town of Warrington just hit a solar developer with $130,000 fee.

What town? $130,000. Warren. Warren. Okay. So I mean I support this but one of the issues is uh you cannot charge a developer a fee that is not uh does not reflect actual cost to the town for doing review. So I don't know what basis they calculated their fee on but I think you'd be hardressed to say it cost the town $130,000 to review a project.

They negotiated it down from 193,000. Do you know what the size of the project was? I didn't didn't say. Yeah. Yeah. It's five megawatts. I'm not sure what uh under state law, you cannot charge more than it costs the town to provide the service,

but I support George has done that. Yeah. Okay. Um George, are you looking for action from us tonight to approve this or does this need to go on a warrant for town? Because the fee it's a fee schedule adjustment, so I figured we were all right with that. Um, so based off what we have presented in front of us, the information we were sent ahead of time, and the discussion we've had tonight, does uh I would entertain a motion to pass uh the adjusted fee schedule as presented.

Can I ask a question? Sure. Um, are there other fees that we should be looking at adjusting? These were the ones that were missing and this particular one, it raised concerns because we have an application in the works. So, at this point in time, I do not see any other needs. Then I would make I would move that we accept this proposal.

All right, we have a motion from Josh. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second from Deb. Give chest s chance to catch up. All good. All right. Any additional discussion? Uh, no. I just want to say thanks for the hard work on this. It's really great to see it come to fruition and really the big thing for me is addressing community feedback that we had received. Uh, sharing some concerns. So, um, all

seeing no other questions or discussion, all in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none, it passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you, George. Thanks, George. All righty. Uh, so the next thing on the agenda is budget committee. Um they had asked if they we had originally talked about having them in on the 5th. Uh but they had asked if they could come in on the 28th instead just because it's ameliates their schedule a little bit better and gives them more time to meet in advance of providing us budget recommendations on May uh 7th. And so uh

tonight the goal is to open up the the discussion. So, if budget committee members have any questions about the budget that they need you all need answered to continue work your work um you can ask us. I didn't receive any Did you intend to send any questions in advance because I didn't receive any?

No, because I I got feedback um from neighbors that they like the fact that they hear the question and answer. Okay. That it but if it were sent in advance, we can at least prepare for them too cuz that's what we had brought up last time.

But we don't meet again till next week. So if we have to wait for an answer that's okay too. Okay. So um wanted to open the floor if you all the chair vice chair or committee many members want to ask questions. If the board can't answer them uh we can defer to staff or or our uh accountant and if we still feel like we need to do a little bit more digging. We can get you a written response before next week. So uh just want to open the floor to whomever just have a seat and name who you are.

Well why don't we just do that? Get that out of the way. Yeah. Mil Simon. I'm a chair of the special. We're not gonna be able to hear you. Yeah. Unless you're up here, Milt. Sorry. So, I'm I'm just have everyone introduce himself. I'm Mil Simon. Live on Stack Brew. Um I'm chair of the budget committee.

Jill Gaston Gang, vice chair of the budget committee. Stack ballroom. Yeah, you can. You can sit. We'll just move this a little bit closer here. Oh, we can talk. I can talk loud. I talk loud. Oh, that's all right. I don't want you to lose your voice.

Um, Phyllis Brandon, Brookside Drive, Don Ser Brunswick Road, Neil Barry, Stack Bowl Road, budget. There you go. Mark Dur Stackpole Road. Al Purrington, Dave Road. There's a budget committee, not Stackpole Committee, right?

You're more than welcome. Good area. I just uh I remember when Mark when you joined us, if you don't live on Stagful Road by any chance, do you like I actually do. Okay. All righty. Uh any questions you have, we'd be happy to go through uh you know, again, get you the answers. Mark's here if there's facts and figures, numbers, issues you're wondering about. Uh but yeah, feel free to ask away.

So, sorry, just let me raise your hand. Whoever wants to ask, I'll call on you and help facilitate it. So, one thing I have noticed on the budget that you have on your agenda, I believe it says 13.4. Mhm. It does not reflect your minutes that you just approved. It's missing an amount.

What do you mean it like you should say 13.5%. That's that is what was presented to the budget committee. Yeah. On your last meeting. I believe there is a $15,000 amount missing. Yeah. To the crack ceiling. Oh, sorry. We were on vacation that was added. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. We adjusted it today. It was on there. It's on there. Are the correct budget. Yeah. Just want to make sure that we're looking at the same. Yeah. Because that was uh amended from the floor last meeting and then adopted. Um, so we adopted the budget as amended, but if there was a a scribers error there, happy to fix that. Thank you. Alan,

one other question I have is I noticed under funding balance the additions for evaluations. Could you give us a line number please? Well, it's it's on the summary page. It's on page number one. It's actually to tax evaluation.

I see where that has not sort of slight change. No change from last year yet. We had 33 new permits issued last year based on the CEO's report. Yeah. And so in the past we haven't in the budget process estimated an increase in budget uh in that taxable valuation. What we've done is once we get the taxable valuation calculated by the assessor that's when we adjust the mill rate to reflect that because we don't want to say oh we're going to have an extra million dollars in valuation. Let's build that into the calculation. And so when we've set the mill rate in the past after we've got that taxable valuation from the assessor, that's why we've seen the last couple years that we've set the mill rate and it's been a decrease in what was proposed at the town. So like one year it was like a 3 and a half% and when we sent the mill rate it brought it down to only a 2.9% increase. And so John had brought that

up a couple meetings ago like do we want to add in taxable valuation now and estimate it? And what we had discussed was we don't want to estimate that and then be wrong and when we set the mill rate have it be higher than the proposed budget increase. We'd rather say we're budgeting this based off of the existing valuation. When we find the new valuation we'll bring the number down to reflect the new valuation. Does that make sense?

It does. But I'm just curious, does the CEO estimate what the valuation of his home when they're issuing permits? I'm not sure if codes does that. No, I think the assessor does that. Yeah. When it's done, we we used to base the permit fee on estimated value, but now we just do square foot.

Don't Don't they do a HUD statement? Don't know what the forward number is. That's not required in Maine. No, that's just out of closing when you sell a property. Mhm. I I thought it was when you it I I'm sorry. I thought it was when your new home, too.

Well, when you go to your closing, if you have a Well, there's a HUD statement. That's only that has to do with real estate transfers only. That has nothing to do with town. Mark, is that like the best practices way that normally we across all budgets? uh what we're doing here that taxable valuation figure is it's those last two lines on the summary are just a projection to help you guys have a guide of where you might end up. It's it's certainly not the hard and fast where you're going to end up. And so when it comes to the future year budgets um taxable valuation because valuations aren't set until April 1st and they're not actually known. They're based off of April 1 values. they're not actually known until the assessor finishes their work which is usually whatever June July time frame. Uh this gives you a essentially a worst case scenario because in most cases your valuation is going to go up from one year to the

next. So if we use last year's valuation the mill rate that we're projecting here is a worst case scenario mill rate. And then also specific to Durham this year, seeing as you guys are going through a revaluation anyway, this mill rate isn't really going to be anything that you're doing it going to be anywhere near what your actual mill rate's going to be.

Does that answer your question? I totally understand it, but I was just concerned that when I see a report that has 33 homes, well, permits that were issued last year and granted say 20 of them were finished. I mean, that's just permits were issued. doesn't mean that their homes were finished. And I'm just concerned when I see a 13 13 1.5%

increase. Always looking at ways to reduce that as much as we possibly can. And I and I understand what you're saying that we determine that valuation uh usually after the town meeting. Yeah. And so so like we do reduce it and that's since I've been on the board we've carried that over and then we've reduced it at the time of setting the mill rate once we get that actual number and we talked about estimating it and I think that you know discussions we had were just like you estimate

$6 million increase in valuation and you tell everyone that the mill rate is going to be lower and then assessment comes in it was only a $3 million increase in valuation and now we're actually saying hey It's the same budget you voted for, but it's actually a higher percentage. And we'd rather come down than go up. It's it's it's tantalizing in my mind to estimate that number because we get to advertise a smaller percentage increase if if we estimate that number up a couple few million dollars, but I just wouldn't be comfortable personally um estimating it. So, and it's just not the practice we followed at least since I've been here. So, just trying to remain consistent.

Okay. Thank you. But thank you for the question. I appreciate it. So, in continuation of that question, my concern is um we budgeted in April of 2025 $389,647. Million line. It's right from page one. Okay. Yeah. I just I want us to say the lines out loud. So, if anybody's looking Yeah. It's no line on page one towards the bottom.

Um yet so did we not do did we not get an assessor evaluation report last year? No. So you're reading this incorrectly. the 389647 that I put into the budget column into the actual column is based off of what the actual mill rate was uh or what the actual valuation was as of April 1st, 2025 for last year's budget. We didn't know what the we didn't know what the valuation was until July whatever. So last year's budget would have had 382819

in the FY26 budget column. Do you understand? So, okay. So, it's just not accurate on this page. Well, it's accurate. It's just Well, that's not the figure we were dealing with when we did the budget. When we did the budgeting.

No, exactly. Because this is not a budget portion. It's a projection of a mill rate to help with a decisionmaking process or at least to give you you guys an idea of okay, well, if we do this, this is essentially what the worst case mill rate will be. That helps you make decisions. It's not a oh well this is absolutely going to be the valuation that that that can't be known that's

realistically when we do a budget we're not looking at the that taxable valuation we're looking at the expenses required to provide the services we've been asked to require provide and so the the valuation isn't necessarily as relevant for that planning purpose because if the evaluation is higher or lower that doesn't change the fact that the trash contract cost what the trash contract costs, the fire service costs with the fire service costs. And so if you if we if Donna came in and said, "Hey, not you, Don, our assessor. Um if Donna came in and said, "Hey, I know the exact valuation for next year," it would not change any of our budgeting math because it's still these are the expenses to provide the service, you know.

that because it may not change your budgeting, but it certainly changes the impact to the taxpayer. No, it does not. Yes, it does. No. So, in what way? In what way? You're using that to determine your your percentage increase.

No, this is estimating percentage increase. Our percentage increase is calculated once we have the actual valuation and once we have the mill rate. You're using it to determine your mill rate. No, no. This the percentage increase is an estimate should the valuation of the town not increase. So it's a worst case scenario. Then when we get our assessment and we set the mill rate, we have the actual assessment. We take the expenses that we need to raise the numerator and we divide it by the denominator which is the valuation. And that's what sets the mill rate. And so if the valuation from now until then goes up $10 million, we simply take the agreed upon budget and divide it by the assets available. And so the town's budget does not change whether the valuation goes up or down. Once the town and the voters have adopted the budget, that's the budget.

So it theoretically impacts their vote. So it impacts their vote in the sense we're saying here's the budget. Here's the current valuation. This is if nothing increased. This is what your projected increase is. We expect the valuation will increase. We don't know the exact number. And since I've been here, we've always set a mill rate that has come down from the budgeted because the valuation increases. So, um that's how we have presented it. So,

can I ask a question? Yeah. just is is it am I wrong in thinking that is true this year that uh we're going to have an extra increase of valuation because we have we had a longer budget period. So no no no your valuation for this year I if the

revaluation is done as of April April 1st your valuation is going to be crazy higher than what it is now which means your mill rate is going to be crazy lower. But we haven't had our re-evaluation yet. Are you planning on doing it for April as April? Next year. Yeah. Next year.

So, in any case, regardless, when you're comparing one when you're comparing one mill rate at one valuation in one year to another mill rate at another valuation at another year, you're comparing apples to oranges. You're not comparing the same thing. It's like comparing one city's mill rate to another town's mill rate that they have completely random different valuations at different points in time. You're not you're not comparing the same thing. So to say, for example, well, the mill rate here in Durham is $25 and in Cape

Elizabeth, it's 14 bucks. Okay, that's like saying, well, it costs a a pound in in Britain to buy a hamburger and it costs 14 in France. Okay, so what? That doesn't tell me anything, right? So comparing it even within the same town from one year to the next from when the mill rate is determined based off of a particular valuation makes no sense. It doesn't make any sense. That's why you just look at primarily how much is your property tax levy increasing the actual tax assessment or if you want to look at the entire budget how much the budgeted expenditures are increasing or if you wanted to take a look at the revenue how much the budgeted revenues are increasing that type of thing. you look at the actual um budget, not the act not

not the effect on the mill rate. Yeah, you can estimate what the effect on the mill rate is going to be, which is what we're doing here, which is a worst case scenario, and it's always going to be the exact same percentage as whatever the property tax levy is because we're just using the same mill rate. Mill rate from last year to mill rate this year.

Does that make sense? Yeah. So, if I understand right, what happens is, and somebody mentioned voters, so the voters aren't going to see they're going to see 13.5%. But the reality is when the tax, correct me if I'm wrong, when the tax bill goes out, it will be we hope something less because another 710 million will be added to the uh

if you're going to compare the percentage of mill rate change. Yes, the mill rate change percentage will be different, but the tax levy itself change will not be the increase of the cost of doing business does not change dependent on the valuation of the town. Correct.

So, it's a 13 budgeted 13 and change percent increase in expenses tax and and what's that in tax? Yeah. When we set the when we get our assessment and we set the mill rate, we set the mill rate based off of the true valuation cuz we say mill rate, but for folks listening at home, it's what you charge per thousand of valuation. So if we have, you know, hundreds of thousands of more dollars of valuation, we're just dividing the budget by the assessment and that sets the mill rate. Knowing what the assessment is now or what it will be doesn't change the budgeted expenditures. It could change a projection on the impact of mill rate. And so if we said we think that the valuation is going to increase $und00 million and we could say the mill rate will likely go down this much. It doesn't change the true cost of doing the business.

I understand that but I think I think you said what I said but um in August when we set the set the mill rate that then sets what people going to pay in taxes. That's correct. Okay. And so that should could be hopefully is less than this because it's

a 786 $6 million more. Correct? Okay. However, all things being equal, if your valuation was, let's say, $100,000 on your home last year and the town's total valuation went up 2%. and let's say it was equally distributed among all properties, then your valuation is going to go up to 102,000. So yeah, your mill rate is going to be different than what you expected, but you're going to pay the same tax that you would have otherwise paid. Meaning, you're not getting a lower tax bill just because your your your mill rate went down. Do you understand? Your cash the cash out of your pocket doesn't change. If if last year if last year you had a $100,000 house and the budget, the tax levy was the exact same as it is this year and your your um your your tax bill was a,000 bucks.

And then all of a sudden this year the valuation for the entire town goes up 2% and it's equally distributed among all properties. Meaning your property went up 2%, her property value went up 2%, his property value went up 2% and the budget was exactly the same. Then you would still pay a thousand bucks,

I guess. But and the mill rate would be different. The mill rate would be lower. Well, right now without a town revaluation, our assessment doesn't go up. Yours, so I'm not going to pay a higher. I mean, I my house I can't remember what my bill was

too high, but anyway. Uh, right. Can't be that high if you don't remember, John. It's pretty manageable. I lose a pay, you know, title. But anyway, my point is though that the my assessed value of my house doesn't go up this year.

Yeah, it it may. Right. Well, we don't do a reassessment. There's a there's a there's an there's a there's a valuation that is set every year at April 1st. So, it may go up. Your valuation may go up. It never has, right?

It But it doesn't. Right? Because let's say you added a let's say you added a structure or you or you did something, right? It doesn't it doesn't matter because the town doesn't reassess the new evaluation that gets added to it. The sum added to our denominator here is

those homes are accurately evaluated at the most recent standard. And so if we're now if we get 33 homes and at the rate homes go with Durham somehow they're a million a piece now that's $33 million. We're dividing everything by 30, an extra $33 million. It's the same exact budget. We're dividing it.

Yeah. But now my house, which hasn't been re-evaluated since 2018, or hasn't been assessed since 2018 when I bought it, is not seeing that change, whereas the new homes are seeing a change. So when the reevaluation takes place in 2 years, the people whose homes were assessed right now likely won't see much of a change, whereas other people's homes. So the assessment just shifts who's paying what. It doesn't shift the amount that's totally being

correct being raised. If if there were no new homes this year, meaning in 2020, meaning built before April 1st, then you're and there was no development, nothing, then the valuation of the town would be 3 389647, right? Yes.

Okay. So, your mill rate is going to be 254041. You've had some You've had some those 10 mill whatever it is. Yeah. you then it should be less because it'll be yeah 3.90 exactly but we don't know what that number is going to be right

my point is for me and the people out there is in August your tax rate your bill rate is not going to be as high as this what you said that's correct this is this is the worst case scenario this is assuming no this is assuming no added valuation and since I've been on the board and paying attention in town they haven't projected for a a guess for increased valuation. They just say we wait until the evaluation the the assessment comes in at for the last, you know, decade or so, it's only been new construction or real estate transactions or whatever and then we calculate the mill rate after. And so none of that changes

budget because we're we're still budget like whether we get a $100 million valuation or not, we still know our diesel price does not change. And so it's just how it's spread amongst the people who live here. I agree with all that. I mean, but so my point is though this is worst case and people need to know that this is worst case.

Correct. Exactly. And if we wanted to try to estimate that and say, well, we don't like this number, so we want to say, well, maybe we pick up 20 million evaluation and then we present that as this could be the change. Well, then we're holding the bag. We don't pick up that 20 million evaluation. And so what we have discussed was it's better to say this is worst case scenario without evaluation being tab tabulated and then we always bring it down when we have it and that's when we talk about our overlay and stuff like that. So

can we refer to it as an estimated mill rate then? I mean I feel like there's been so much confusion tonight and I can only assume what people are thinking when hearing this because sure it's literally an estimate. So yeah, fine. Yeah. Okay.

Feel like that maybe not but with an asterric or something. It's worst case scenario. Exact values. Yeah. Because it's always an estimate because then when we go set the assessment, we have we have three figures to choose from, one with a very small overlay, one with a larger overlay, one somewhere in the middle. Yeah. And then we have to make that decision that

I think that that would clarify a lot for sure looking at it. I know it's semantics but it's semantics but I think it's important to say this is the highest p highest change we expect in then we ask we imagine that it will be below this but we don't want to sell you 12% and end up being 13%

I just think for people that watching at home that could make a lot more sense Josh did you have something else ask if we could move on to another question I just want to make sure I didn't misunderstand understand something's just said. So the Miller rate that is the worst case scenario at 13.5%.

But the property tax levy at 13.5%. That's real. That's correct. Yeah. Because the the expenses are increasing 13.5% according to this budget. And if I can ask, so in the notes it says want to keep the increase between 3% and 5% each year. What was intended by that note? Well, we could want to keep that increase in three to 5%, but if the school goes up 10% and the the uh uh county goes up 12%. What we want and what the reality is is two different things. And so that was when we were using fund balance and we had every year we had talked about for the last several years that after budgeting for expenses the fund balance was being used to try to bring us to somewhere between a three and a 5% increase to use that fund balance to stabilize the the budget increases over the years rather than saying hey we're using all the fund balance year one and there's a decrease okay next year there's a 25% increase

because we use that fund balance. So that was the strategy to using portions of the fund balance to try to shoot for that 3 to 5% increase. Uh but if you look at the trends in the last 6 years, our responsibility for the school has gone off $2.5 million. So we're just you can't use the fund balance to buy our way out of the school's budget increasing and the county's budget increasing. We can want that

for high percentage Uh, line 40 7258. Oh, give me a second to get to it. Yep. 40 uh public works 40 72 58 58 road painting and striping. Yep. Um, so my question is if we're not paving roads, why do we need to budget any over last year um for painting and striping? Okay, Calvin, do you want to answer that? Well,

when I first got here 11 years ago, there was no paint anywhere in this town. So, every year I added a additional couple of roads until eventually we have them all painted and so price goes up. I I don't know what this year's actual contract is going to come out at. It's a it's a cooperative bid process through GP COG. Uh, I haven't gotten the latest latest numbers, but I'm sure it'll be higher than last year. And I'll add a couple of more roads each year to until we get up to having all of those painted.

So, so on for this for this line, how many how many is it miles or is it stop signs or you know, how many miles? I do you estimate? I think you've got about 21 or somewhere in that range currently. And so I will look to get it up to 24 or five miles.

Okay. And so if we budget next year for paving. This is painting, not No, I'm just saying because we aren't paving this year. That's my question. This year. Oh, yeah. There is paving. Oh, some of those. Okay. Yeah. All right. Okay.

So, this has nothing to do with paving. It's Well, right. I was saying just maintain and then we pave over it. Yeah. Oh, no. We wouldn't do that. No. Okay. Yeah, we're not going to paint paint through the potholes and then paint it next year, but thank you.

All right. Thank you. It takes a lot of paint to fill a pothole, too. So, you're not going to mess with that. Thank you, though. Other questions? reasons to increase department heads? Department heads wages? Yeah. Yeah. So, we have a human resources consultant that was hired to evaluate our competitiveness in the region. We're having a lot of pressure coming in from other towns trying to take employees. And there's also some really great research done looking at wage wages. Uh it was done by a consulting firm that was hired by Harpsswwell to look at median wages in the comm in the region. And we realized that we are consistently coming in in uh below the bottom 25%

pay grade for certain positions and below 50% pay grade in every single position in in um across the board. And so we are paying less than average wages across the board and we're seeing an immense amount of turnover at certain levels. Sorry, what was that, Don? I didn't say anything. Oh,

okay. Yeah, because like you've had what, six positions turned over at public works, Calvin. Well, we've got two, but we've had multiple. They turned over six times. Yeah. I've been trying to fill that. And even who we've hired two weeks ago or three weeks ago is now left as well. Um, and so when we look at like what we're paying for wages compared to driving a fork truck for Walmart, we're under that. Um, you know, that's 26 bucks an hour. We're not paying that for our staff. And we're seeing that pressure also at department heads. And so this was a wage adjustment to bring us slightly below average compensation for the position for the region.

Um, so I guess because you kind of slid into regular employees, um, I'll follow up with this question. I tried to find that research and that information and I didn't find it in any of the agenda packets. Well, so that was presented to us by the human resource consultant and she's the one who gathers the research and then presents us the information and says, "Hey, here's the situation you're in. Your pay is far below." And she's been in two or three times since it was discussed.

So, you didn't see her data. You just No, I' I've also found the data. It's available uh on the town of Harpsell. Um and I thought it was one of our packets, but I mean I've read it as well. And so there's the the raw data is available, too.

Okay. Is there any way I can get a copy? Can you Yeah, we can give a copy. We can certainly give a copy to you all. Um, but ultimately setting wages is the policy decision done by the select board, not by any other committee. And so it comes from the well really it's done by the the um the professional staff approved by us. And so the wage table was presented to us five months ago. We discussed it at length, agreed upon it, and then that's what we directed the town manager to budget for. And so the wage table adjustments that you're seeing, those still bring us under the average pay in every category from town manager down to uh labor um for this region. So

just a note on that. So we were presented with the information back in August with Okay. I didn't look that far back. Yeah. So that's where that's where it is. I'll look that far back. Thank you. Yeah. and we the the raw data is available to look at um in addition to

the presentation we received in August. So further to that we also received wage studies with um specifically gray. So that was provided to us and the main municipal association has a wage table available where municipalities upload their wages roles and responsibilities. So all of that went into calculating it with the consultant who the work was directed towards and then we were able to review their recommendation and then upon ourselves go out and take a look at the raw data as well um even if the raw data wasn't discussed uh at nauseium at a meeting. So,

okay. Alan, if I may expand on that with the HR consultant, I believe is that the individual that also worked on policy HR policies. Mhm. So one granted that well the policies that we may have had in place weren't sufficient and I understand why you'd have that consultant but once that

has been satisfied which I would have thought that because you voted on all those policies we can continue to have an HR consultant in the budget. Yeah, we do because it serves as our human resources department. And so if we have to field personnel issues, if we have to feel field u labor law issues, labor rights issues, those sorts of things, that doesn't fall under the purview of of the uh uh um department heads or the town manager. That goes to the HR cons. So with an HR, they essentially function as what a human resources department does for nor for another business or a bigger municipality. And it's cheaper than the attorney.

Yeah. By a large margin because right now that would have fallen on the attorney. So if there's a complaint about an employee or someone needs to file a complaint, you're sending it to the attorney. They're charging about twice the hourly rate as what a human resources consultant charges and we don't have our own human resources department.

But yet but yet you continue to have the HR consultant in the budget. Is that is that amount for the upcoming budget the same as it has been the previous year? Um what line is that at? I don't know. I don't know where it is. It's varied.

1027. We pay her five times. Yeah. Under business. Yeah. And so to Jerry and Deb's point, there's a budget for that service, but they're only build as they're used. And so if there's if we've got our policy squared away and there's no human resource complaints and no violations or anything like that, those funds don't get utilized, but we just budget for them.

And to clarify, that's under budget services. So it's lumped together with the account for business services. What line is that, Jerry? Business services 2722. Page 27. No, department 20 722 businesses. So is anything else under business services?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. HR and accounting. Mhm. And legal is a separate line. Okay. specific line was $30,000 and you're projecting $45,000 but yet all the the consultant has developed all the wage adjustments and the policy. It

seems like a large increase for something that we really shouldn't have that much of an adjustment to. So rates increase. So the cost of doing business last year, the hourly wage is not the same as doing it this year. And so we see a 3.8% increase. So that is

both include the the rate increases and the expected number of hours we anticipate using that person uh or those services. And like we said, we build those hourly. And so if those don't get used, they aren't spent. Can you share with us what you expect those hours would be?

We could have to go into the we'd have to look into those details as to what was budgeted, but I don't have them off the top of my head. Donna, um, on the HR, the payroll company, well, I know the payroll company I used and the ones that people use now, they have an HR department.

Our payroll company doesn't. It doesn't. No. Did we had this discussion? We had this discussion last year, too. Um the payroll company doesn't offer HR and so we we this is the best bang for our buck for HR. would be alone would be

if we employed an HR person it probably fully fully budgeted at full family benefit retirement and all that it would probably carry a note of $15 to $120,000 a year if we add that employee. And so this this is both our um our our

uh accounting and our human resources at a much lower rate than that. And so at a time at a municipality our size for certain services like this because we don't have such a large volume it makes sense to consult and kind of on an ad use basis. This is the same reason we we don't pay a general retainer on on lawyer services. We budget for lawyer services then pay as we use it because there's not enough volume of work to keep them busy all the time. So it's better to have them there for if there's a big issue or crisis. If we had 60 employees and had a union and all these other things, we might need human resources full-time because there's always something popping up. But this is the the consulting fee is the best way to go

asked Jerry to look into adding administrative services in the form of HR for like adding a staff person and Jerry came back and said we can do it at a third of the price if we went with a a consultant. So, well, I was just wondering how does that how it

like I said, payroll company that I have and everything has HR built right into it to a certain point. If something got really legal, then of course you have to do something a little bit better or they have other people there to help you.

But most of the time, like for all the handbooks, all the employees, any question on them leaving, coming, going, I could call up, ask them, and it was all part of the fee and the payroll. Yeah. and your business is a private entity, not a government organization, which it changes the the scope of it too. There's a lot different laws and a lot different details when you deal with public sector employees versus private sector employees in terms of like um workplace rights and things like that. And so that's maybe why your payroll service offers that and and our payroll service doesn't. Um but when we examined this, this is the place where we found it to be the lowest cost to get that service. If the payroll company offered it and it was offered at a better price than what we pay our human resources consultant, we would have gone with that option. It just isn't offered.

As good as it's going to get. That's the answer. Jill, uh, page 14, line 0139724. 0139724. Animal control. Animal control under public works. Yes. Um am I correct in my math that we're budgeting 18 months for animal control and shelter?

No. So the 20 the last budget which was 18 months was 29 and then we're budgeting 22. So no it's 12 months. Okay. And that's with through which who we go through with that, Jerry? Lisbon. Yeah, that's Yeah, Lisbon's animal control officer and Coastal Humane Society

combined. Their quoted prices. Yeah, that's their quoted price from 12 months of service. Yep. Okay. Mark, you look pensive. Other than Mark, I was just doing bad. Um I I did have another question about the full-time wage increase.

Yeah. Um is that based solely on raises or did we also expand our full-time equivalent? Uh we add so the position that was formerly part-time at the fire station has gone to full-time. Okay. Is that the only that's the only that's the only category that's increased. The rest of the um wages are a wage adjustment reflecting the new wage table, years of service and things like that.

On the hours, what the term is full-time and part-time? What hours? 32 32 hours is fulltime. 32 and that's when benefits kick in. No problem. And this excuse me, this this budget includes no code enforcement. Calvin kindly picks up that extra work and an admin assistant.

Yes. Yeah. And so that is a change. It's this it's not change in full-time equivalent. And there's not. Yeah. That's a that's a shifting of workload. And so that was a full-time code enforcement officer who's been downgraded to a full-time administrative assistant. and the uh code enforcement officer duties fall fall on to the uh new code the uh public

works director who's now public works director and code enforcement officer. Those administrative duties get handed off to the administrative assistant and allows the public works director and the code enforcement officer to now work at top of license rather than doing administrative work. So, and so it's not an increase in um it's not an increase in number of full-time employees. So,

okay. Thank you. Besides the half time that went up to the full-time, did you say that the um the administrative assistant is a is a full-time? Yes. So, it's replacing the position held by the code enforcement officer prior and it's the same. It's kept at full-time but compensated at a much lower hourly rate. is displayed as part-time because they split it between public works and

and it's half of it is in public goes to public works, their time, half of their time goes to um enforcement. Okay. And so that's a pretty common position amongst municipalities to have an admin assistant that splits their time between those two departments. Um, and it's a lot of like doing the groundwork of paperwork that needs to be done and all those sorts of things that don't necessarily require the skill set and advanced um, experience of a public works director or code enforcement officer. It's just kind of the busy work, paperwork, organizing things, getting files pulled together and that sort of stuff. And so when you have your department head or your your head of a of a a group spending their higher value

time doing steps work that could be done by a lower compensated employees if we just don't think that's fiscally sound policy. So we that's why we brought that uh down to a um administrative assistant. Jill you'll appreciate this. It doesn't make sense for my wife as the chief of medicine of the hospital to do the nail clipping because it's a pretty expensive uh nanny petty for the dog at that point.

One last one. Yeah. When the HR person looked into this and did all these timets, did she really base these wages on 32 hours or did she base them on 40? They're based on the hours that the position works. the job duties, the responsibilities, and part of the part of the hour reason that we're we're this is still puts us below average wage. And there's other considerations that went into that, you know, a mechanic in another town might be expected to work on specialized equipment that we don't have here. So, maybe that can justify that wage being different than what we would see elsewhere. um also takes into consideration that we have a 4-day work week and so that can be reflected in the wage table. And so it was really massaged out, you know, task by task. And that's what you hire the consultant for is rather than just say a broad stroke of the brush, go through and say, what does this position

do? How does that compare elsewhere? What does this position do? What how many hours do they work in that? Let me get to it. One second. 2674 hardware. Yes. So um why is that not considered a capital fund of expense? What do you mean in what way?

I mean that's a question. So hardware is like computers. Yeah. So it's not like a capital expenditure. It's like more something that you use for operations. And so um we're replacing them all the time. Well, yeah. So there's a replacement schedule for hardware. So we don't buy a new computer every year for every employee that needs a computer. Those get built in built in. And there's a replacement schedule. And then this year it includes adding um tablets for the select board to move to an electronic format for most of these documents to reduce printing and things like that.

And so that also helps streamline FOA uh processes processes because when they need to when a FO request comes in, Freedom of Information Act request comes in, devices get handed to the person responsible for the FOA request. that's all there as opposed to people using personal devices and then that gets really m mix in the line and so it's kind of a standard approach and so this was a quoted price that includes adding those devices.

Okay, thank you. Y when do the new age scales start? Uh they would start in July after the June July one after the meeting. who we'd like or I'd like anyway we all would a list of what people are earning now for so so you want us to tell you what every employee makes

correct okay initial that would there's a process to go about for that um and what is your intent with the list is do you want to set their wages so then what are you looking to do I want understand what they're making yeah okay

it doesn't matter what I want to do actually I need I like a list Okay. So, so how does that go about providing personal like details for our employees to how does he want it? How do you want that? What do you do for you? I can I can shoot in the dark and ask for a bunch of documents or you can make it easy. Tell me.

Well, I'm asking you how you would like to receive. I'd like to know what the clerk makes part time at, you know, what the hourly rate is. Okay. What and and what they're going to be. I I can figure that out myself, I guess, with with a table.

Okay. I think so. All right. How does that get processed? because we do have to be so obviously public work it's uh things are open but we also do have to be mindful of people's individual um rights and so I I'm not exactly sure the process to say hey here's what so and so makes and what so and so makes and so I just need to make sure from a legal standpoint we're following we're dotting the eyes and crossing the te's and I don't know the answer for that

public information we already know we don't need their personal name well when you have one clerk you Yeah. Do you want a spreadsheet with just the numbers in it? Do you want a copy of their payub with an hourly wage? What What are you looking for?

Sure. You said yes to the spreadsheet with I don't think you need names. You just need to. Yeah. So, just you're saying like if we show you the wage table and it says our clerk falls on this dot or on this cap column, our public works director falls on this column, etc.

I you don't need titles. You just want the numbers, right? I think I think you can take out the personal nature of it just to work. They want the name of the position and the salary of the Oh, you want the name of the position?

They're just naming the position really naming the person. Yeah. So, tomato tomato salary because I I'm guessing I don't know what Neil has in mind, but if this clerk moves on and another person comes in, well, probably they might get paid in that.

That's what the wage table shows you. And then it's that's when you so we we'll come back to this but quick aside to that. And so when you have the wage table that's your projected wage range. And so when a position gets posted um in theory it can be posted as the range being hours times rate at the lowest level at the highest level. Then once the person's interviewed the hiring

agent goes through and looks at their experience and stuff like that. And so if someone is starting a position and they they have two years of experience, they could presumptually start at step two. If that person then leaves and you bring in someone that has 25 years of experience, it's likely that they would be more like to start at step eight.

Neil, what is the difference from what you're requesting to what they've already said they're going to provide, meaning that wage? I don't know what's I don't know what people are making. Now, if if you were to take the wage table and kind of circle I'm looking at the wage table right now.

I don't know what they're making. Hang on one second. I'm proposing something. Um cuz we got one through eight it looks like. And then there's a cost there's a So if it was like circled where they are where they're going to be July 1st and written somewhere where they are now.

Mhm. Would that work for you? Sure. Yeah. I'm letting you see it so that Yeah, I Okay. Thank you. As far as the legality of showing this, it's you, as you say so many times, is the state the wages posted. I've read a lot of things that said we could have a

Yeah. No, I'm not saying you can't. I'm just saying that we have not had someone ask for employees wages before. And so I just need to make sure that we do it the proper way. So for example, you can look up a state employees wage, but there's a portal that's been developed and there's certain information, personal information scrubbed from that. So you're not we just send someone a pay stub. There's a lot of personal information on there. And so we just have to make sure it's handed off the correct way. And so I don't want I I it's not a no. I just want to make sure we do it the right way.

We used to always have it in all the prior ones. It's only been the last few years that we haven't received them. So, like we knew how much they made in the cemetery or doing whatever. Yeah. And I know when I first moved here, it would say it would list all the town employees and then their their wage after. I know a lot of municipalities have gone away from from that. Um, it's public data. I just need to make sure we're following the right rules to the way we pass it along. So, no problem at all.

Thank you. Yeah. Um, I didn't see anything for grant matching reserve. Is that because we didn't add any or am I missing it? It's not part of the general fund. This is you only budget for the general fund, right? So, if you're asking is there anything being budgeted to be transferred to the grants matching reserve to be able to have funds available to match future grants? The answer is no. There's nothing in there's nothing in the budget that is currently budgeting to transfer uh from the general fund to the grants matching district.

Okay. So we don't the only the only transfers out are to the um capital improvements reserves. Okay. And so in part with some of these because the expenses that are completely out of our control driving the increase in the budget, we're looking at places where you don't have to necessarily add if we think there's an adequate amount in in a reserve. And so for example at project projected ending balance for the grant matching reserve is 25,776 with only projected expenditure of 4224 that gives us you know at that rate six or seven years of liquidity before it's expired. And so when we're trying to cinch up things here's a spot that we can say. And same thing like if you look at like uh oh like the donation line what is it? Um like recreation fund. We're not adding anything to that either, just because at when we've got to uh figure out how to tighten things up, that's the first place you pull.

question and suggestion maybe. Um, if you create a capital reserve fund for roads, I assume that would qualify for capital reserves. U yeah, we could put some money from uh the the the general fund in there. Well, in a sense, they're wanting to do 125,000 already for

15 150,000. They didn't have it in front of me. Anyway, we we can lose some money from money from und designated unassign whatever the right word is uh to that fund and you guys could spend it if oil gets cheap. Real cheap.

Yeah. So, and so that's that's totally a good that's totally a suggestion. So, when I think of capital reserves, I think of things big big ticket items you're saving for that are costing more than you want to allocate in one year. With with saving, it's just something usually we allocate and then we use. we allocate than we use. If the asphalt prices remain really high, we could have the question of whether it's even worth it or not. And so if we were to decide, you know, asphalt tonnage is so high that we're only going to do a quarter of a mile, let's hold off. And under the current system, we would just end up saying that didn't get spun spent. We'll budget for it next year. We'll take those funds. They go back on general funds and all that sort of stuff. What you're suggesting is we could say if we don't spend it, establish a reserve account and then say, you know, that's going to go into the reserve account and

then the select board can decide as needed how to use that. I'm saying a little more than that. I'm saying establish the fund first. Mhm. And take some money from unassigned because we still have a surplus which we'll spend next year if we don't spend it this year.

We don't we're overspending it this year at 500,000. M was okay. We we have what 2.1 or 22 million for well what we have for a surplus and what what we have for undesated fund balance and what we have to to spend out of it are two different things because we have to manage cash flow and so we need multiple months of expenses on hand.

I understand that. Yeah. So it's not 2.1 million. That's you uh I I do recommend that you um also establish a reserve. I think that's a good idea. Uh the way that you can do it is uh when you have your you have your normal budget uh for your warn articles, you could have an additional warn article that asks the town's people uh shall the town um appropriate any unexpended um paving uh appropriations to a paving

reserve to be used into the future. Essentially that's a carrying it forward. So the way that would be structured then is if we decide not to use it That's right. It automatically goes into a reserve as opposed to just be rolling back into the correct and then being need to be asked for an add an additional phone.

That's correct. Yeah. And it would be it would just be an additional warrant article. You just put it in reserve now. Yeah. And you could also do that to easier. No. Well saves us the vote that Well, it's you can't put it into a reserve right now yourself. No.

No. We establish. But I like the idea. So you can you can do it either way. You could establish it and instead of for example budgeting $150,000 for paving, establish it and budget to trans include in your transfers o over

$150,000. Then you could use it whenever you could do it uh the way I just suggested. It's up to you guys. I like the way you worded that there because that establishes it and is essentially just a saying policy moving forward would be unexpended funds out of the paving line go towards future paving expenses as opposed to like having to go back through the next year and say we were under so we want to carry that over to this year plus this year's paving and um

that's something we could think about. Yeah, either way accomplishes the same thing. Yeah, thank you both for that suggestion too. So we so we have to do a warrant for that. You would have to reserve and you would have to have if you you would have to have it as an annual um

so every year if you wanted to do it uh um the way Joe was describing it where the unexpended portion goes into you would have to have a warrant article that authorizes that because absent that it the default is that it lapses at the the appropriations lapse at the end of the fiscal year.

Right. or we establish it this year and then we treat it like every other CIP. Correct. Yep. You could do it you could do it that way and both ways will will function practically the exact same way. Yeah. So it doesn't matter either way. But I do I do agree with the recommendation but even if we established it establishing reserve and funding it is different than establish a reser establishing a reserve and then saying certain funds if unused get allocated to it. Do you follow what I'm saying? Well, I'm assuming this year that would be how that's one option of how to create it.

Next year it's already created. Yeah, because the other option create it now is next year instead of it being under public works as a line, it's in where all the other transfers to CIP is. Yeah. Yeah. So, I have one more question.

I'm thinking through this, but yeah. Yeah. Is this the last year you would expect to use any amount significant amount of money from a signed fund? Yeah. from what we were the projections were showing that this is the last year uh that it would be available to use and then from moving on I mean it depends if we get a ton of evaluation and all that and there's overlay and budget expenses come under and we replenish that then there's some money available but um this would be the last year that has a a sizable uh use of the fund balance which is that that goes to your 3 to 5% question earlier like when we started this whole process. The goal was to spend that fund balance down until we had the cash on hand to manage operating expenses and and cash flow. To spend that fund balance down, the goal was to use it to try to get us to a 3 to 5% budget increase annually through sound budgeting, but also the

use of the fund balance rather than, you know, pay it all out in one or two years, have a 0% increase, and then see a 30% increase. So, this is progressing as planned. Yeah, this will be the final year. I lied. I have another question.

It's all right. Um, GPCOG, do they are they giving you I know it's like 20,000 something to join. Um, where are you seeing that? Um, it was the under subscription on I thought it was like 9500. No, no, no, it's 20 something,000. It's 15,770,000.

15,000 for GP COG and MMA combined. Yeah. Okay. And so that means we paid him 32,000 total. So not GP COG. No. Okay. GPCOG and and was 32,000. Yeah, because we paid quite a bit into the open space. That was a grant. That was a grant.

It was all a grant. We have we have grant matching. shows we paid it. We when the group comes in. Yeah. So GP Cog can be we have a membership but then also GP COG can provide pay for services and so if you pay for them to add a service that's separate than the membership.

Can they do they they uh give a discount on salt and a discount on certain items? So, has anybody checked with a Androsan Valley All right. Let me take with me. Why is the camera one dead? blinking blue on the top is the audio back when you compare

okay on a apples to apples basis 12 month to 12 month basis it can be down okay we're We're good. Okay, now it would be down 7. Yes, the camera is working. The municipal side of the budget down 7.7 and I can I can talk more to that if you want to.

Yeah, that would be good to I know you did that last meeting that was also in the wee hours of the meeting. Be good to go over. Does your computer have a lot of battery right now? Any other questions? Okay. Yeah. Question.

How do we get back? We as town of Durham get back to utilizing the maximum amount of money we can on homestead exemption. The reevaluation. And so that's once the reevaluation is done, that brings you up to fully evaluated and you can take the full $25,000 homestead exemption. How do we keep it at that higher level because we are

more frequent re-evaluations? Yeah. So, the problem that this is this has actually been a perennial issue. Every town people waited too long. Um I mean I've been here for in this role for 3 years and um it was like oh yeah it's been 8 years since we had done something then. And so that's why that percentage that that we can take has gone down year after year and it's down to like 52%. Um, and so once you have your reevaluation, you're at, you know, the state says you're 100% evaluated. You get to use 100% of your homestead exemption. As the years go on, there they say you're starting to get below a certain threshold. And so what will be prudent for us is to schedule our next evaluation

about the time we get it done. And the challenge is there's like three companies who do it. And so when we started this process in 2022 or 23, they were like, "Yeah, we're four years out." And so if we want and every every there's like two or three companies respond, they were all four years out. And I've just that's one thing I've heard at the GP cog meetings. Everyone's like, "We're trying to get evaluations. It takes us another four years." And so we have to feel another two years of pain before we get that. It's just

there are fewer things you can do, but those only help when you're closer to the top end of the Yeah, you can you don't have to do a full evaluation when you're only a handful of years out of your most recent evaluation.

The problem is once you get so far out, you have to do that full evaluation. Leon just did theirs and they're they're assess like that 1988 I think. I mean, they're they're posting people are posting online. This it went from 100 something,000 to 800,000. Crazy.

This was in the I'll get you a second show. Sorry. But this was in the news a few years ago because Portland did it and they had waited so long that someone's house went from they're like, I bought my house for $150,000 and my valuation is now $890,000.

Um, and so we don't want to wait that long. Um, but we're just it is what it is. This is the fastest we could do it from when this iteration of the board started. But it it sounds to me I mean this is sounds like this could be a policy decision for the select board and

because we're leaving money on the table. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean people want to be able to take their full homestead exemption. I mean that's the reward for being a resident and claiming residency. And if you're not getting that full exemption, it's a big deal. You know, it

certainly is. And especially because there's been some discussions at the state level of maybe seeing if that homestead exemption could increase. Yeah. uh to help benefit main residents and if we aren't at full evaluation that really doesn't do any benefit. Yeah.

Thank you, Jill. So, I'm not sure of the right wording, but can't we like pass an ordinance or something that requires us to do a reval on the recommended schedule? Because the select board's always changing. Who knows what other positions will change? And

I think that the best approach might be to establish a reevaluation reserve that you start funding because I think part of the reason why it gets held off is because it's very expensive. Um and so we broke that savings up over I think three years uh to and to raise the money for it. And so if there's a re-evaluation reserve established and it's, you know, the cost of a re-evaluation divided by however many years you should be planning for it starts going in there regardless of who's sitting in any of these chairs. I think that provides the prompt to continue to fund it. Um because part of the challenge is is like we don't want to raise your taxes because we don't want to

save for a reevaluation. So, we're going to raise your taxes by you not getting to get your homestead exemption because we're not saving for a reevaluation. And then it's like, oh, your percentage is super low now. We need another 180 grand grant for evaluation. And so, I think it would be a good idea to look into doing a reserve for that. So, have you seen that in other towns?

What a rebound revaluation reserve. Oh, yeah. You guys have one. We already have that. Oh, yeah. We did establish it for Sorry. I agree. I agree that it would be a lot it would be prudent to set aside a certain amount every single year

as well as as well as seeing if you can contract out as far in advance as possible. Yeah. I mean, it's just good planning. I mean, the the step I think would be is they're going to start the reevaluation process in 27, correct?

Well, they're starting it now. So, starting it now and then it will be it will have it for 27. And so it could be worth bringing them in now to say when's the next time you can do it. Can we put can we get on the schedule?

What's the state? 10 year. They like to see it. Uh at at the most 10 years, but even then, you know, like I said, like I think almost 30 years. So you 10 years is too much because so the problem with going even 10 years is and it's not as much of a problem here in Durham that doesn't have as huge of a uh commercial base as does, but your allocations get way out of whack. So that um what's happening in Lewon from what I read in the newspaper uh residential property values went up on average I think 180% whereas uh um

commercial values went up only 130% on average which means residential values outpaced um the um you know outpaced commercial values which means you know property tax the change proportionally felt was proportionally felt more by by um by residents and now

they're I guess they're going to delay that for a year which means they're just basically saying to businesses you have to pay more for a year than what you would have otherwise had to pay because they they're afraid of voters.

Mhm. Our voters are way nicer. Well, I mean this is what happens when you keep kicking the can down the road. So I wouldn't suggest doing 10 years either. I mean I would suggest five to seven or every four if you could but

policy of next year starting to fund it. How much does it cost for five? Couple hundred. You can do 25,000 a year. Yeah. And in eight years you probably have enough to I think going Yeah, I would I would have said five to seven but four.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. You know, five years is good. Four four is good. But once you start getting, you know, 10 years, that's a that's a that's a huge jump. Next, it's a lot. It's really, you know, if you do that though, you're spending 200,000 every four or five years. You know what I mean? So that can get costly, too.

Yeah. But what is it? I mean, you have to figure what it cost every you got to figure out the right what the taxpayers want. Yeah. Well, I mean, what's the what do the taxpayers? No taxes. They want our homestead exemption to be 100%.

Right? But when we start thinking about the calculation, it's like, okay, to get your homestead exemption 100%, it's going to cost you an extra 2% annually to get that. And so some people might say, I'm making out pretty well.

2% annually is $200,000. You don't have to put aside $200,000. If we're doing it every four years and it's, you know, $200,000 is a minimum of $50,000. And 2% annually right now this year is $200,000. that's not like going to be the same in every budget. So there's a cost and I think that's why it had been put off in the past as taxpayers said we didn't want any extra costs and now they're saying oh we're feeling the extra cost on the back end and so finding that balance of what's the wiggle room are people happy when we're always refreshing it when we get down to 80% are people happy if it's being refreshed at 90 want it be refreshed at 90% and to keep that frequency higher and increase the annual which is totally fine it just depends on where people want to pay it you know

way off but yeah tangent for short, but it's a really good point. Um, and I think this should be something we talk about next year, maybe establishing a policy to fund that reserve. So, any other questions? Um, I have some about a dozen my typical questions. So, that helps me understand um the thought process behind how the budget fits. Okay, real quick before you do your question, I did want to just say a cuz I hope folks stay after you've answer your questions um we're going to have Mark pull up some numbers cuz last time at the very end of our meeting we looked at the where the budget increases are coming and what the total municipal budget is uh what that how that percentage has fluctuated compared to the school count in county and so we want everyone to be able to see that number tonight too. So if if Mil caused you to want to leave, stay through his questions.

That's rude. I'm I don't think Mil would want would do that, but someone say, "Hey, he's asking questions. I know the answers." All right. Um so I'll start with general government. And this would be uh line item 20-7220.

I don't know. I'm looking at the spreadsheet. 20. Yep. So, it's done on the general government line item 20-7220 legal. It's page 10. Yeah. Legal. Yep. So, I'm seeing that we we pretty underbudgeted um this year from what the what we budgeted for. what we budgeted for uh it was budgeted for 225 and we the actual was 11976 and what we're budgeting for next year is is 15,000 and there's a note saying there might be extra for the oldtown dump I wonder if I could get an explanation of what going on with the oldtown dump that might cause it to be higher than 15,000 or was the 15,000 already anticipating something that's going on with the old town dump

Jerry fix. Yeah. So, this is a 12-month projection. This is an 18th month budget. So, we we may run over actually on that line. So, don't get too fixiated on the 11,000. Okay. Cuz that's only for 12 months. Okay. But it's an 18th month budget.

Yeah. So, the old Brunswick dump um you know, we're kind of looking into that because there could be a liability to the town. Um if that gets sold and there's contaminated water and it becomes an issue and the town allowed that to happen years ago, the town could be on the hook for any kind of legal legalities of that. So, I'm talking to the attorney right now to figure out what do we do there cuz we've been we haven't foreclosed on it cuz I my understanding is administrations in the past didn't want to deal with it because it was an old dump. They didn't want that liability, but it's 70 something acres. So, I wanted to look into it because it's just sort of sitting there doing nothing. And then um we had an attorney come in and talk to Calvin and I and he's going to kind of give us some recommendations on what we should be doing with that. Should we take it over so we have control over that? Because

right now there's a for sale sign on it. And like I said, the the attorney said if that gets sold and they build on it and there's issues, it could come back to haunt the town because the town allowed that stuff to happen there years ago. So with legal fees and stuff, you you never know what's going to come up and where you need their services to help protect the town from liability.

Historically, we've always we we've been over budgeting. I just this is just based on my many years of being on the budget committee. We we we've consistently overbudgeted for um legal and you know, over budget or overspent.

Overbudgeted. So overbudget mean we budgeted more than we needed. Correct. Okay, it's not, you know, it's not a big deal because it's not like I'm not I don't argue when we overbudget because we don't lose the money. But in this particular case where there's so many questions about the status of that piece of property, um wouldn't that be a good use for the contingency fund instead of have adding to the budget there? Why why not?

Yeah, I can answer that. So, this 15,000 I think is already tight, not even including that extra uh um issue. And so uh we've spent 11,976. That's uh that was and like we said that was we're that's 12 months and we have an at the figure we have budgeted was a 20 18-month budget. Um the past the town has not utilized legal services nearly to the extent that most towns do utilize it uh prior to our engagement with this current uh contract with our legal services. And so when we I think Josh you pointed out when we first put that 15 number in that's that's tight. that's, you know, nothing major. And then we had the discussion if if major things came out and we started had to move to an hourly rate for some litigation and things like that, we would need to find that money elsewhere. And that's where the contingency balance could could fill in. Um, and so I don't I don't think that 15,000 just over uh

uh I think if anything that's about as tight as we would want to go personally. Um, next question. line item 20-7221 right under legal it's auditor um so question to Jerry just so I clarif to clarify all the actuals are year to date meaning which up to up to April end of a uh end of March

no just through December December January a 12 month budget because we're doing 12 month all month yeah got it all right so I really should just be looking at what we budgeted for 26 and then what we budgeted for 27 seven. Right.

Okay. Budget to budget. So that's a pretty significant um increase under the auditor's line from 17 to uh 2250. Is is that this person's rates have gone up that much or is include something else? Well, the auditor we had is no longer with us. So we're going out to bid.

Um I asked Mark what we think we should put in there and he said 22. We have now gotten two proposals. One is just over 22,000 and the one I got today was for 30,000. That is complicated. I just sent it to you before the meeting. You see that? So,

um I asked Mark would know more than me about what the auditing services are. So, he said 22 and I think he's going to be pretty close to his estimate because he's he's closer to that expertise than I am. Uh, did that answer your question, Bill?

Yeah. So, when I'm reading this, I might not remember why what I had in mind, but if I have something stupid, please forgive me. Um, so the next line, uh, 20-722, which is business services, that's HR and accounting. Okay.

So right now we um so year to date we're um less than half of what's budgeted. So how close to the budgeted amount do we anticipate getting? Why we keep Mark here? Right. Exactly. Uh, I think we we got 9,000 left in that.

Yeah, I don't somewhere in there. And we're and we're not done. Um, so the feeling is we're going to get come close to that 65,000. It'll be it'll be close. Yeah. I mean I mean this isn't a quote to do the work exactly. It's you'd rather have the money in there and not need it and then need it and not have it. That's kind of

right. Well, that we'll come close because again that 30,000 is just 12 months. You got to there's six more months ahead of that. Okay. So then a followup. If we're going to come close to that amount, if we project that, then why are we going down so much? Why is it only 45,000 for 2027?

18month versus Yeah. Yep. And so all of our budgeted numbers are based off of what we expect it to cost this year. So like that number includes scope of services and increase in contract prices. own question. And so if we look under general insurance which is couple items down 20-7340

27 would be some 22,000 less than what was budgeted for 26 is because what was budgeted for 26 was an 18month number versus a 12-month number. Yeah. But if you look at the percentage change of 4.2% 2%. That's the um normalized. So that's a 4 4.2% increase over what a year of that was last year. Correct.

Yes. Correct. It it compares an 18-month budget to a 12-month budget. Says what what's the percentage increase if these were 12 to 12 months? So the 46,834 December. So, are we anticipating addition um new premiums between now and and the end of this year that would will be applied that's going to be applied for 2027 or have we not paid all the premiums that were included in the 26 budget?

So, I don't know the answer, right? I don't Yeah, I don't know. Sometimes, let me take a look at Yeah, he can. Mark can pull that up. But again, so actual expenses for a 12-month period were 46834 and we're budgeting 50,000 for a 12-month period for

the actual that we paid through March 31st is 70,677. I'm sorry. 70,677 through March 31st. And that's probably because the new calendar year came in and we had some additional insurance premiums that how far in advance first of all what so is general insurance a whole bundle of policies or is this just one policy?

It's property and property and casualty. And when and when do we pay that premium? I can't remember the dates on the voice, but they have it uh every every six months, I think. Maybe maybe it is every quarter. Yeah, I I'd have to go back to the folder and look at that.

I mean, we just obviously obviously we paid some in January on top of the 46. So, we would we would already know that if there's a that if the premium's going up, we would have already been notified. Yeah, but you wouldn't know. So yes, you're correct because uh the premiums are from January to December. Um so you would know half of what the premiums are going to be for the July to December portion, but then we have to estimate what the next December to Jan to June portion would be. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yep. Um, so if if we were if we were all here this time next year, the amount that will be under actual should be pretty close to that $50,000 because we know what the premium's going to be, right? Because I mean, you can see on a 12 month to 12-month basis, it went from 45,000 to 46,000. For 2027,

we're guessing uh that'll be closer to 50,000. Mhm. Um, that one. Um, if we look at election cost, which is from the general government, it's 20-7801. did that include the upcoming um town meeting costs and the and election before that

through June? Yeah. So that means the we're anticipating that those costs for the June elections and the town meeting uh that cost will be approximately um $2,900 $2,000 somewhere around there. We don't 21. Okay. So that's for the upcoming.

for you too, isn't it? Memory sticks are very expensive. Yeah, I just had to order four. They're $400. Yes. Oh, I'm thinking like a little computer memory stick. Yeah, security. They're like 19 bucks. I thought you guys were being sarcastic.

No, they come from Yeah, they come from election security sticks. Good. This is going smoothly. Um, under next line, uh, 20-7999, miscellaneous expenditures. First of all, could you give me some examples of what miscellaneous expenditures would consist of?

Could be. Did you say sure, Mark? Yeah. I mean, I'll just take a look at what's the charge there. this year. is where we paid I think uh unemployment um yeah Elon Financial Services which that's the card payment um Amazon minor they're minor they're minor

miscellaneous stuff stuff and then and a holiday gathering was 47 bucks. But minor a lot of minor stuff. If it if you budgeted 5,800 and you're already up to 4535, that's a lot of minor. Uh yeah, I see. $5,000 is not a meaningful

uh the most of most of that was due to a main purse error right from a couple years ago. What main pers error how much we permitted to main it wasn't because it's not this year's retirement expenditure was for couple years ago.

Okay. Uh it was two of the so two of those um miscellaneous expenditures included unemployment and main retirement. And if I I believe unemployment now has its own line item. I believe that we unemployment does unemployment has a new line item,

right? So unemployment main pers is under retirement retirement in general, but when we're talking about um prior year error, we're not going to code it under retirement. So I'm just curious why are we we budgeted 5,800 for 18 months. Why would we need to budget 5,000 for

2027 anticipate? Yeah, I mean by nature that's miscellaneous. So it's about8% of the that administration. I understand that but I should still be allowed to ask the question. I'm answering the question. And so things that are arising that aren't always predicted, like you said, $47 for a gathering. Um, if there's some supplies that are needed that weren't fully allocated for something breaks, you know, like actually a memory stick, you might need a $19 memory stick because one's broken. Those sorts of like basic office supplies. Um, those sorts of things. And in theory, you know, within that uh area, if legal came in high and the miscellaneous had been used, maybe some money from that could be brought in to help mitigate that increased expenditure. Um, just we feel like that's a fair percentage based off of the total expense expenses there.

Okay. But does the fire department mill spend $4,000 on the miscellaneous stuff? Do you know? They do. I pulled that if you want. Yeah. you if you want that if I can read it talking about the print. But you're right, the fire department spent it.

Um, that a backup camera. A what camera? Backup camera. I don't see that. I see service awards for the boys. Pins awards. Um, an iPad case for the rescue. So, the boys kept dropping the iPad in the ambulance. So, we bought a case to protect it. That's $55. Um, uh, we bought pizza on post testing day. So, besides the crew, I I think there's 10 guys volunteering half the time. I think Milt had a few of those slices on that day. Uh, easy pass. I had to get an easy pass, a whole outfit for the utility because I was going to Augusta. But

if you ever sign on with easy pass, I think there's like an initiation fee of like 30 $40. So, I can continue line by line if you want, but miscellaneous. Keep going. Yeah, keep going. Okay, I'll I'll keep going. I'll tell you what you what you enjoyed off of this line.

Thank you. That's your son. United States Postal Service. Uh, $26. So, the fire department doesn't have a postal line, but under miscellaneous, I think somebody wanted their employee records and we have it set out of state. All things that I don't think about year to year, day to date that comes up. This stuff's heavy. Milt, if you'd like me to keep going.

I had a question. Keep us here. Was that cheese pizza or pepperoni? It's an upcharge for the And our staff doesn't get cheese pizza or pepperoni either. What do you get at your party? We don't do anything. And when we party,

they bring in their own charges it. So you're if you're That's your right. That's why there's 5,000 in there now cuz we're we're all done doing the when we do fire prevention day. That's 738 straight from NFPA. That's you know October. Uh Amazon fire helmets and toys for the kids. I can cut that out. That's 164. Kids don't need toys. Um, hardware. I There was no line item. It wasn't maintenance for the building. 154. Did I continue or do you want

I think we're good. Okay. So, moving to I'm sorry. Did I interrupt you? No, no, you're I think we're good. under planning and code enforcement. Um, line item 27-7020, Sorry, what page are we on here? That's the administrative.

going to be a full-time position, why is under a line item that's entitled part-time? Yeah. So, we answered that about 15 minutes ago. We It's being split between those two departments and George is part-time. Yeah. And then the planner is part-time as well.

Half of half of the assistance salary is being coded here under part-time wages and then the other half is an increase in public works wages. Thank you. Yep. in the budget. Again, I ask these questions just so I can understand the the process that we go into that's used to formulate the budget.

So, dues and and subscriptions um were budgeted for this year$,750. Um, so far what has been spent is 8.86. Chances are, unless we have some subscriptions or dues that we still owe between now and June, it looks like that was under budgeted, but we still have budgeted 1,700 for next year. I was

wondering what the thinking would. Listen, do you want to know what the dues and subscriptions are for that? Well, I mean, are all our dues and subscriptions paid for now for the current year, or do we expect or are there some that still are going to become due between now and June?

No idea. We'd have to have to wait till it comes in the mail. Yeah. No idea. I mean, subscriptions. I don't know, right? An Adobe ascription. It could be any of that. It's usually And it's usually for professional subscriptions that uh the CEO had got. and George too because he has some software that he uses.

Yeah. And so some of those can be incurred monthly, right? Some of them can be incurred quarterly. Some of them are lump sums. I'm going to line 27-7357. called ecode maintenance. Could you tell me what that is? Yeah, that's the the codification. So when that gets updated that the the land use code will be on a website and that needs to have maintenance.

Yeah. And then we just added quatification this past year which is why that's a new line item. Yeah. They're still working on that. I think we're going to be voting on it on land use uh while it's part of the amendments this year.

Yeah. But that that codification uh program will be done by the time and then it'll be an annual maintenance cost uh updating it every year depending on what the land use articles or ordinances get passed. If it's a lot of them, it'll be a little more money. If it's not so much, it'll be a little less.

Okay. Yeah. Um, under public safety, 7016. I'm not going to find it. Excuse line item this year. Can you get an explanation on that? It's actually just separated out in prior years. It was included in the part-time wages. And so this year, because Chief wanted to be able to track overtime wages specifically, he asked to have that separated out. So otherwise, the part-time wages would have just been $5,000 more.

Yeah. 30- in the note it says this was absorbed in telephone and internet line. Why? Why? I don't understand why what what the relationship is between stipens and the telephone and internet line. There are cell phone stipens.

Yeah, cell phone. Never mind. Okay. or So they're just included in the self the telephone line or telephone. Yep. So that's going to apply to public works as well, I presume. That's correct. Okay. And admin to it, right?

Yeah. I think codes only had a a stipen because they use it cell phone quite a bit, but Calvin already has one. So that we got rid of that actually. Um, jumping to public works So, we budgeted, we had budgeted $7,000. It looks like we spent zero. Um, I don't think we're going to use winter sand between now and June. Um, and yeah, and we're budgeting another $7,000 for SE 27. This is a pretty bad winter. I thought we were going to use it. We might use it this year. Just wondering why we didn't need any winter sand and why we need to budget 7,000 again.

How are you going to answer that? So, we did spend money. I went to see it. Um I just realized today when I was looking at this that I need to track down that bill and get that paid, I either submitted the bill just this past Lawrence or I may have gotten to print it and present it. But this reminded me today, wow, we're doing pretty good. Uh so, actually, we did we did buy sand. I just have to pay the bill. And uh and I did allow our stockpile to go down quite a bit because we want to reorganize the salt shed to hold more salt and less sand divided 50/50 down the middle uh so that we can get in around the building. So I did let us get down to I only bought about I think it was like $5,000 worth of this year but uh

that was to deliberately decrease inventory so you could do some organization. Yes. So that next year we'll have to re we'll have to reestablish that next year. We had a and and and like I say we had a stockpile to begin with. So we use that up plus what we had in the shed and now we're blocked just enough to get us through the winter. And

yeah and to to that note one thing that's important to us is that we don't create a model in my mind that's a use it or lose it. Say oh Calvin you only use 5,000 sand you only get 5,000 next year. because we want to budget for the actual expense that we're expecting, not necessarily what was spent out last year. So, there's examples like this of I used less, I know I'm going to need more next year because I dipped into our sand reserves. Not to get reserve accounts confused with sand reserves, but our sand reserves. And so, that gives the department heads flexibility to make these sorts of decisions. So, we don't want to

I have absolutely no argument with that. Um, that really didn't tie into my question because it showed zero amount and that really didn't look didn't look correct. And I saw the same thing today, oh I can pay that guy. Well, two great minds are thinking alike.

Um, under uh line item 7455, erosion control, we have a similar situation. Um I I'm not exactly sure what erosion control is. I'm having I'm guessing it's But I'll let you explain it. What is erosion control? Uh it is jukem hay, grass seed,

lime fertilizer, staples, uh anything to do with erosion controls down. So actually right now I'm I'm at 85%. Uh so I've spent u um 4,000 is what I have available and uh yeah I I'm at uh see what did I do budget 52 for the budgetual get my

okay cuz according to the report that we have your year to date is $539 is not year to date I mean through December. Um and you and the budget amount was 5,200. Yeah. Yeah. That's Yeah. Well, it's as of today it's it's u more

So he submitted some bills. 85% is spent. Yeah. That's 80 erosion control. Some erosion control bills in the current warrant, too. More water runs in the spring than this in the winter. So, the expense isn't isn't incurred on equally on a 12 month uh rate. So,

line item 41-7020. waging. Who are these staff and where are they working? Cleaning staff. It's it's cleaning staff and there's sometimes a couple um and cleaning we had an issue with cleaning staff um leaving or quitting or or

well no I don't want to say that they she had some personal yeah personal issues where she was um off yeah she was off for a while dealing with some Yeah we don't get into details yeah right so what what buildings do they clean

down office public works the marine Um, thank you. And I think there's one more question. Way over 12 by now. That's all right. I don't think I've set I set I set a record yet though in my 27 years. I I think the number keeps going down as I get more and more familiar and knowledgeable about

by year 40 there'll be no questions by time I'm dead there'll be no more question um so I don't got to read my writing under the town tab debt service. so we know in advance what that bill is going to be. So paid it all yet. Why wouldn't the 2026 actual be the same as what we budgeted in 2026?

Uh because we pay some of the debt service in May. Okay. So, we have a payment coming up. Yep. So, by the end of May or June, if we were looking at this, those numbers would be the same. That's correct. Good. Okay. Those are my questions.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm impressed that you can read your handwriting. Anything I write down from last week, I can't even discern it for this week. So, thank you for your patience. No, thank you. All righty. Mark's going to go over um a couple things here. We went over this at our last meeting, but our last meeting ran launched. I think we went over at like 9:45 and

getting late. I don't We're working. Yeah, there's only one. Yeah, warm up. So um John had asked earlier about what the percentage um share would be of the tax levy and and what those changes are. So again the tax levy is the net between what the budget is. When when people refer to the budget usually they're talking about the expenditure budget which is much larger than what the actual tax levy is. Um and so when we have

Can you explain that's because we have revenues? Yes. I'm sorry. The revenues get taken away from the total budget and then the amount we need to raise is the tax levy. Okay. That's correct. So I guess I don't need to explain it.

So in any case so so the the net amount that is being assessed is really what people pay, right? Um so when the county sends you when the county sends the assessments to uh the um municipalities that's their net assessment meaning that's their expenditure budget less non-t tax revenues. Uh when the the RSU sends the assessments to the towns it's their total budget less their non- tax revenues. Um and then uh the municipal portion is the third portion of the tax assessment that eventually goes out to uh towns people. So, what this is is a look at um the history of the tax assessments over the last uh 5 years or since 2021 um to see what those portions were. Uh this here shows you how what percentage each makes up of the total tax bill. And so really in 2021, 2022, 2023, it was pretty steady. Uh it was about 7.5 7.8% 8% is county, 71% is uh education and

about 20 21% was the municipalities. Um and then since 2024 there's been a stark change. Um the the um county's portion has gone up uh from around 7.5 to 9.3% of the total uh tax levy. And again, this T tax levy is based off of what the budget is right now. Um, you know, it hasn't passed obviously, but whatever. Uh, the schools portion has gone up from 71% to 78% and the, uh, municipalities

has gone down from 20% of the budget to only 11% of the budget or 12% of the budget. Uh and then when we look at the year-over-year changes uh of their po their uh assessments, you can see for this fiscal year um 2027's county change

is going to be 12.6% increase. Uh the education's change on a 12 month to 12-month comparison is 10.1% increase. And then the municipal portion on again on a 12 12 month to 12-month comparison is is uh 7.7% decrease. And you can actually see that in just the hard figures up here. You can see back in 2021 the total tax assessed for just the municipality was 1.6 million and it's steadily decreased 1.5 million. Well, I mean the first three years was relatively the same, but then it steadily decreased in 2024. The effective uh amount of this because this was 18 months is around 1.3 million for a 12-month budget. And then this is 1.1 million or 1.2 million uh coming into 2027. And what that tells you uh there's two things that's going on here. Um uh 2021, 2022, 2023. You have to remember how the town used to budget its revenues. It used to basically say, well, what did we have for revenues last

year? And that's going to be our budget for revenues this year. Um we meaning what were our actual revenues and and what are we going to budget and so obviously um gen well not obviously but generally revenues non- tax revenues will steadily increase over time. Uh so basically budgeting last year's actuals you were you were habitually underbudgeting uh revenues uh and uh and

then you were also um uh didn't weren't really using fund balance. This is why your fund balance grew. Um and so now over the last couple years one of the major reasons why this has been decreasing it's not because necessarily that the budget itself is decreasing. It's because uh the town has been budgeting more effectively with revenues and but it's budgeted use of fund balance. Um so I did want want you to see what this year's budget even though it's a the budget meaning the expenditure side is 13.4 whatever it is 15% increase. um the actual effect on the town's people uh for the tax revenue would actually be a decrease compared to last year and actually the last couple of years have been uh s uh sequential decreases and uh the other reason apart from budgeting for revenues is uh why that has gone down is because um you know there's a political aspect to it right I mean there's this pressure on the

municipality the select board where they can't control what the county's assessment is going to be. They have very little the the select board has no control and the town has little control over what the education assessment is going to be. Um and so the only place where you guys can really try to make cuts or not even not try to make cuts

really uh rein increases from one year to the next because you're you're going to have increases in costs from one year to the next. But the place where you have the most effect is on the municipal budget. And so that's where um costs have been um reigned in the most comparatively between the county's educations and the municipalities. But everybody's everybody's assessments are going up. Obviously, the county's assessment is going to go up because of the same pressures, economic pressures, labor costs, uh commodity costs, service costs, all of those are going to go up over time. Um, and there's really not much you could do about it other than what the town has been doing, which is let's try to budget better with revenues and reign in as much expenditures as we can.

I think this shows, you know, sharpening of the pencil on the municipal side and I know going to GPCOG talking with other municipalities, they've all been trying to do the same thing. their county and their I mean their their school are their out of their control. The select board and the budget committees can only focus on what's in their control. And we getting tighter and tighter every year. And that same in the same way in the same time, you know, since the town manager was hired, we found tons of cost savings in certain um contracts. You know, switching our website, switching our financial services, all these sorts of things to help pinch that in. We've assessed, we've evaluated our revenue in the sense that we've uh adjusted permit schedules and fees and stuff like that, too. So, I think it's this is a good way to show that what has been presented by it's like we're in the budget committee

and ultimately adopted by the town has been really focused on those municipal expenses as much as we can. almost sounds like a good question for the town is do you want um additional services and positions or would you rather have better roads

because those are the two things that are really goping up you know the little money that we we have to play with. Yeah. I mean ultimately every year it's if you want to spend less do you do you what do you want to cut? you know, at this point, we're as lean as we can get, you know, and that's the only place we can really look is some of these uh tangible things. So,

the 24 audit, remember when the audit went over it, we were only a half a percent left in budget, which is really tight. And one one freaking mess, you're going to go over budget. It's it's and that track is not sustainable. and I'm just a messenger.

You can get another town manager. I'm not trying to say anything, but that track is not sustainable. You will not be able to keep going that way. You can't do I think right now what we're trying to look at is we're trying when we look at the school and we look at the county and then we look at the municipality, we're trying to buy a $100 bill with a penny is we're trying to squeeze it out of this tiny portion of our budget, our municipal portion, and get that to make a meaningful impact when we just we can't, you know.

Yeah. I'm even this year, getting back to Jerry's point about uh how close you are to the budget. Um even this year, I'm projecting that you're going to end the the year around 17.1 million in total expenditures and you only budgeted I think 17.5 million in total expenditures. So, I mean, you're going to come in within $400,000 on a $17 million budget. That's a really tight budget. And I agree with Jerry that, you know, when you're budgeting really tightly, you have no room for error. Um, also because the revenue budget has gotten um tighter and tighter as well. It also means that uh it's also what's feeding into my suggestion that you really scale back how much you're planning on using uh for budgeted use of fund balance because any error in that will automatically come into and eat into your your actual fund balance. Um, I mean, people complain about uh taxes going up and really, you know, the biggest the

biggest portions of your taxes or county assessment, which at the county, the county keeps talking about it. Uh Jeff Shoot keeps saying it over and over again. Hey, the state needs to f uh to pay more for um corrections than it does. Um the same with education. uh anything that towns people can do to talk to their state legislators to say, "Hey, we need to have more funding at

from basically from income taxes as opposed to property taxes for correction and education." So that that shifts the burden from um from property from property owners where the property value is no indication of your ability to pay whereas income taxes are.

Okay. Is GP COG taking the city? Yeah. So, I serve on um a committee with GP COG. It's got representatives from every town looking at ways to address municipal expenses. And one of the things that's being drafted right now to send to Augusta to try to take a look at is a county level um local option sales tax. And the way we discussed is that is there's a lot of municipalities that have a lot of travel revenue, a lot of overnight stays, a lot of vacationers, vacation land. And if they were able to charge a 1% tax on, you know, the hotel stays and lodging and stuff or or a variety of things, they can generate funds. Durham can't generate funds like that. And so one thing we've been working on is trying to pull together a um county framework where towns that gen could generate funds through that are responsible to share some of that with towns that can't and some early projections out of that at a 1% sales

tax in Anderson County would be bringing in like $380,000 of of county level revenue to Durham. And so like that's one thing that they're working on. um GP COG, MMA, and others have been talking about helping um establish, you know, a very high income earner tax to help offset the cost of schools to try to get the portion of schools that's covered by the state to 55% as opposed to like 44%. Which would then decrease that expense for the municipalities. Um also looking at options at Chicago's looking at options at trying to help get legislators to consider increasing that homestead exemption. So municipality individual taxpayers can uh be addressed and then there's at least two or three options for elderly um individuals who can access uh tax programs to help reduce their taxes at the state level and one at the federal level now. There's a bunch of things going on at the same time trying to address that,

but it takes time, you know, but that's one of the main things that GPCOG is working on right now is that we're trying to say municipalities can't keep dealing with the expenses from their county and their schools going up when, like you said, your property tax does not reflect your ability to pay in the same way that your income tax does. And so there's a lot going into it right now. So, takes a lot of time. But

questions about this facts? These figures right here? Um, not as you all I really This isn't on the website yet, correct? Well, it's on the I think we've had it on Well, it's been in our budget packet, but it's not on the budgets page, is it?

No. Right. No, it's not. Yeah, that's something I would like for us to be able to make available. It would be good though. I saw you take a picture, Jill. We can just send it to you some, right? Um, as long as we're set on the budget, so we can put the actual numbers up there.

Yeah. I mean, so this is this is the select boards, right? This isn't the the budget committees. I haven't that says the it's not finals, but Yeah. And so I mean, if the figures are different, then it would have to show different

Yeah. But I mean, your budget isn't going to change that that significantly to really affect the the what the overall impression is is that the municipal portion of your taxes is shrinking. Um, and the other two are taking the the larger shares.

Yeah, I did a line graph of that. It's it really shows a dramatic drop in the municipal. I should have gave to him. I had it. But really, it really shows you what's going on. Yeah. And that's not to diminish the the pain that's felt in the pocketbook when you're paying your taxes by any chance of imagination. It doesn't showing that the the where it's coming from doesn't necessarily change the fact that it's got to come out of your wallet. Um, but I think it helps us realize the the root of the issue. Um, and kind of gives us a frame of reference of what we can actually do with the the elements that we control. So,

at the end of the day, it's not the municipal spending that's driving the taxes at all. Yeah. All righty. Thank you, Mark. Yep. Thank you, Mark. Close your eyes. I know the answer. All righty. You don't want that. Thank you all for coming in with the questions. I hope we answered all of them. feel free if anything else pops up to send us an email. Um, and what I with questions and we can get you those facts and figure stuff. What I have here on our on our um schedule that we talked about was um you all getting us your recommendation

by the 57 2026. Does that still work for you all? Okay, cool. Yes. And then um we will have on 57. Um yeah, it's 57. Let me just check the calendar here. We set the uh warrant language and everything that May 12th, correct?

Yeah. So cool. Thank you very much. Yeah. And like I said, shoot us an email if you have any questions and we can get them answered. Thank you. Thank you for coming in and sticking around It was only Neil who who left through through your questions. So

say what' you say Allan stayed through all your questions. It was only Neil who left through through your question period. All righty. Um manager report. Yes. Thank you Jam. So, uh, thank you Mark. So, we've interviewed uh for public works position. Interesting. We had one candidate agreed to come on, decided didn't want it. So, then we had to offer it to another person. He signed the agreement today. So, hopefully he will starting hopefully.

Administrative assistant, we have offered a position to somebody. I'm pretty excited about it. They start Monday, May 4th. Josh They did. She's a good fit. She's a She's a good hard worker. So, 15. That's great. She's going to be great.

She's Yeah. Um, just a reminder, the GP COG sub regional meeting is tomorrow 5:30 to 7:30 in North Yamoth at the West West Ko Hall. I plan on going, but my wife has cardiac surgery at 3 p.m. So, you shouldn't. Well, well, right. But it's quick. She said it's quick.

Quick cardiac surgery. Just stay home. It's quick. But if I can get her home by 4:30, I'm going to try to turn around and go. I can't make it any I got to represent Durham at this. So, if she if she's not fine, I won't go. Then, if she's okay, I'm going to go. I I'm not gonna I'll fight with her, but I'm not gonna fight with you guys. So, um

that's me. I'd rather fight with you. So, so other than that, I just So, next meeting is a is a big meeting, right? I mean, cuz push is coming to shove here because we're a month away from town meeting. So, next meeting we're going to vote on the land use ordinance. So, George will be here. You'll have all that. So, there'll be a lot of material for you. uh we got a the town meeting warrant has to be so somewhat finalized and you usually get two cracks at that. So we if

you don't feel comfortable with it on the 12, you may have to schedule another quick meeting to to finalize it. I'm just letting you know. if there's any warrant language like I I have some stuff in here that you might want to do a reserve account for paving but yet you haven't really had a meeting to discuss it to vote on it either so I don't know how you want to handle that but yeah

and then there's the uh agriculture committee I you got to talk about that so I don't know how much more you have yeah or how much you want to put on your plate on the ad committee wants to come in because they want to button up the discussion about the waving of fees for green houses. Um, so we had them come in, gave us that presentation, g let everyone kind of sit on it for a while. I'd like to button this up and so I had said that they could come in at the May 12th meeting. Um,

but did but that doesn't like Jerry said, I think we've got a really long list of stuff to do. Yeah. And so if we need to move them, I mean that doesn't have to be if we're waving a fee that can have that doesn't be part of the warrant, right?

Exactly. No. And so I had just talked to them about the the 12th. If we feel like that's too much, we can pull that off and move them um to the 26th. I won't be here on the 26th. I'm not here on the 26th. Okay. So it's a skeleton crew on the 26. Um

what are we doing on the That's the last video, right? Is there any is there any um description of what we're covering on the 20th? No. No. No. I was saying that if we were to move from the 12th to the the the the uh ad committee from the 12th to the 26th.

Oh, okay. Um I can't make that meeting. All right. And again, to your point, there's not a fiscal note necessar Well, it it it's lost revenue potentially, but we're not budgeting for lots of Well, is it critical that we talk about it before the town meeting?

That's what I was thinking. We can I'll let them know we can do it after. Um then the only other cons. So real quick think the part of the reason why I had thought to do that before is because the iteration of the board they presented to is sitting here and there is an election. There's two seats up. I mean unopposed and everything like that. But I just wanted to button it up before this iteration of the board ended at the right before the town meeting. that has is why I put it there. Um, but it's not mission critical and if we think we're gonna be too busy, totally fine with moving in.

Um, and the only other thing I want to mention is this Thursday all annual report docs are due. So, we're going to need a select board report. Joy, you're probably going to I think we should get together and because I've got mine done and we don't we don't want to duplicate Yeah.

reports. So, that's how we did it last year. Yeah. Do it again that. Butim Kimberly's going to be wanting that to get everything going cuz we're getting into crunch time. Um, which we get into crunch time every year, but now we're in it, you know, to get everything ready to meet. So that uh the only other report I had was that it was 80° last week. The Caribbean water was awesome and it was really hard to come back. Thanks for thanks for sharing a nice color. That concludes my report.

I say no ISIS output. You weren't on the beach at Maine yet. So I wonder what their feing schedule is. Um I don't have much other than um uh I was going to say if anyone has anything in particular they'd like to see addressed in the annual report document that I usually write, send it to me. I usually just hit the highlights of what we've accomplished over the year and thank our staff and thank our citizens. Um, and so it's usually pretty basic. Um, the other thing I was going to say in terms of things that aren't that we haven't addressed, I I talked with Tia from the Durham Historical Oh, I'm going to get it wrong. Historical Society. Yeah. and a little bit about the fact that we do have money budgeted for the uh improvement to the band stand and we haven't taken action on that. And one thing that her and I were she came up she presented an idea from a historical society that they potentially would like to see that just

be turned in refurbished and turned into a monument not for public use which could relieve some of the challenges around making it ADA compliant but could also still pay homage to the importance of it. And so her and I just had a brief discussion about that. We're gonna talk again. Um I'm pretty strained on time right now and so I had just passing asked Deb if there's something that she would be interested in in working with Tia in offline to bring something forward to shortly after the the um uh town meeting in June. But just to let them know that we're still that's still an important topic that it's just it's been a busy year, you know, and so I'll uh forward the email exchange to you, Deb. Uh and Tia had some really great ideas stuff.

Do do we think that it's going to take I think it's $30,000. Well, it would take more than that to do it. That's what I would have to go to town, right? What what I would have if it took more than 30,000 it would have to go to the town. The where I feel a little bit better about it is the fact that since I if it goes to a model that is just being refurbished and closed off, it's for observation only, you don't have to worry about ADA compliant, some of the other structural issues that you would have to if it was just a monument. So that could end up kind of buttoning up this whole task. Um, but we need to figure out like restoration and all those sorts of things which will um take take time. So,

more to go. That's all I got. But Josh, no. Still working 20 jobs soon. Yeah. Hey, thank you all for coming. Good night. Good night. Dave, you have anything to add? Um, just thank the department for the reports that we had this week or late last week or

Well, I just want to point out mine says that we hired a certain individual and I give the description of his current job. Well, that's not accurate anymore. So, just want to point that out that it's going to be a different employee. So,

I don't want you to see the guy department. Yeah. It's not lost on us, Chief, that you're here after the volume of calls you had the last few days. And if anybody noticed, it looks like DOT is painting the intersection out here today. I see they got the white, they got the layout there. That's awesome. Oh, and the light. The light is on the pole. Haven't even seen it yet, but

yeah, it goes on. Well, this will be our first chance to see in the dark. See, see how it works. Yeah, it's on. Is it solar or no? Well, CMP do. Yeah. Um, that's all I had. I'm sorry. I didn't meant to say meant to say uh it was one that for those who didn't know there's a brush fire in town this week and so the UTV the brush UTV has already seen action which was uh good to see that get news right away.

So I saw it on channel 13. Yeah, it was on the the big news. Nice. I read this social media post and there was some confusion that people felt that the fire department issued the fire burn permit and that they shouldn't have. But those permits don't come from the fire department anymore. Correct. They come from main forest service.

Correct. State main forest service. We always have the right local town rule to shut them down, but I I've consistently been with their So yesterday was moderate. It did get away from the gentleman. It happens. He, you know, went in for a cool beverage, turned around, the wind kicked up, that was that. So,

uh, that's why you have a volunteer fivep. Becca, nothing. John, uh, a couple things quickly. U, but speaking of the town warrant, uh, there's some things that we talked about discussing but never did. One is um the change I never know what the right term is but we talked about changing the order of the town meeting so that we'd have the town meeting that would be anformational meeting for budget ladies ordinances before the election and then vote on them at the election and we've never I like I like to discuss it and I think that's something that has to be on the warrant

and we're running out of time to do that and I spend more time why Um, a really important thing is what are we going to do about pennies or the lack thereof? But moving on to more important things are the HR handbook. Is that going before the town meeting?

No, that's No, that's a that's a policy on the wage scale. The wage scale goes before the town meeting. No. No. Okay. That's done. Okay. Um, but implementing it does, right? Didn't we say tonight that that we weren't going to implement it till after the town meeting?

Nice lighting it, Eureka. Thank you very much. You're the first one to see it. Um, so the budget has the those numbers baked into it. So if the town were to vote down the budget, it would fall on us to find a way to rectify

expenses already in there. So we talked about creating a paving reserve. These are all things that that I thought about that do we want to have warrants on and too late to talk about tonight cuz evil you'd already brought up and just a reminder that the the early voting starts on the 9th of May if I'm correct.

Yes, but that is a Saturday so defaults to Monday the 11th. Okay, that's my uh and we're missing so if you know anybody good I think we're missing a person or two candidates. It's too late to sign up but they can one three-year budget committee is not being there's no need for that.

That's me. I'm done. Cool. Um Jerry, could you draft some have some language draft and just do the um um warrant for uh paving? Yeah, I've got it. I'll do that next meeting because I think that's good feedback. I'll put it in the warrant. Um I'll I'll I'll have some J and that's useful.

Same with the change of order of the town meeting or at least discuss it. I think so. We have that authority without a town vote to make that change. Correct. We could move. We could move to a ballot. But what do we have?

We could already do that. The board can do that. And so what we had talked about was at town meeting possibly getting feedback on how people felt about that. So I think that could potentially be a straw poll or something like that just prepared on a question. Um, would that be something that when we do our municipal election, we could just have a straw poll like we did with the the police question of like, would you be interested in the town pursuing XYZ?

You could. Or is it too late for that? You could. The only thing about this election is you're going to have a primary ballot, a RSU5 ballot, a region 10 ballot, and a municipal ballot. It's going to be a heavy election, and voters are going to be in the booths for longer. Mhm.

So if we add another thing to pass out and have them vote on, it's just going to be extra time in the booths, longer wait time. Just keep that in mind. Are there any referendums too? Yeah, just the primary. And so my thought to to your point on that, John, is like we have that authority to do it without going to warrant, but I like the idea of getting

um input. Can we do a show of hands at the town meeting? Yeah, I mean that could be a discussion too long. the my only concern with the shot show of hands at the town meeting is the people at the town meeting are the ones who go to the town meeting you know um and so I think it's a little bit biased but hand that's the way our government works so if you want to make your voice heard um

I mean I think having some sort of staff poll might be a better show of it just because of what day the town meeting falls onto this year yeah because of the call the high school graduation well and we're not going to get 300 people or less because of the graduation election I think it'll be a crowded

going to be crowded anyways. So, I would just want to prepare the voters that it might be a little bit of a longer wait. I'm okay with adding one piece of paper with one question even if it means increasing the the vote time a little bit because we're not we're not making a decision. We're just judging interest till November because that's just more work for you that night.

I mean, well, I don't have to have your straw poll results immediately after. That's the other point though. November is a gubanatorial election which has traditionally the high one of the highest levels of turnout. So since we already have the authority

for next summer I mean except you couldn't do a straw poll. You'd have if you want to implement it next year it'd have to be the vote in November. Well so we don't need to have a vote. Yes, but if we if the straw poll so let's hold off till November for that because that gets really good turnout and then if we choose to implement it we can. And if there was a concern because the sh bowl was inconclusive, we could always have like a special town meeting to or a public hearing or something like that. So,

I just I would just ease into it because I think you all need to have a discussion about how that works. And yeah, cuz when you go that route and you heard the you heard the attorney Joe say that about the budget that Durham is the only town she knows where the budget committee and the and the select board don't go to town meeting with the same numbers.

Yeah. So when you go to a referendum vote and they're going into a secret ballot, more times than not, they're going to go for that low number. And if that low number isn't really vetted properly through the budget, you could be setting yourself up to struggle getting through the year because

it would be that in my my mind we can we can carry this conversation next. That's what you need to but there's just there's some other things to think about. Yes. Cool. Thank you, John. This is a discussion for I think discussion July. Um so that's everyone's report. I had one last thing.

Can we put this on of discussion to come for July for end of June July? So just one thing I think is of the essence is that landfill that prior landfill I think you ought to get that sooner than later because as the attorney said if that gets settled that we could have some liability whereas if the town took it I didn't realize but he's told us the town has uh has statutory protections

there are statutes that protect towns that have landfills from imu they give them immunity over a lot of liabilities. I didn't realize that. Okay, that'll we should probably talk about that in an executive session where it involves

Yeah. land. All right. So, we we've got our first two meetings after the town meeting. Already planned at this point. Something behind my um right behind you. Yeah. Cool. Uh, the only last thing I was going to say real quick before we wrap up here is u we're two weeks into using the new trash system and my inbox of complaints and suggestions and and problems needing solved has quieted and so

just wait there could be a second win but encourage people to say I was going to do another public outreach to say like it's been three three trash pickups now if you're having issues let me know. Um, seems like most issues have been solved or there's at least some temporary band-aid put in place. I think there's a couple other percolating that are going to require a little bit bigger lift to solve, but we'll cross those bridges when we get to them. But

or and also it wasn't as bad as people had anticipated it. I've actually seen people say I've seen people say nice things about it. So, hold on to those ones. I've heard from a lot of people that they're very they like the the things. That's all good.

All righty. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Josh, do I have a second? Yes. John, any questions? All in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none, that's unanimous. Upcoming meetings, budget committee May 4th and 5th at the fire station at 6:30. Planning boards May 6th at the fire station at 6:30. Budget committee on May 7th at the Eureka Center at 6:30. Saw waste meeting May 11th at the RIA center 6:30 select board May 12th uh 6:30 at the fire station and a committee meetings May 13th at 7 p.m. Um we've already kind of covered up select board discussion. Uh don't need for an executive session. I take a motion to adjurnn. So move

second. Josh John questions or discussion? All in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none, that is unanimous. want to say it, but Laura has been sleeping 12 hours a night. Two and a half weeks straight now. Like it's crazy. But she doesn't nap during the day at all.