TranscriptBudget Committee Meeting ~ February 10, 2025

people on no no nobody under 18 it's an allinclusive and they turn your woman and I expect to hear you I'll be kicking you under the John what's the worst that can happen you didn't talk to me again want to hear you on good evening today is Monday February

10th 2025 this is the third meeting for the town of Durham's budget committee uh meeting tonight to uh further discuss the upcoming 20 2526 budget like to start the meeting with the pledge of States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for

anybody we uh we finished last uh our meeting a week ago we were working on page 17 um with the select Board review their proposed budget so we're going to finish with their presentation and then the budget committee will take over and review everything that we've heard those the last meeting and a half so Joe the floor is yours on page 17 absolutely thank you Mr chair and Madam Vice chair and members of the committee um just we have a quick update and I don't I just wanted to tell you now we don't have to go over it it's your meeting but I just wanted to flag it for you uh based off of the feedback we got from our town manager and the uh contract accountant got from you all last meeting he's made some recommendations to uh change the uh

the budget for some of the projected revenues to increase it in a couple spots where you all recommended an increase and and make a little bit of adjustment there uh the select board hasn't reviewed these numbers we're going to review them at our meeting tomorrow night I didn't know if you wanted to me to give you that information now I I assume the board will probably vote for it or we can just come back and give it to you that information to you again later but it's mostly just reflective of some of the recommendations you all made to to uh better estimate revenues so up up to you I just want to let you know we're we're going to talk about it tomorrow night so I'd rather have it I'd like to have it yeah yeah yeah so um I'll just really quickly go over uh the total estimated Revenue changes is a an increase of about

was I'm going to get to the page I was just giving you the I know that last time the vice chair had mentioned that they like to see the the big number first and then go Section by section the big number again so the the total proposed change from the uh from the town manager that was sent to the board is uh would increase

of that we can go over where that comes from um and the recommendation received from the contract accountant and the and the town manager was to uh rather than adjust the tax rate to uh use less fund balance to still maintain about a 3.5% um uh increase in taxes overall but using less of a fund balance because there's more projected revenue and so that's just what we the board hasn't discussed this we're going to discuss it tomorrow night um again I can't comment on how the board's going to vote because I don't know how the select board always always votes but I just wanted to flag that for you all now and I can quickly go through it's just a couple of lines here so on the first page we um the recommendation would be to reduce the use of additional fund balance down to 40

additional use of fund balance on page one currently it says $595,000 even and the recommendation is to decrease that to value of 52 negative can move along here for this tomorrow in the affirmative or any changes we'll just email that directly to you all right away but this is just what we're going to have proposed tomorrow night so I wanted to if you were all interested to flag that for you now um on page sorry six line 11-6 6105 other excise tax um the

recommendation is to reduce that from 9,000 to 6,000 in projected Revenue based off you you all's feedback so that would be a 20% decrease annualized rather than a 20% increase which tab is this which sheet uh it's going to be page six and then line 11- 6105 other X

size did you repeat that what you said yep page six know the the amount and then uh n 6,000 instead of 9,000 which brings that annualized change to -2% as opposed to to an increase of 20% I still he's changing from 9 to the next line that's changing or proposed to be changed I think we're ready uh line 12- 6215 it's on the same

page code enforcement um that's currently projected at 90,000 we are decreasing that projection to $65,000 um which is a negative 3.7% annualized change can do you have any idea why uh I think that the accountant just took the new the the numbers and multiplied it by 1.5 to uh estimate the 18mon budget

rather than trying to project an increase in uh permits just saying if we did the same permits last year over the next 18 months equally spread that that would be that number so it's decreasing continue on the same page line 13- 6300 state revenue

and we're changing that project well the the recommendation is to change that projection to 9 $25,000 and that's because new information came out of the U State Economist office that was indicating that that might be higher than we had expected when the budget was first uh proposed so this the joys of budgeting this time of year when new information comes to fruition every day and that would be a negative 3.5% um annualized

next line 13- 6305 um heard the recommendation that that might we might want to decrease that Homestead uh exemption that we're expecting to get and so uh the recommendation is to decrease that to $260,000 even which is a negative 35.6% annualized number

looking at is cable franchise fees 14- 6460 that number is proposed to be changed to no k 14 41 let me see here little franchise yeah no it's he's proposing a increase an $8,400 me just check here one second please it might have been should be in the email 51,000

have from his is if you don't mind me reading block of text here I reviewed the activity for 2024 and these payments come in quarterly and have been slowly declining for 2024 the total was 37,46 to starting at 973 the first quarter and dropping each quarter to $892 in the fourth quarter so estimating an average of 8,500 each quarter for six quarters arrives at 51,000 so that was just based off of what we uh have been what we got in 2024 um estimated across the the total 18 months so just a little bit of a change there so did you change the the actual for 2024 um let me take a look here I don't see that reflected in this uh this updated sheet here

14- 6470 ambulance fees um the proposed change is to bring that to $175,000 even uh as opposed to the $135,000 that it was and that reflects 22.8% increase on property tax his proposal is to change that to $52,000 which is a 73.3% change which is um a slight uh

reduction and then the next line down interest income that's the one that we had a bit of a discussion about like we maybe we could see a lot of movement in that number um and so the recommendation is to increase that to $200,000 so a 566.062 increas annualized whereas originally was $100,000 I know that what's the line on that that's going to be line 19-

um the thought process there is once he reviewed it more took a look at how much interest we've made uh just realized that it was a very conservative estimate and if we wanted to go with a more liberal estimate that this would be reflective taking a taking a stab at what interest mates rates might look like he doesn't expect a massive decrease so he felt like that might be a uh a number that we could see uh increase up to that 200,000 Mark so that's the vast that captures the vast majority of the changes so what those lasts again the property tax was what 52 uh property tax was 52 and interest income 200,000 oh yeah did he give reasoning as to why he wanted to decrease the fund balance instead of decreasing the tax to the public yeah so I um again this will our board hasn't discussed it yet uh it's just of the perview of the uh of Mark that in in in his professional capacity he usually recommends that

towns look to maintain a tax change in the neighborhood of 3 to 5% annually to just help keep it level rather than using down fund using up or down big amounts of fund balance at once and so it's his professional opinion with all the mun IP alties he works with the keep between 3 and 5% it'll be a policy decision by the board to to figure if we want to see vote to recommend to use more uh less fund balance or use the same amount of fund balance and reduce tax percentage I don't know what the board will vote tomorrow so that's something we'll we'll be discussing but that was just his recommendation is if you wanted to maintain the same 3.5% uh change to to consider that so okay thank

you Mr chair yes sir these are one of the concerning things that uh bothered me that last year or a few years ago we had numbers changing every time we came into a meeting and here we these are being numbers are being presented to us and I understand what you're doing but they're being presented by one board member which is really not

uh Kosher for a any committee any board to be doing that on as a one individual we've talked about that as our board when we had issues to discuss it's supposed to be filed through you in a committee meeting to be brought up as a committee meeting this is premature granted it's it's nice to have the numbers but it makes it extremely difficult when you spend time going over budget then you walk into a meeting that night and the numbers have changed again it's frustrating granted I know we're we're going with challenges this year but every time we turn turn around actuals are coming in and change and feel like you can't make a educated recommendation y well that's on the record um you know and some of these numbers changes sounds like it's reflective of some of our conversation yeah laste it's entirely reflective of your conversation so we were trying to give Credence to your feedback uh last

week and these are not numbers that I came up with these have been presented by the accountant and the town manager I do not speak unilaterally for the board we haven't uh voted on these these will be discussed tomorrow I just wanted to offer presenting them tonight knowing that we're going to discuss them tomorrow so you just figured be as transparent as we possibly could and hopefully by changing when our budget begins we won't have to deal with this in future years that's a challenge in itself cuz two days after we had our joint meeting the school board came up with a budget estimate and so this is the challenge of not being on the fiscal years that we have to get these numbers as we go and It's just tough to track so totally I think we all feel the same frustration as as the previous speaker yes sir uh Mr chairman I I share the concern and I I know that Joe didn't make these up but um it seems to me that

what we're going to have to do as this board is Select board will vote on them tomorrow uh these the changes you just listed yay n or how to take how to pay for them I guess and so it probably begs a question do we need another we have a third meeting schedule we're probably going to have to have that uh that meeting to answer this particular

for looking at me I mean typically that that meeting follows a select board meeting after which we've for we forwarded our numbers to them by then and so they sometimes we'll make changes that we use that last meeting to now um review what any changes to our changes right and I'll be honest a lot of the numbers Mark came up with I had already come up with and was going to present tonight anyway so I mean they're they weren't necessarily exact but the theory behind them was there so Mr chair if I may uh so one thing that could happen is if if you all make these recommendations that I vocalized here which the board has not voted on yet um if that's what comes to our desk tomorrow we could vote on the numbers based off of your recommendations and then when it necess if there's no changes you may not feel the need to have an additional meeting um I just wanted to be transparent cuz I didn't want to say nothing tonight then you all

watch our meeting tomorrow and say what the heck why didn't you tell us this when when you get the numbers you know so um if if happy to hear your feedback this is very helpful situation yes sir uh while we're talking about changes and maybe Joe or Jerry can help on this um you guys did vote to um

give money to the little The Baseballs guys and the um you did what was the motion what was the vote I don't it was it was unanimous you voted $2,500 for the Durham youth baseball and $1,100 for your snowmobiles and you asked Jerry to work up a a warrant article for that but that's coming out of reserves yeah right but it still should be in the budget shouldn't it in in in the budget the reserve line has 26 A little over $26,000 under Community Services yeah I believe that's we'll get to that that was the page we're going to go over tonight did you want to go go into that conversation now or it's just a it's just a change in the budget line that I I'm assuming should be there I don't know why it wouldn't be there was last year would be a change in the reserve line yeah so the sorry how about if we

pick up where we left off and we're going to get to that and address then anybody else general questions all right so we left off on page 17 talking about the de service Cher you mind if I stand up just to close the door briefly all right thank

page on the anything on this page correct correct that's my yep so um you can see here Debt Service principle I'll just do what I did last me and just go line by line so uh the budget for is $698 798 which covers both 2025 and 2026 and

that's annualized at a minus 32.7% change Debt Service interest is $16,500 120 which is a negative 19.7% change and this covers 2025 and 202 6 as well for total debt Services of $853 188 which is a minus 31.2% change annualized at

2026 to 629000 a debt service is going down because we're paying off these Bond issues why is it going up to the $85,000 range uh they because that's both 2025 and 2026 is payment two payments two monthly Jerry can you speak to the cash flow yeah well I don't know by but they come in some in October some in June I the actual but the notes from the accountant is that this would cover the 2025 debt payments and the

there's not we can do about that just not add to it yeah that's the only thing we can do about debt right not add to it all right uh assessed and fixed cost County tax um going to $816,000 that's annualized at or $816,000 minus uh the annualized at 26% and um

it's $816 323 for 2025 taxes get paid in September so 2026 will be paid in 2026 um and so this is just one payment of the county tax in this 18-month budget and I know that with the 18-month budget some of the questions are well if we're only if we're only paying that once does that mean we pay it twice in the next budget and no it's just one payment the way it overlaps because of the calender year versus fiscal year we'll just pay it once in 2025 for the next 18 months and then once in 2026 so the uh County tax actually went up the value itself went up for one year but when you annualize it it looks like it's going down and then education um 9,750 th000 and that's uh 6.8% increase

but I know um that last week on on T on Wednesday or Thursday after our meeting there was a proposed 7.2% increase in the school budget so uh 4% off of what we have right now so budgeted people yes sir uh the number Mr chairman the number I crunched um based on that was uh for 18 months is

10,489 734 with the 7 I had 6 point 7.64 off their presentation so based off of the F the feary 5th presentation yeah and so we'll that's the challenge as always we have to come up with a number to work off of in see what actually comes out of the school school budget so we'll have to make an adjustment um there either in our budget or uh when the when we set the mill rate or something like that so hopefully we don't have to do that after that we move to the fiscal year yeah and not you guys went with what you had which was if I may continue uh which was good uh but it's a it's a fairly significant difference between what they say they're going to they're proposing to do and 6.8 and I'm not sure how we address that as select board budget committee but I'd hate to you know go into it and miss it by a million bucks and then have to try and pay that back the challenge is a small percentage increase on a big line

item is still a lot of dollars right so that's something we're going to have to talk about at our next meeting as well so if they could have just done that the meeting a little sooner we might have been able to get a little closer but I'm happy that it's 0 4% and not several percentage points that we're trying to figure out at the end of this process so they're not done yet are they I don't think so got to pass proposed it's got to pass

bad debt line 97- 7970 tax abatements um that's been removed Jerry do you know why that's been removed it doesn't get calculated until commitment yeah and then uh other Finance financing uses transfers out 595,000 um and this is where this is the line that will be adjusted because we've um made we're we're well it could be adjusted because next meeting tomorrow we're discussing transfers out of um uh Reserve out of our fund balance and could make an adjustment here but that's reflective of uh the public works the fire department and the buildings and grants um Reserve account that the goal is to uh fund those over the 10 next 10 years so and that's a total townwide of

11,970 th14 annualized at $7,900 7,980 N4 no can I ask a question yes um so we have that 10-year ruling of what we are looking at spending money on and now that we have a town manager is it just there's no CIP group they're still on the website M how does that get decided as to what gets purchased

yeah it an automatic because no it's it's it's not automatic so every year the funding gets voted on and last year it was part of the presentation we're going to make sure that that like I just got a copy from it again today from Jerry and make sure cuz some of the feedback we got from you all last meeting was making sure that that's really easy to access so we're working on getting that on the website in really easy to access spot all the department heads came up with a 10-year Capital plan based off of the general lifespan they get out of pieces of equipment when they think they're going to need to replace it and stuff like that and so like an example was you know the public

works thought that they might generally based off of the the wear and tear of vehicles and stuff like that need a pickup truck um last year ended up not needing it they said you know what we can still get more time out of this so no money was taken out for that this year they think that they'll probably need a loader um in a a 3500 flatbed if if they think that they're still going to need those as the year goes on those expenditures would come out of that Reserve account to purchase them without any financing so it's a it's they have a plan but just because something's up for replacement doesn't mean it gets replaced um if they are getting more lifespan out of the piece of equipment or out of the thing that they need to replace so does that answer the question well this is what we've been working for for the last I mean I think the old fire chief was the one that started the 10e plan right yeah long time ago um and

then I think the other departments hopped on board but we we had that review board that went in and said let's categorize what needs to get done um I mean I've been going to town meetings for a long time that was a big bone of contention on the top floor and this is kind of like Yep this is reserve Money Getting spent in my opinion that's how it's being presented and that's I don't think that's right I I think people need to know ah a time what we're purchasing and yeah

they have a say I think I mean we we should M but we don't go ahead um just a clarification point this money isn't being spent this year it's being put into the savings account correct yeah and so the the the goal is to come up with the total replacement cost over the 10 years and then divide that by 10 and so then you're saying rather than doing nothing and then needing a new piece of equipment and then raising and appropriating that year or borrowing this money would already be there so if the town does decide if the if the um if the the the public works department for example does say well we didn't get that truck last year we didn't spend any money out of there last year we do need that truck this year they can buy it cash without any financing once it gets approved the recommendation comes to the select Board gets discussed and gets approved then they can go get that to save us money on the um interest of I

don't want you to think that I'm negating the process I think the process is good I just think it needs to be very transparent I don't think it can just you know be be hidden along in this budget as like yeah no big deal they're just going to buy this and buy that because that's what's up and yeah but but it's really not hidden it is to the average taxpayer nobody when they bu a piece of equipment it'll be vetted out in a select board meeting and open up public comment things like comment you can comment but you can't argue yeah or your opinion you

mind if I address another board member thank you there's Jane I can I can understand where you're coming from because we had a lot of conversation around this last year before we to this there's two things that I want to point out one is that last year Public Works was up for a truck and they did didn't end up buying it and this was this was a clear example of this process working well for the town because if it had been our one chance like the way that we did it before we would have had to buy that truck last year because we only would get one shot at it this year we get one shot in 18 months if we still follow that format right so while there can be sort of like the Devil's Advocate or the flip side of the con there's also the pro because it saved us from buying that truck last year this this process hold on I had one more thing and I lost my train of thought around it wait a

I'll try to think sorry I don't have a pen with me to write it down and and I totally understand what you're saying is that the concern is that it makes it look like there's not a discussion on every piece of equipment or every sort of capital expenditure that's why the intent like last year where we gave a presentation on what the 10 years Capital plan is at the beginning of the the meeting to say this is what the goal the purchasing goals are for the next 10 years we'll be done again this year and also making sure all of that's very clearly delineated we have the report we have the suggestions on the on the um uh town website I'm going to make sure that's on its own tab so it's right there for everyone to see ahead of town meeting u i saw Heather's hand so um but I understand it does change it so it's not every single piece of equipment gets voted on at town meeting and it is a a change the the town just voted on it

last year with the idea that it provides more flexibility and more opportunity to save so if we don't need to buy something we don't have to buy it that money can then build interest those sorts of things so it's definitely a a shift for sure so um but any comments on how to make it more TR more transparent or get feedback is totally totally heard so we're on that on that when I was on the website today just trying to dig for information information MH I know that little text button God that's annoying it it is in the way everyone signs up we'll get rid of it I know it's on purpose but it is like an ad popping up you can close it I think it keeps coming up

other thing that I was going to say is that while I appreciate app the work of the CIP committee um it it doesn't feel like given our new form of government it's the most efficient way to do things because one of the things that was before the CIP committee last year was the town office generator and it didn't even make the list to come before the select board to be able to put that on the warrant and so we ended up having because it changed the way that we did this we were able to get that generator last year if we didn't if this didn't exist this way and it was the old way we wouldn't have been able to do that until town meeting this year and so I just think that old process is cumbersome and it's not an efficient way for us to do these things for the town that need to be done like the town office needed that generator and the CIP committee didn't even rank it high enough to get on the list okay so I guess I guess my thought

process is not to be against having the r rolling ten year I think wonderful I think that we're trying to be thoughtful about saving funds ahead of time it's just the process of um not not making it well aware to the to the town's people what we're purchasing y so that that would be my gripe I just I want it as transparent and right in their faces so they have a say totally hear you there any other questions on page 17

page um here's our our fund balances here um I got to make sure I'm on the right one yep so our general fund ending balance for is uh 3,254 475 so this is that the fund balance we've been talking about um arpa funds we are expending $63,800 out of that bringing the balance ending

balance so it's what we spent correct it's what's in what's left what's left after expenditures what we have in there right now yeah okay so the ending fund balance isn't 3,254 th000 it's 400 or 4,577 th000 nope the that's what you're seeing here is the ending fund balance so the the column on the right is FY 24 ending fund balance so this includes the expenditures out of that for the last uh for FY 24 General funds person general fund okay I was thinking general fund was fund balance but it's not okay my apologies um and so we expended 6 3,873 out of arpa funds bringing that balance to

emptied the $5,000 the ARA fund so that balance is that dedicated does that have to be spent by 2026 yes is that dedicated to something yeah yeah it has to be committed in like a signed contracts or or you lose it and so so do we have something yes okay it's all we made sure to get that done before the deadline rather than give it back any dollars that we can get here right in Durham that's already been taken out of your your taxes either at the state or federal level we want to bring back yep so thank you um River Park donation Reserve is um

and balance of uh 800 8,201 uh the scholarship Reserve is expending $1,000 and the believe that's one scholarship offered this year and that's an uh ending balance of 12,130 the heating assistance reserved uh is ending balance of

removed what's the situation there Giving Tree Reserve line7 what you what are you asking right here oh yeah it's all spent out sorry right all spent out um historic district commission Reserve is at $1,330 the Jackson Tupper Memorial Reserve is at $123 and the total restricted is at

balance of 16, $953 with no expenditures out of that Grant matching Reserve expenditures out of $24,600 and a ending balance of $26,845 recreation Reserve is $ 23,7 42 telecommunications Reserve is $83,200 $220,000 Eureka capital reserve is at $ 48,8 20116 fire rescue capital reserve is at

$322,900 expenditures out of it Municipal Building capital reserve it had a $34,000 expenditure and it's at expended $1 14,21 15 and has an end balance of 390,000 $329,800 for a total committed of $1,741 195 any questions about total uh total committed yes I asked us oh was my turn sorry I asked us um last time of the

telecommunication reserve it looks like the revenue that came in is 9,703 going to come in it said 27,000 so which line is that you just 73 on this page and sources yes P so under page seven 14646 27759 and I can you give me sorry can you give me the line number sure 14645 whoops

41,600 yep okay so 51,000 the Telecommunications that's where that money comes from correct me if I'm wrong so why would it say 9,700 on one page the I don't believe it is the um cable franchise fees that go get fund fund the telecommunication Reserve sorry it is yeah that 9,000 that's in there he said last time he had to look into that yeah he said he didn't know he said something was coded there so I know but I guess my my concern is

if we're going to budget in if we had an actual of 27,7 59 where did the rest of that money go that should be added to that understand the question so you're saying that if there's 27,000 coming out of the being coming in because of telecommunication reserves why isn't that showing up in the transfers in well that's a funding source for telecommunications okay and there's

2776 but on whatever we on 17 I think it was 18 18 you pardon line 73 the revenue is understanding that and we're that's an account that's going down every year and we went up on that one as Revenue coming in I that doesn't make any sense mark question yeah we can we can get that answer from Mark um I know but when's that going to happen so that we we'll email him tomorrow morning email exactly what you're asking do you understand what I'm saying raised he raised that number coming in as funding sources to 51,000 for the 18 months which was an increase over what the actual was for 2024 and people are dropping cable like nothing so I I don't understand why we would be increasing that so he's saying that the first off he did say that the amount that was added to the telecommunication Reserve yes was an improper uh classification for um for that so some something got coded in improperly for adding that but

that so I'm answering the half of the question the number is wrong I don't care if the coding is wrong and then so your the question is just so we'll make sure we send it to Mark if the cable franchise fees are 41,600 why isn't there a uh 41,600 being added to no um

the actual for 2024 was 27750 so the question number one is why is that not reflected where that 9,703 is and question number two is the increased the budget going forward which I think he should have decreased it because Cable cable people streaming right okay yeah if you want to make a recommendation to decrease that we'll totally take that into consideration and Jerry's just going to mark this number down I think what he said in his note it was $8,000 a quarter approximately bumped it up so I bet you what he did was he put $9,000 in the transfer and that was an error or he should have put this 27 in the transfer too right they should have2 he did say that the 9,000 in the transfer was a reclassification um uh he has to change that to a reclassification cuz that was erroneously included Ed there um but we can get the answer about why the 27 that's kind of scary though well so when things get coded

things happen you know so uh so I have I have two questions about this particular line my first question is what is the Telecommunications Reserve used for do anybody know I can say from what it was used for in the past what was used for in the past it was only used for Telecommunications items at one point we bought some stuff for the school we bought new so if we had to replace like our a stuff here that anything it that was the intent of and we were never allowed to spend more than what we brought in what happened what happened over the years is um the we were collecting more in fees than we were spending so over the years that money's had anything that was justified as Communications sure they would dra from that fund when an example is up until recently they used to um when again when there was a surplus in this and we weren't buying equipment they started taking monies from the fund and printing

our annual the town report that money because it was a form of communication but the original tent Jane is correct the the and I was on that committee which initially did that very first contract um the table the those fees were to be used to buy anything you know that was telecommunications related whether whether it was to get this station wired for cable or to do live broadcast or to get Eureka wired to do live broadcast and to update our equipment we used to have a telecommunications committee and that committee would meet each year and discuss what what problems they were having in the office as far as we used to have our own channels and so what equip we needed to keep that channel going and um if we wanted to put on public service messages what equipment did we need to purchase that equipment so those fees were used for for that what is being used right now is I'm it sounds like it's going to General

Government funding so that well that's going to be my second question is it seems to me I've only been here for going on four years now um that anytime funds are moved to a reserve account it seems like it takes a warrant article corre is that correct well it used to not anymore okay well I know I know the select board can authorize funds to come out M um it does take a warrant article for funds it was just about that was me my question is is the actuals then of what we get for for cable fees or whatever they're called should not match up to the telecommunication Reserve until we have a vote to put them there that might have been what happened is the first quarter was $973 and then we came to town meeting and said we're no longer putting money into the reserves it's just going into general fund I don't question and just so to

answer about the reserve expenditures one of the things that last year when we started the whole um Capital improvement process was to evaluate Reserve accounts and how they've been used there's Reserve accounts that have money in there that haven't been used and so that's one thing that we're we that Jerry and and and the select board has been working on over the last two years uh is to get that taken care of now with each with certain buildings having their own Reserve you know you can expend out of that for the telecommunication needs for that building and so it's it's a just a different landscape there so it's like you could expend out of a a reserve account for fixing a a telecommunication a issue or something like that but it's not just all one one thing so yep um for

line 77 and 78 do you know what the expenditures were uh the municipal building capital reserve linean I've heard 39 but I presume that didn't cost no some of it was the lighting so yeah we exra some lightings in um the town office and uh the eure center yeah so there was a grant that became available for um switching over to energy efficient lighting and the uh board the previous

board had voted to to do that and then expend the funds to switch it over and then got certain amount reimbursed uh because it just increased the efficiency a lot of the lighting and then I believe that the generator for the municipal building was in there as well correct and that $ 34,39 for the for the generator I don't I don't believe so it was just installed oh so it could be it was installed in 25 so till I pull up the thing and see exactly what probably most of that is the lighting yeah change multiple buildings um town office yeah and then

public Eureka lights wouldn't be under Eureka so the it no Municipal Building municipal building we we've expended it out of municipal buildings cuz it's it's considered municipal building and that's one of the things we're realizing is that when we there's multiple different Reserve accounts and what those Reserve accounts can be expended on overlap with each other so it's you have your dedicated Eureka but Eureka Center is a municipal building you know and so but it wasn't always and I think that's probably why that account was there go ahead yeah and so just saying that like this is the this is the um Reserve accounts that the board has inherited and we're trying to make recommendations on how to utilize them and and square them up and those sorts of things and understanding that like the chair said you know some of these accounts were made a long time ago and the needs have changed and and it might be different so

I have a question going back to telecommunications um regarding the fund balance of 83234 um at your at the last select board meeting there was discussion and I believe a vote to move 50 ,000 to the emergency Reserve so that's not reflective on this uh it would it would be a warrant article and so this is reflective of activity that happened in 2024 this is a recommendation that we're making for the for the upcoming budget would be to and I was going to go over that after I got through this page was to make a recommendation to move $5 53,486

emergency we don't have to worry about it it does it just shifts money it doesn't change the amount of money so question asked question answered the 83234 is what's reflective at the at uh 2024 year in Balance if you're planning to do something else with it that's going to appear as as a town warrant okay one of your members is y both of them are sorry who raised their hand I just I wanted to just say something that might be a Nuance about ucation budget but we used to have um a staff person

that they were paid they were the IT person that was their job that was what they did and only what they did and they were paid out of that L transfer out of that to Pig so that stopped when the restructuring of the Town employees changed and that I think is why that balance has gotten as high as it has because we're not pulling out of that for that person's salary every year anym

the way that we used to and it wouldn't be that much money it was not that much money I'm sorry question J I think Jerry was before so back to the um the uh cable franchise fills so for 2024 it's not reflected in the actual here but for 2024 the total for four quarters was

you'll get 90 hold on you'll get 9365 so what Mark is saying he's going to kind of just estimate 8500 so he's he is bringing it down and 8500 time 6 is 51,000 that's where he's getting his number from M thank from expend about reduction in the amount of customers they had from down I haven't reached though because that would give you should give you a more

accurate estimate as to what's going to be coming through the franchise if their customers are going down from which they are because so many people in the town of Durham is switching over to pum I mean that it's just something to look at so so people are switching neidium for their internet service but they might still Main Ain a cable service they whether they drop it when they make that switch or not is a guessing game so if if you all have an estimate that you want to provide of like what what you think might be a decrease in cable franchise fees we're all yours well that's why I went that's why I would recommend talking with infinity and see if they had a reduction in the amount of customers I think you're misspeaking you mean talk with Comcast and see if they've had a reduction in subscriptions no it's not what that's who I pay oh sorry I was thinking I was thinking F I was thinking

FID too many words simar I have a question um and maybe this isn't the place yet but we're talking about Reserve accounts correct can you explain to me because I I think there's of this but the reserve accounts I thought ended up needing a warrant Town

vote to spend money correct so the capital expenditure Reserve so Reserve accounts select boards have authority in a town manager form of government from State Legislature outline to expend out of Reserve accounts and traditionally in the past uh I know that Durham has had a question every year and asked folks do we want to expend this or or that these Reserve accounts can be expended out of as long as the expenditure is in line with the intent of the reserve account and so that's where expenditures for Capital uh purchasing is are could come out of so when you look at like the Public Works capital reserve if they buy if they come to the select Bo and say we we need that you know Dozer or that loader that we talked about two years ago needing this year we we are going to need it that's where that money would come out of correct should it be approved by the select board my my question is more directed towards the

funds being move from one Reserve account to the emergency Reserve account because does the emergency Reserve account take a warrant or is that just select board meeting or manager saying we're going to spend the money on this yes so there are allowable expenditures out of emergency reserves that the select board can vote to approve if those requests come and that is a way to there there's a variety of things whether it's if it's considered a emergency for the municipality and it needs to uh and is being expended to make sure that there's no impact on tax tax rate you know so if a big expense pops up during the year that's unexpected and rather than having to go and say we need to raise more funds that can be expended out of there the the warrant language Artic the warrant language here is the select board is intending to ask the community if we can transfer $ 53,486

emergency Reserve whereas right now if there was a a major issue but it didn't meet the line of telecommunications and it was an emergency even though there's enough money in telecommunications to cover it we can't expend out of telecommunications to cover that emergency so that's why we're just asking for a shifting there to to build a little bit of um uh uh cushion in case there's an emergency okay thank you for explaining uh you got to double check this but I'm I'm pretty sure what you just said it's not true the only reason why you can spend spend out of the emergency fund is because the town gave you permission to last year at at the town meeting by warrant article so the emergency fund is only available to them as we vote on it at the Tom meeting the other Capital funds are they can spend whatever they want yeah I read State Statute last week and my understanding is what I just vocalized yeah well you're wrong you you

you were looking at an emergency fund that was you haven't even got set up yeah well I read the there's more than one line in the state statute so that's we can get the opinion from the legal councel as well but that's just what I had read in our state in the state statute last week so if you have a different interpretation feel free to to bring it up but that's a little bit outside of the the budget numbers here just I went through this with Jerry when he first came and and he clarified it for me I've got I've got the the uh doc not his response so anyway you can't spend any money that the town doesn't authorized except for Capital Equipment and capital building do you have a question for me about the budget line so that's that's the answer no I'm just I it's not a space for me to have a policy discussion in this meeting and I want to be respectful of the scope of your work so I'm just asking if there's

not a budget question um and there's a policy question I think that's for that's for the uh town meeting I'm done thank you page 18 other questions oh finish I think I I didn't Lois sorry not Lois pH you always ride together sometimes and it catches me off guard so close last page last line 80 Cemetery uh Permanent Fund it has a balance of $ 7,95 at the end of this year bringing our total governmental fund balances to 4,577

recommended getting back to the homestead exam mhm the original budget that you had presented 275,000 be reduced down to 260,000 when I looked at 2023 we had 302 687 and then 2024 it went down again because of our percentage dropping it went down to 262 uh 933 that was a reduction of a

little over $39,000 when I looked at that percentage for Homestead quick I just want drop again until we do a rebound probably I just want to make clarification I'm not making a recommendation tonight I'm just presenting you with the information that the select board is reviewing tomorrow so that's not my recommendation I just want to make make sure that's because I don't speak for the board they would throw cabbage at me if I was trying to speak for them up here but uh we could go down uh it's based off of the the reevaluation number could go down I think I I would have to check with the I think the the bottom is zero um we're not going to be there I think she has a recomend um an estimate that we could go down to but again that could decrease a little but we're working on the r valve so it's like trying to nail Jello to a wall right you don't really know what it's going to be well we but this 260 is

for 18 months so if you annualize it's 173 but we have actuals has that it has been reducing right and that's going to continue until we do a re right M so that reduction the amount that it reduced from 2023 to 20124 is almost $40,000 so I am suggesting that instead

of the 275 it should would be down to 225,000 are you thinking 18 months are you thinking it's only one year one year is 17 so the 260 is for 18 months collection is you perod so if you annualize that one year it's $173,000 sorry it's only one collection in that 18 months to Allen's point so again okay if if this committee is that's I I think you've seen just based off of our your our last meeting that we're very receptive to your feedback and so if this committee's feedback is more we're all all years and we're looking at that number ourselves again tomorrow night so I would certainly suggest visiting that because the last thing you want to do is projecting funding and have it fall short because you're going to have to make up the difference someplace else the and I think I think originally that that that difference was that we had recommended estimating interest Revenue much lower um and then at this committee's

recommendation the town um uh uh accountant has now made the recommendation to double our interest revenue and so that that would be where there would be some wiggle room if that's doubling to 100 if that was if that was a $100,000 underestimate and this was a $40,000 overestimate it's a net uh positive there and that's where it's a budget it's that's the tough part is making those estimates and we want to make sure that we're estimating appropriately and and within reason it's within reason and so that's that's a discussion to have there does anybody have specific questions for Joe to clarify before we start reviewing our recommendations of

um finish up the uh Reserve account recommendations it's going to be a warrant article it's just that one issue of of moving from telecommunication to emergency there's not there's no other proposed warrant language on adjusting those accounts

this committee will will vote in favor of or not or against I I that's a warrant article that's just going to go to the town I don't believe it's feedback here but I just if we're talking money I don't want you all to think that we're we're not telling you the whole story so oh we was I'm not saying you would say that but I wouldn't do it either I didn't look over

warrant article I would I would want to go on is the money going to dur youth baseball and snowmobiles that's I guess not going to be in the budget but is going to be a warant article no so the intent there was we have not expended funds out of the uh recreational Reserve account and so with recommen with uh requests coming in Far Below the balance of that we felt comfortable that we would just uh handle those requests out of the recreation Reserve account and by a vote when they came to us I I understand that but you're making a recommendation on on a Town warrant article to the town I want to make a recommendation too so I think this committee comments on the fiscal note and not on warrant language and so it's a bit a little bit

any art any article that is presented by the select board that has a financial impact on it there should be input from the budget committee well used to be well our warrant language won't be developed until February 25th so

uh sorry 25th 24 I thought and I would certainly hope that any articles that have been voted on by the select would be presented to the the budget committee I think the the budget committee can comment on any of the Articles we vote on for sure yeah you have a meeting scheduled after that there's money my understanding is if there's money related to the article then there should appear both a select

board recommendation and a budget committee recommendation so we need to yeah be we need to have the opportunity to discuss that article to make our Ro whether it's the same as yours or our own and at this time when it comes to the recreation account we're not making any recommendations to increase that funding amount of 23,000 which is what it is right there so we're not calling out any specific increases for any recreational or request we're saying that if those come in we can expend we can expend those out of the recreational Reserve um and so that's what we are proposing doing but you did say that there money tied into the warrant article that's going to be regarding the Telecommunications dolls and the Telecommunications trans transferred to emergency fund so that yeah that will be warrant language y from the budget committee okay let's come back to that

yes J can we Circle back I know in the rear page 17 um line 998 500 so the transfer out and we talked about public works and maybe you're going to cut me off here I don't know but these are items that are we're spending money on capital reserve dollars am I incorrect on that so transfers out um is out of the fund balance and those are the intent is for those to uh be the funds that populate the capital reserve requirements annually and so that's where we came up that set amount every year for public works for fire department for buildings and so that's not an exact expenditure I think I'm thinking it's the rolling so did you just hand out this one yeah oh sorry we can hand those around so it's those numbers um

that it getting put in the reserve accounts okay so what I'm going to suggest this is great but they need to see the 10-year rolling account for each department so they know where that number comes up with yeah and that's the plan at the beginning of the uh meeting just like last year to go over that and we have a graph that shows that and then the expend expected expenditures per year out of those so this number here is what you're promoting to the town to raise or appropriate to put into the reserve accounts to cover what we're purchasing where do I find out what we're purchasing yeah that's going to be on the website that's it was presented at the last town meeting and I'm presenting it again at this town meeting and where intent is to make sure that that's very visible on the website very easy to find before the town meeting okay but it's nothing we're voting on no the v no no the the vote is

to continue the 10e investment plan into the capital reserve so we have 10 that's that's what the vote is it doesn't mean that that money is being expended it just means it's being earmarked for the fire department Reserve or the Public Works deser Reserve or or that okay that's a huge change well that's what we did last year so it's it's a I get that we're funding the 10-year

the fire Truck Line guys right buying we used to be I mean we used to want see you're not going to so we need no no that will that will all be Vis that will all be presented uh both like I said on the website and be presented at the beginning of meeting but we're not voting on it tonight no the the question tonight is on the amount being added to the capital reserve all no problem yes pH did you have a question no no I'm ready to move on I just saw his name but no ready to move on so where do we stop page

do I first oh yeah cuz that's the summary huh funding sources then on page six okay think that because of all the additional information you I I can pure all kinds of different numbers that I have backed into I can't I can't accurately do that now with all the information that's been having said that the projected mill rate we're looking at we're going from what has been presented to us we're going from what currently is 2175 to 2252 which is a 3 and a 12% increase last year we had a 1.9 9% to Me

3 and A2 is not acceptable I will not vote for a 3 and a half% increase I honestly think that we should be looking at a two or a two and a half% and how we get that we could go down and we could go by Department by department but I think if we sent a message back to the select board and said this isn't acceptable you guys can make the cuts within those departments they're much more knowledgeable than we are I want to make the the committee uh make sure we're clear on that because that is a viable option we can do what's always been done and get into the weeds and go Department by department but we can simply make a statement to the select board saying we will approve up to a plug in the number percent increase in the budget or in the mill rate and they work it out we don't need necessarily have to make a itemized uh deduction say We'll approve and and give our percent set of 3 is out pointed out something lower and we don't

have to do all that work you have that option because I mean when we go to buy Department by department they still have they being slew they have that flexibility or the town manager has that flexibility to work with each department and say this is what it has to be one are the recommendations that you do in your own budget your own Department that is correct well they don't have to do that because what they could say is would we are we want a three and A2 we believe a 3 and a half% is correct and that we're if that's what they they believe what they they want to stick to you now have two numbers before the town that are significantly different however Alan so let's hypothetically say we went

that route so it's still in the town report it's or on the articles on the warrant is still presented by department so it's going to be hard on the floor to vote each Department's budget unless unless the the town manager makes the changes that reflect the overall Mr but

based on based on what has been presented we do not have accurate figures in front of us right now that that's why to me I can't go Department by Department there's still outstanding items that have to be presented to the select them toong so one area of clarification that

perhaps the chair of the select board can make um when you guys voted on this budget you didn't vote Department by department and there was conversation of how it was even going to be presented at the town meeting you just said I vote for this budget more or less to bring it to the budget committee yes yes so how are you planning on presenting it to the town I think our intent was to plan present it the same way as last year exactly the same there's no there's no intent to present it any differently okay yeah and I think that the reason we didn't have uh a line by line or Department by Department vote is that we had General consensus that we were comfortable with what we saw based off of the um discussion we had when we went section by section so rather than doing 20 votes we said is everyone comfortable with the overall vote sure and move forward I think if the budget committee says we want

2.5% for the mill rate then it doesn't help when things get broken down from Department to Department because some of the Departments have a 15% increase some of the Departments have a -3% decrease so maybe what's best to do is end this meeting and once the select board reviews their changes we can have another meeting would another option be again I'm ask to be educated so we

can either say if just take your figure hypothetical figure that we we don't want the mill rate to increase by more than 2.5% can we go through each department and limit each department to a 2 and a half% increase well I think if I may in

the past when I've always said when we've gone with percentages we've usually based on how are we going to be adjusting funding source that's been the driving for us how much do we transfer from there and when I just what was updated

information that was presented tonight they were reducing the funding source I think it needs to be increased to if we're going bring that percentage down from 3 and a half to 2 and A2 you need to increase the funding source the transfer out of funding source but you know I wor worked on these numbers and was prepared to say what I would recommend but I can't now because I don't have accurate

I'm not understanding this if the 3 and a half% that's in the budget is now includes the school in the county over which we have no control so if we go to two and a half% then we're going to have to take it out of all the timelines which will be in my mind is a significantly greater cut uh than going down to 2 and a half% um so that that troubles me because the the school isn't going to loow you know those two are the biggest chunk of our our payment I mean I'd rather and I think we owe the town to say here's here's where we think it can be cut but I I think we're probably talking about you know maybe one and a half% increase or a 2% increase to the to the town budget not two and a half well that's why I feel it's not go with Allan's hypothesis I'm not sure it's the mill rate we want to focus on because the mill rate takes into account the school budget it would be another we want to look somewhere else

of the town of der's one simple thing we can say is we disagree with Mark and instead of decreasing the fund balance leave the fund balance the same because we already know the school percentage is going up which is going to increase that 3 .5% higher so at the very least we shouldn't be decreasing the fund balance in my opinion shouldn't be decreasing the fund balance we should not be decreasing the amount of fund balance that we are using in my opinion because we already know the school is up I mean well he chairman

said 0 4% but what we what we got emailed in their budget proposal page nine says 7 64% which is almost a whole percentage increase he he did increase funding though he did increase the funding source which is why he he decreased the fund balance use right and I'm saying he shouldn't decrease the fund balance use I misunderstood you okay you want to leave what he you want to leave what he said originally or I want to leave it at the five I want to at least leave it at the 595 yeah we do that yeah because agree we're going to have we already know we're looking at increase from the school budget compared to what we're budgeting for right so Mr chairman yes

sir my take would be we we work by Department there's three of them really I guess General government public safety Public Works to reduce what we want for line items and then come up with a number we want to use for inbalance or a percentage and whatever it takes to get there like they did just back into it that's our recommend ation there's not a lot to cut in um in the Departments I I I have some stuff I I found I think but because if the Warr article is going to address specific items we need to address those specific items and what Neil is saying is that going to address that NE say again whatever the warrant article is I don't know what it is but whatever it is this committee needs to to address that which is it the same as last year which is why we'll end up having another

the select board now but we're still going to need another meeting for our final yep what I'm fine with what Neil is saying as long as we can get to that final recommended percentage so we going so is your recommendation That We're Not Making votes tonight we making recommendations and then we're going to come back and make an actual vote on each of these I sounds like a compromise and I I'm we don't know exactly what we're going to get but if we go by last year is warn articles Administration is one part of one and fire department is part of one Public Works is part of one right so we can give suggestions in that department we can give suggestions even on the funds coming in Jerry um just to review

the calendar what you have to have the budget completed by when it would be nice to have a draft budget that we can put in the annual report and that's going to go to the printer at the very F March 4th March so this committee has to have made its votes not just its recommendations by by March 3rd well we need time to get put it in the warrant too so that would be really helpful if we had at least I think that was the reason why I went to Fe or we said that last meeting is February 24th to allow Time March 4th is

just when the printing company has said that if if we cut to them after March 4th they can't guarantee it's printed for the town meeting on the 25th mhm and the 11th but even if we unless it was that we how we make that work well if we make suggestions tonight

March 3 would be the date we have to meet if we make suggestions tonight the select board combines our suggestions with Mark suggestions with Jerry's updated accurate numbers because let's face it they'll probably change in 24 hours um and then when we get together on the 24th we can give them our final vote and they'll have that for the 25th we're not going to have warrant articles to vote on we haven't had warrant articles to vote on for at least two if not three

the recommendations for changes in the in the Departments other than number basically using the fund down right so was everyone prepared tonight to if we were to app each department was it your intentions I'm asking this as an open question to simply vote y or nay Neil had some changes recommended did anybody else speak now or forever hold your peace I was thinking have someone on the wages I mean the wages to me are are too high okay for what everybody's looking at and what's going on this year that would cover three departments right did you have are you ready to make a motion as to what the new budget amount should be with whatever you think the wages should be well the wages now are at four so

that's not my question my question is do you have are you ready to make a motion this evening that reflects whatever you think the wages should be I think the wages should be only 2.5 I have to make a motion we can't vote on just that I we need to vote on the Department's budget part of the Department's budget is what the wages are so the question is are you ready to make a motion that reflects what it what the what budget you are recommending for the Department that includes whatever change you want to make to wages the final number did you make an adjustment to their final number no okay I have Mr I have one on education I mean if you go with 7.65% I know there's the town still working on it but I would make make a recommendation we go to the 7.65% but when we get if when we get there but that's the only one I've got so we uh our options are to first of all what um to hear what uh Neil's

recommendations are and if the if it so pleases the committee to um accept the motion and vote on the recommendations that Nils prepared to make otherwise it sounds like this committee is not ready to move forward other than to make a recommendation to the select Bo and we'll save our vote on on a on specific numbers for our meeting on the 24th am I summarizing this

correctly I'd certainly like to hear what has to [Music] offer AG y I'll give you the floor want you to go all I don't know how to do this except to make a recommendation to the select board that the family leave employee percentage should be not absorbed by the town can you back up one second let's get to that page well it's not on a page I don't think are you doing by department or what are you you ref I'm starting with the family leave um page 10 is it page 10 so you're making specific itemized recommendations you're not making a recommendation for Department I am but my first one is this family leave recommendation I don't know I don't know where to find it in the budget it's part of the wages and for all three departments is $6,000 where where is that it was told to us last meeting so it's not a line item then no it's part of wages and benefits right benefit well we can back that out I

guess maybe not today but we can back it out that's my Approach is going to say we recommended the select board that the town does not absorb that half perc they don't pay for it okay does the town just pay the half percent Cor

guess next time but that was that was where it was going to start okay um so on General government I didn't have anything under Public Works of Public Safety specifically I don't think but I double check General government I had uh training and development do you have a specific page that we can look at 10 10 yeah 10 10 G

government line 27 $2,400 I would say make that $5,000 what line item 20 7105 oh 715 uh make legal 15,000 they only spent 8,500 so if we give them the 10,000 in the budget plus 6 months that's 15,000 so you're saying don't go with the monthly retainer right uh um and what what was your number again

Mark and a proposed HR person I would eliminate the eight drop person and go $445,000 for instead of the I'll eliminate text my gov and make this is 2672 365 which line was that one on page 11 yeah I got page 11 which 72 I have the pages I guess I'm sorry which line number is website 26 72133 you said to decrease it to 2100 by 2100 to 2100 wow

okay can I ask a question about that let let's wait till you I'm done it's about the website it's about the website um for the text my go yeah um the $8,000 and then there's a website does that website support the text my go sep it's for our website our town website because I saw a website below so that's why I thought okay got it so it's not a lot of money but it's what I came up with okay but

contracted out yeah it's a two-year decrease general government 240 $ 42,1 I had 36,5 but um because it's 5,000 out of line 20 wrong I thought you changing it to 5,000 yeah so that's it's only 1,000 I'm adding up wrong sorry so 1,000 from that line and

then you want to subtract out 7,500 from okay and then you want to subtract out you want to subtract out 16,000 or 8,000 so 20 oh I had I had a question um Joe on the uh Department had wages that doesn't look right to me based on what you guys gave him for a raise am I misinterpreting that the information in front of you is reflective of what we've provided to employees I say say again the information in front of you is

recommended did you let's see you don't have do you have a total number for the total Administration you have final number yeah 1, Administration assessing it and plan code enforcement right all right what was that number again

question thank you can I ask a question to the select board and maybe Jerry while you're here um I watched this select board meeting and um just from past ones and one of the things that in the very beginning of one meeting um the select board made a recommendation I I think it was after Jerry or during Jerry's review so he got an increase a merit increase but there was also a statement made that we're going to move your vehicle stien into your salary where did the vehicle stiping come from and how does that affect future raises yeah so um we made a a decision

to provide the the raises that for staff that you're seeing in front of you and that is total benefits and pack total benefits and uh wages and that is the line that you have there we just moved the benefit of a vehicle stien into the amount for the wage rather than calling it out separately so where was the vehicle statement ever shown before on the budget was always in the wages it was always in the wages so when you look at your wage line there it says wages and benefits that number is made up as you know of the money that people are making plus the benefit cost for the town it doesn't break it down into what each individual well that's a that's an issue of public privacy so it's not if if people want that they're going to have to go through a different Channel I'm not in a position right now to tell you who takes full m family coverage who doesn't and so I can't break that down that much

yeah but there's a lot of things lumped into that like I was never aware of a vehicle site in the town manager now that if we move it into if if there is one and now we moved it into the pay raises Jerry has a thing in his contract that says he's going to get a an increase every year now that amount of his salary is increased by that stipended also so he's getting the increase on the S I understand what you're saying but it's still always been reflected in wages and benefits and whether that wages and benefits when we calculate are broken down by people's take-home their insurance or their stiens it's the line's always been there so there's if if the issue is is with that number then that's that's the issue but it doesn't change the makeup doesn't change the total amount and so yes in the future if we're looking in the future future compensation is determined off of current compensation and so

that's all taken into consideration but we're today we're not talking about the 2027 Town manager future compensation we're talking about I'm trying to figure out like what goes into that number so how do we make wages and salary I think

that's how you have it listed more transparent we used to have lines like FICA we used to have you know main Pur we'd have I don't know I'm yeah so we we have Heather I I just I want to say number one this is part of the reason why we need a human resource person because this conversation is order line crossing a line that's not appropriate and I understand what you're saying and that it used to look very differently that is is a very inappropriate way for it to look in terms of personnel laws that we have to abide by so the whole reason yeah I'm going to get myself into trouble here but as a as a towns person I thought we

hired Jerry the town person because the select board was uncomfortable making HR decisions and that was one of the big selling points of getting at a manager in but now the manager is not going to do that do you have a question about the budget or is this commentary on the town manager Jo I'm asking this is our meeting so if I think the question is inappropriate I'll interrupt but we we can't talk about personnel and that's that's performance Joe please we can't talk about performance in a public understood so just flagging that before we go further down the conversation so Jane I mean you you're welcome to make a comment my comment would be I would like to see that line a lot more transparent because I'm I'm like flabbergasted that that I didn't know that there was a stien for a vehicle for the town manager I mean who gets paid to drive to work I know there was one for the um depart yeah fire department

because he was driving his own truck around so her mind no no questions been asked so I don't know what you're G to answer I'm was gonna answer the comment about the the vehicle his contract was negotiated by previous select uh Donna do you have a question yes good I think I forgot it but I do have it oh wait a minute okay so this 3.9% increase in said in department head

wages has that already been given or is this on and above the one that they were talking about giving in August on that one where you said he get the 6.4% increase in August so is this where is this 3.9 come in is this already told we were giving

have they already received that are they going to get it on top of everything else how does this happen 3.9 is the proposed increase in that line for this upcoming budget so that's for the upcoming y that's what we're looking at right here is the budget for the 18mon budget for 2025 into 2026 and that is the proposed increase across the entire uh 18-month period for that line of department heads and wages okay um

so I don't know how to ask it now um the 6.4% increase that was given in August is is already reflected in here but it's not reflected in the 3.9 the 3.9 is on and above that no okay yes so I believe nail was perhaps making a motion I hear a we should Circle back to he wasn't making a motion it wasn't certainly wasn't stated that way I didn't state it that way but I can you're welcome to we were discussing yeah we were discussing I'm I'm done do you want to make a motion sure uh Mr chairman I make a motion that we

recommend uh second I'll second for discussion just so that everybody I mean I don't want anybody on the budget committee to be misled or you know I can vote right now knowing that when a town manager and department heads when we make a motion on numbers like this and granted we many times supported that motion by where we think Cuts or additions should be made but the town manager and department heads will make that final decision as to where those cuts will be made that I can vote on numbers but I may not agree with the rationale behind where the cuts are correct correct Mr chair just a point of information the um to to Allen's point when you look at the warrant Lang articles the way they were last year they're not broken out warrant articles in as fine detail as this budget so it would make more sense for a recommendation from this committee to be on the total amount and by the amount that they want to see that reduced into

your point it would then be the responsibility of that department head to figure out how to find that if the town decided to decrease that so while the intent might be to decrease 5% for Town whatever we could find that savings elsewhere and that's up to the department heads themselves so the money would change but it would have to it depends on where it can come out of because this B you just re reiterate could have said dit yeah well I'm I'm just I'm just reiterating that if the motion has to be at that line we the motion was because you could make a motion to decrease something below what is physically possible for um entire total General government

budget right to be decreased for the for the conversation for conversation for the benefit of the committee he explained to uh this committee how he came up with those numbers he didn't have to do that but it certainly helps the committee to understand his thought process and evaluating his recommendation any further discussion so I just want to back up a minute because before this motion was raised the the discussion amongst this committee was we weren't going we were only going to make recommendations we weren't going to vote on specific numbers until the 24th I can withdraw my motion I'm sorry I can withdraw my motion I didn't guess I didn't pick up on that yeah I mean at least um we I'm we can withdraw it I mean at least now we know what you're thinking and you set a very good example for the rest of this committee if they in a disagreement of what has been presented to us that's the homework that is being

requested that you figure if you think a budget amount should be lowered figure out you don't just cck a number out of the sky because we have to go we have to similar to the select board we so we don't look like fools we have to explain our number on the town floor and where it came from so we can't just we don't we can do whatever we want um and I'll ask you whoever makes the motion during our budget committee meetings to defend the number at to town floor I'm not defending it for you so if if you say you know let's if the number what that the select what presented us was just to pick numbers was a $900,000 budget and you make a motion that you want it to be a $700,000 budget without any explanation

and the committee votes in favor of a $700,000 budget what's going to happen on Town floor is when this gets presented to the committee I'm going to look at you and have you explain to the town of durm where you came up why why you are proposing a $700,000 budget versus the select board's $900,000 budget you will be up against stiff p competition because our select board here is apparently well-versed and knows his numbers and if you AR prepared to present a simp a similar whether it's argument or presentation it I can pretty much predict how well it won't go on the town

floor so this is what I'm asking you to how I'm asking you to prepare for the meeting on the on the 24th if you think that a reduction or or the opposite is necessary be ready to present that number be ready to share with us this is only us this is just the budget committee share with us as Neil did where he made those changes um then then we'll be presented as a motion we'll vote on it as a committee and we'll go from there but we can't just say I don't like it Jill so one of the things that I heard a lot during the the presentation to the select board in the presentation to us is that um CPI is

3.5% and I understand the value of the lawyer and I understand the value of the HR person so if I take the general government budget and I increase it from last year 3.5% and then I add in the additional cost for the lawyer and the additional cost for HR I come up with a number of

let me make sure I got it right read it off of here it's probably more accurate 1, 71,3 target goal for the general government for a withdraw my motion I didn't understand what where you're going but I like it so okay do you withdraw your second chill

sure I I would hope that before this meeting concludes for the evening that we are giving some direction or recommendation to the select board as to what direction they're heading in that is my that that would be my hope and so we've certainly just given them a sense regarding total General government I think we can move on to the other departments the way I want we really we have to finish up our business on the 24th I just don't see how we can go later than that the way so the way I want the meeting on the 24th to go is we're going to start we'll start with a we'll go Department by department and I want motions to be ready I want I I Neil set the example tonight you make your motion with your mouth we see if it has a second we hear an explanation on it and we vote it up or down and if there a and if we vote it down and someone else has a different motion we will do that and if if if we are the meeting should run very orderly

and it should it shouldn't take us more than a couple hours to approve our budget um so tonight is just more of set setting the table uh putting the dishes on the table putting all the silverware out uh but the food the meat of the meat doesn't get served until the 24th if if that's a an agreement with everybody all right so we've given an indication uh as far as how we feel about the uh total General government does anybody want to add to that before we do similar to the next Department do

any other any other Cuts or or changes that you're inclined to recommend well I think we probably have a split board Bo in that um Deal's presented some numbers Jill's presented some numbers I tend to be more supported of jills I'm not sure what how much guidance should we give uh the select board I mean at this point yeah well they've heard they've heard the discussion we're just not going to vote on it tonight okay I think the consensus was I I'll take you we'll do that vote at the next meeting okay but they're giving everyone something not only the suck but giving everyone some uh things to I'm sorry Neil I was just saying that you I I like her approach better than mine so okay all right ready to move on all right do we do we have some things you want to recommend or that we if someone is going to make a motion on the 24th that we would like to see changes in the public safy

not sure where there's cuts to be made in this one I mean I think it's it's fairly Fair BS I mean make an argument I suppose about p uh wages but you know if we're just paying firemen to go into the face of danger the minimum wage so I guess I would say that I don't have uh changes uh on this one

Jill using my same logic um and knowing that we did last year vote for the additional night coverage um and I'm okay with the two stiens that were added his budget is right on with a 3.5% increase for CPI 502 for radios um did I understand that he did he get a grant did the fire chief get a grant for radios I think he's working on a grant for radios or something that he got and I think this wasn't so much purchasing the radios as it is operating the radios but I could be wrong there too Jerry can you help us on that I can answer that so whe whether we get a grant or not doesn't we can't we can't budget for getting the Grant and so we have to budget for the the cost of the item and then hope that we can find cost um find grants to decrease the cost these are very competitive grants and we have a grant whiz in that office over there but that's not a guarantee um no that is not the operation The increased

operation expenses for the computer aided dispatch which is separate there we have radios but then we have tablets that sit in the trucks and that's that's something that has the Wi-Fi expense that is uh increasing because that's uh they operate mobile the radios are analog it just said inflation so I didn't know what that yeah um the cost the I I

should have gone into the radio making business for fire departments after you learned what the cost of buying radios are okay thank so the computer AED laptops is in the the cost of is in the radi line no it's in 7210 telephone and internet yeah how do we get from radios to that to I was just clar clarifying that uh the previous person's question was asking if that's where it was and I was saying no okay at least that was my understanding of the question so are we purchasing the $10,000 is to purchas the understanding that we're purchasing new radios right I'm I'm not exactly sure if that $10,000 reflects a new radio purchase new holsters for the radios new antennas or whatever but that's what the chief has uh budgeted His Radio needs being at

thank you Mr chair yes sir I ask Neil if he had a recommendation on Public Safety no I just did what's that he just asked I just asked you do you no okay any other recommendations one might want to mull over be hearing a motion for our next

meeting all right and we move on to want to hear Rumblings in the community uh you know later that oh you should done this should done that this this is you're you're on the budget committee to have your recommendations heard so and to get heard multiple times because they can be heard in this venue and then they can be heard as part of the town meeting so if you're not saying anything that means you are perfectly happy with this this budget as proposed there's not going to be questions that show up on social media or there will this is that's why you're on this committee this is the time to bring up your concerns make your recommendations influence a change or Rust in Peace

is no resting all right going on to Public Works thoughts on recommendations or things to be considering once we am working on a motion for our meeting on the which I like is uh it is it looks like a 3 point five mon glasses don't work but roughly 3.5% uh increase which is in line with the CPI uh my only concern is we just pass

that on as a comment to the select board and town managers you know that make sure we're staying on track with keeping our roads in good shape so that's just a public service that when we meet on the 24th some simp going to make a motion for whatever number has been proposed it'll be seconded and approved and I'd rather get our discussion in

now then because the 24th is our last chance so we've got to that mean he got to keep on moving so that we're not here at midnight so I want that we've got plenty of time this evening if this thing you're not comfortable with things you're questioning this is the meeting to bring it up on the 24th we're making motions we're voting on those motions and it's we're moving on so if you got comments I want them tonight not on the 24th Jill page 17 line 96 7915 I recommend that the select board

consider increasing that to reflect the 7. 64% budget that the school board is currently entertaining so that would increase that line to good Lord extra zeros I was hoping that was a DOT not a comma the first one gosh Mr one5

instead of jumping around so recommendation has been so M so noted we were talking about Public Works you have something on Public Works nail no I was just trying to move on right does anybody have anything they would like to discuss vent on public

meet on the 24th be a motion pretty much to go with the monies that have been uh recommended by the select board that doesn't mean that at all well I want to discussion tonight I am giving the discussion well that if you just said if they don't go with my recommendations then I may not agree with what they're

municipal buildings municipal that's right after public ahead I don't have anything I mean I think that's it is what it anybody the Cemetery maintenance is is based on estimates correct not guesstimates right okay yeah based on estimates

just the cmet is more just cutting grass I me right that's fixing the headstones and things like that yep no I understood that I have a question yes on um 41 7253 building repairs and maintenance um the $10,000 you might have mentioned that before but can you explain that The Bu um repairs and maintenance yeah this it's just maintenance for anything that we have to do the building septic systems could come in that like so rather than those being like Capital Improvement projects that's something simple as the toilet's not flushing or you know the door is not closing and we need to get that fixed so and that's for 18 months yeah

correct is double what your actual was so yeah well we anticipate we anticipate that the cost of uh hiring contractors will increase over the next 18 months so we wanted to build that into the budget because uh while CPI might be 3.5% it's not shared equally across every expenditure and so some of those expenditures might be much higher While others might be um lower I'll bring up our favorite word CPI is an aggregate of expenses across the whole Marketplace not just off of a one item

else moving on to solid waste not sure there's anything to do about that Services confused on this one um I'm assuming based on what the select board has said that we're not going to chance get a chance to make a recommendation on that so it's here can we make a recommendation now on outside organizations can I add one sure okay so

I want to recommend that the the Durham Youth Baseball uh gets $7,500 for the FY 26 which would be 18 months because um the the U spring of 26 they would not be getting any money for their season what was the amount again 7500

the reason the reason why this came up for me is I was sitting next to the president of Mike Clark during you faceball during one of our vision meetings and he was explaining how poorly the the fans and the kids that come uh they they don't have a good experience because no there's no swings there's no nothing for them to do the parking is piggledy pigy and all over the place and he was hoping to get some money to fix up some of that

board yes he did but two things one but not for that amount I think or he just did one year he he requested more than that okay he had two he had two requests my my other half half of that is is this is it on page 16 or is that uh part of the

reserve discussion you're not you're not suggesting put or are you suggesting putting a $7,500 uh 2026 budget I think what I've heard tonight from the select board was if they're going to take it out of the recreation Reserve yeah but they're they're they're not going to let us get involved in that decision so I'm saying let's put it in here and let the town vote on it but then you'll have it in twice if they put a warrant out

uh handle uh Recreation requests out of the recreation Reserve which has 23,600 in it and so um that's what our intent is so I think if you wanted to make a motion here it would be to add $7,500 to Community Services which we're saying to put zero dollars into the community services question so when you say your thought process is to be taking it out of the recreation Reserve so it's not going to go on a warrant to add more funds for them to come out of come out of that Reserve or you're going to suggest that correct so rather if if it goes in this line we'd have to vote to raise and appropriate $7,500 we're saying why raise and appropriate additional taxes when we have $23,000 already available for recreational reserves it's my understanding that the motion uh being discussed right now is that member of the budget committee doesn't want the select board to make that decision and so he's suggesting a different number so

he can make the decision as to what the board gets and that's just a separate motion done oh I'm not done I mean I didn't see no so I guess I guess I just want to make sure I'm clear on this the thought process from the select board is that they will take funds from the recreation Reserve but there's no documentation of that unless I'm missing that no so at our meeting we we discussed what sort of um Community Services requests that we have generally gotten in the past uh this year we've only received um two requests and so we said we already have ample funds in a recreation Reserve to cover that let's just handle those expenditures out of the recreation Reserve which the town has given us the authority to and which we believe that we have the authority to and so rather than increasing this line in an effort to try to minimize cost we just said we've already BD budgeted for it we can pay out of there after that meeting there

was a discussion amongst the committee saying that they were going to reach out to the bud the baseball team and ask the baseball team to ask us for more money at that point we had already made our decisions on the recreation Reserve account for for the year and we said well we can come up with that discussion when it when it comes to us but we've already kind of focused on the amount that was originally requested before they were prompted to request more okay so it is is it my understanding that there's nowhere in this budget that depicts that it's just going to be at a select board meeting that they're going to come and say we would like this money and you're going to vote Yes or No out of the reserve account correct that's that's how the reserve account expenditures work if we put this money aside it could potentially they could be getting it twice so no you might be

raising an appropriating money that we already have set side but that doesn't mean that they're going to receive both that line and what the budg select board okay says so if you raised an appropriated $7,500 um in community services we then have to figure out where that line goes and if that went to the baseball team and they have not asked for $7,500 then we would could potentially do that or say it needs to be handled out of the recreation Reserve account we've already accounted for it so okay well I guess I I don't give a damn which where it comes from um so if the

desire is to give $7,500,000 now I'm sorry didn't mean snarky if the desire for the this board is for $7,500 you've got the message that we we'd like to see $7,500 if it comes out of recreation Reserve or not my understanding is the desire of this board or the motion is that they do not want the select board to have the authority to determine how much the budget the baseball team gets and that's why this motion is originating we're saying we think we can handle all Recreation requests out of the recreational Reserve Heather do you mind if I address Mr chairman I've already recognized there's something that I would just like to point out that I feel like is the elephant in the room that no one is saying there's a process that needs to be followed in order to get money for things and that process has not been followed there is a process involved with putting up a playground structure that involves the planning

board that process is not been followed to me this is an extremely premature request that has not been vetted and I just would like for you to have that that information because that's also part of the reason why we did not fund that request fully there was not a proper proposal in front of the select board Jill you're next um okay so based on what Heather just said and based

fortat here but so if the softball team came and said we've been to the planning board here's our designs for a swing set that we want to put next to the baseball field at that time you guys would consider it and it would come out of the reserve account I think where this is complicated is it's town-owned property correct and so I don't think you could have the planning board approve without discussion on the from the from the select board a new structure erected on

getting lost in the weeds I think it's te and they dot their eyes and they do everything they're supposed to do could you give the baseball team more money later on down the road if they ask for it yeah because it's as long as it's less than what's in the recreational Reserve account okay that was hard my point in raising this issue was it's not that I want the select board not to make a recommendation or us I want the town to make the decision and only one that the only way the town can make the decision if it's in a warrant article and we're not getting a chance to have input on the warrant article you would I believe you would have to make that request to the select board I already have they said no then to add a Warren article no to give us an opportunity to vote War article it has to we can't vote if it's not if it's not going to be on on the warrant it is there we voted to let them spend

Reserve funds process the process is if you want a warrant if you want an article on the warrant that's not already being planned you would have to email the select board requesting that I know that all right so have you done that it's already on the warrant they've already been made a request to put her on the warrant I am so confused I the town manager was instructed to put the article an article in the warrant for the baseball who inspected them the we I would have to review our our meeting minutes but the the number that we received from the bud the baseball team was $2,500 and that's what we built our budget off of and then since then um members of the community have expressed an interest for wanting more but the number we received was $2,500 and then we received a second email that did not have any of the proper details for a proposal and so we budgeted for $2,500 I'm just I'm trying to understand this

question of an article because we if there's not an article we can't really make a recommendation I have to check our our notes we may have made a mo I have to get the details we may have made a motion to say let's just get community input on this because we're doing it at this time but if approved it would just come out of Reserve funds rather than raising and appropriating so the warrant language if and I just again have to double check my notes and I don't want to speak improperly here the warrant language rather than saying to raise an appropriate $2,500 for the durm Youth Baseball it would say to expend $2,500 for the durm Youth Baseball out of the recreation account and while we have the authority to expend out of recreation accounts without a townwide vote if there's the opportunity for the timing to just work out that we can get good public input we would rather do that and so that's I think what if you're joging

my memory of what our our motion was but again I could check our notes to make sure Jill so if my memory serves correctly during the town meeting the town residents can vote to increase or decrease a warrant article based on the wording oh yeah the wording that's chosen are are you asking me that question or I'm noticing some p on your board you guys write the warrant so I'm asking you guys that question I hav't answer Heather right you it can go down it can't go up and I believe not the

operational it it can be the operational budget because do you remember what happened with the $10,000 for the historical district commission and that got put into the planning board line because it needed to be an operational number right so it's two separate categories okay does that help yes I was

just going to say at the last meeting the moderator ruled that you could go down but not up the philosophy being that up was never vetted you know through the select board or through us okay it depends on how it's written if it's if it's to say to see what sum it could be whatever the sum is yeah so last year the if point of just if you don't mind last year the article was article 9 it just said deceive the town Vault to ra raise and appropriate 6,700 for community services and then it broke broke down General assistant Durham Youth Baseball durm snowmobile trail anet generator and Freeport scholarship fund this year we were saying we only received a couple requests and rather than raising an appropriate will just expend out of um The Reserve account and we went with the amount that was requested ahead of our budget planning cycle not the one that came in halfway through the budget planning cycle um

just that there wasn't that one didn't have a lot of details and was very quickly presented so that's why we just said rather than writing an article to raise an appropriate we'll just put out an article that says expand out of a reserve account this amount just point of clarification so um at town meeting did did we as towns people vote on what goes what's in the reserve account the the so we've already we've already allocated money in that Reserve account correct answer that so some Reserve accounts are have funds in there that have been there for before the town manager and before the select board was here and this this is what we're presenting is what we know is in there some Reserve accounts receive additional funds based off of the vote each year to say as part of our budgeting process we want to put x amount of dollars into this Reserve account x amount of dollars into this Reserve account and then

there's also the opportunity if we felt that there needed to be an additional Reserve account created so the money that's in the reserve Accounts at some point in time has been voted to be put in the reserve account for that reason okay J I was under the understanding that like snowmobile fees and

um I don't know what else like registration right those kind of fees go into that account to be used for recreation pieces I I didn't I was not part of the board when those Reserve accounts were created so I'm not sure if that was the intent or not um if I look at the balance I don't think any money went into that Reserve account doing revenues just get revenues

they don't they don't necessarily feed different accounts anymore you have revenue and you have expenditures and what's left did you raise and then we vote at the town meeting to populate Reserve accounts rather than say well we're only putting snowmobile registrations in that Recreation account or or only putting dog registrations into this account or just saying these are all of our funds and then at the town meeting this is what we're voting to put from all of our funding and from our budget into the reserve accounts all right so uh moving on to the next page then no one has anything else on community services so uh anything on page

17 just the recommendation I made earlier y for me yeah yes John um I think a key a key discussion next time has to be on and I don't have a crank look crank the numbers but the transfers out of reserves into the budget if we want to hold the tax increase at 3 and a half% I think we need to make sure we're recommending the right transfers out of

uh reserves general fund Whatever It Is Well 99 8500 is not the same line as additions to fund balance on page one right they're two different subjects no that's what's being used as capital expenditure numbers match no they don't they're really really close but they don't match they're off by $3,000 yeah okay this was the same situation last year it just it's very close to what we're funding our Capital Reserves at um just happens to be very close to what the proposed expenditure of uh of those uh fund balance funds

are and I guess my somewh is a discussion that I think this board should have is how do we want to you do we want to use um undesignated funds if that's what we're calling it this year to pay down uh the taxes F balance you want to use the fund balance to lower the mill rate or the tax yeah right okay I yes is that that's what we're call that's that's it appears that's what everyone's been doing is they've created the budget and then they determine how much fund balance to use to bring it down to 3.5% so or if you know Allan's point if we want to get down to 2.5 or whatever which correct okay thank you we just need need to have that discussion yeah I yes we definitely need to have that discussion because we've been bouncing we're not coming up with we're saying it's okay with what's been presented by the select board with certain numbers but we have not gotten to the B the bottom line and many

times tax payers look at okay what's the bottom line how is it going to affect me my tax is going to go up what for 100,000 or is it 2% or 3 and a half and I would certainly I would be supporting a 2 and a half% so that tells me that the budget that the select board would need to be adjusting things with their presentation now whether they want to take that out of fund balance that would be my recommendation because there are additional numbers that were provided to us tonight have not been voted on by the select board but that will increase the amount of funding in certain areas therefore they would need to adjust those numbers and also adjust the fund balance to bring that down to 2 and a

consensus of this goodness can we please have that rolling number or the rolling capitals before our next meeting so that we can make an educated decision on that yes so you have the you have the number of funds that we anticipate putting into Capital reserves in front of see that but I have no documentation to understand so what you want is to comment on the validity of the capital rolling 10 year so you don't want the number you want to comment on the validity of the items included in that Capital Improvement plan well I don't even know what the items are I just have a dollar amount here so right CU with the budget committee the expectation we had was to provide you with the dollar amount for what we're requesting and that's our budget and so if we're getting into a situation where it's we want we're not asking for you all to comment on the capital Improvement plan items that's the discussion that happens at the at

the town uh meeting that's more of a policy discussion and less of a dollar discussion but in order to make our recommendation here we need to know what what those items those rolling items are well so no you need to know what the 10-year Capital requirement dollar amount is which is that divided by 10 which is what we're providing here but how if if we want to make a change to that how can we do that in a a educated way versus picking a number out of the sky and and that's where that's a a policy discussion on what should and shouldn't be included in the capital Improvement plan that happens at the town meeting but it's it's on the website you can you can take a look at it too where my and I can provide this but where my concern is is if the scope of the conversation next week which inevitably would happen would be well do we really need a loader in 2031 why does Calvin have that listed here does that

matter and that's not really the scope of the the budget committee's recommendation it's more of a is this in a dollar amount that we are willing to fund in reflection to the tax amount and so you could say we just don't think we should do Capital planning and then we don't have to worry about funding these Reserve accounts I'm not saying you're saying that and we don't have to worry about funding these and we'll just raise an appropriate as we go but the the idea of like discussing line by line what's in the capital um Improvement plan it's just really detailed that the that the the board gets a presentation from the uh the department heads on that so it's not really the within the scope of the budget committee on that is that is that on the website like in the past meeting that I could it's on the website it's recorded as part of the last town meeting as well um it's recorded as part of the meeting where we discussed it and

then it's brought up anytime we've had any requests out of that over the last couple over the last year so there it's very much a public forward facing if you're watching every meeting yeah if you watch the meetings or you check the agenda where that request is coming in you can find it I was just say I think we're kind of Reinventing the wheel because it was we we Town agreed last year to use this steady state funding and the numbers that were thrown out are 180 and 205 for the various departments and that was a commitment the town made uh last year to kind of keep us you you know to build that Reserve so you know I guess we've been there done that I guess I just want to see documentation to back that up you take my word I watch the presentation Mr Tom gave it would have be unrealistic following year mean t night that we get issued new yeah our plan is to provide you everything our plan is to provide

you everything as we're as we go not to be confusing but just to be AR there yeah but now there's been so many changes that we've got a lot we're going to be doing on the 24 um so if we can startop with refresh sheets that are based on the numbers you vote on tomorrow that yeah absolutely and and our goal when we are doing the budget is to figure out what goods and services we think need to be provided and figure out the cost of them and then we look at the total impact on costs and then we say how much of this do we want to offset by fund balance how much do we want to offset by and appropriate so honestly that that fund balance number use that the recommendation was to use less of that that is what we think about after we figured out the services because we have an expectation provided to us from the community we want what we got last year okay what's that cost and in order to provide you that do we have to do

something new so like some of the discussion around like um General government of like well why isn't that just a 3.5% increase well in that line we have a website that we now have to pay for it Services have gone up more than 3.5% because of the need for uh security and those sorts of things so it's not just kind of an arbitrary number it's really line by line and then we decide how much are we comfortable spending that fund balance down on and so that's that's where we in the past have made those adjustments to kind of subsidize the use of tax of raising in appropriating so I just want to be clear on that sure a question that address but thank you point of information um I would also like for the select board to keep in in mind that yes CPI was

3.5% but even your minimum wage employees that work for you only got 2.5% yeah and a lot of our residents only got 2.5% and Mark said he recommends between three and five even saying three is a compromise between CPI and what your minimum wage employees are getting and what your seniors are getting so just point of clarification he recommends between three and five because we have an available fund balance just because seniors in minimum wage don't match the uh cost of living increase it doesn't mean we can change that away if we say exactly everything the same way but we only want to pay 2.2% for it because that's Social Security adjustment we can't change the prices of business understand that it's called compromise well in the we have the fund balance we're still meeting Mark's Target of 3 to 5% but we're also showing compassion to our minimum wage employees and our senior servi which which I I totally

understand you want to recognize Heather sure I I need this information to make educated informed votes for myself I want to make sure that I completely understand what you're saying right now you're saying you want to use the fund balance to make up the difference I'm saying I would like for the select board to really look at all the numbers and try and keep our tax rate at 3% so whether that's using fund balance whether that's saying maybe we don't do the tchg this year or the HR this year or the papa paloa this year what can we do

that we keep it at 3% so Heather one second please if that's your recommendation then that's what needs to come to us cuz what you're seeing in front of us is reflective of what you just asked us to do this is reflective of figuring out what it cost to do business and how much where we want to use of the fund balance to subsidize that expense we came to 3.5% what I'm hearing is that you don't want that number you want to see it different so the budget committee is more than welcome to make that recommendation that's correct Al so we're throwing I'm throwing around two and a half Jill's throwing around three we need to give some direction to the B of Select and we're not doing that we're sending compus we already have it here

doesn't have to be involved but it should be a consensus of the budget committee is what are we recommending to the select board so I just want to point a clarification you're recommending to the community because we might not change our budget at all so we have we're going to develop our budget and that's the budget that we're going to go with if your recommendation is something that we're not comfortable with it's a recommendation to the community they've heard us right that's next that's our next meeting is the recommendation to the community this meeting is our recommendations to you because the numbers are changing so much we can't make a final recommendation to the community right now one second y so the numbers that are changing are the revenues per your suggestion and so the costs don't aren't changing here with with with a couple of very minor things so everything you have in front of you for cost is is the cost

and it sounds like what I'm hearing this committee saying is Well I want you all to tell us what the new projected revenues are and then we'll figure out if we want to address costs regardless of revenues you can still talk about what you want cost to be at and so that's that's where I think that it's just important to make that recommendation and if you want to do that via look at the warrant language like it was last year those are those that was going to be Fram the same way if you want to say decrease this like you're going to have to do the math if you want to bring that down you're going to have to tell us where the community where they want it I've already given you cost decrease no I haven't been able to do the true calculations to get it down to a certain percentage because too many things are changing well none of the cost I'm giving you I gave you cost recommendation changes some maybe you didn't hear them

but I did give them some of them yeah and Mark is given Revenue changes but the board hasn't given us the cost recommendation changes it is it's unlikely that the select board's going to make changes to their operation costs

they made they made their changes to the the revenues they changed those numbers but as you just explained it's it's doubtful so we're going to make our it's going to be our recommendations that include those spending changes well and

that's that's how it's going to be and that's why there'll be two sets of numbers presented to the voters right that's what will end up being happening right which is not a bad thing so totally fine any further discussion um so we left off on

17 any final discussion on page taking any votes tonight apparently but one of the things I have to make sure I come back to is there is going to be an article that is going to request an amount of 50,000 plus to be moved from the telecommunication fund to the emergency fund and that is a that's a vote that this committee will have to take y okay yeah I mean you can make a recommendation on that warrant um we come back to that but that warrant will be on the the town um town meeting yeah so we're going to want to have a recommendation made on that yes I recommend that we decline it you want to make that vote right now I make that motion right now that we decline it is there a second I'm sorry what was the motion that we decline it decline what B decline the transfer of 50,000 well it wasn't even 50,000 it was a little more than was 50,000 it was 53,000 and change yeah uh 53047 transferring from

telecommunication to emergency okay is there a second I'll second why because as selectman um Josh stated we have a lot that of unknowns where are we going to have our final meeting places are we upgrading Eureka are we upgrading here and that's telecommunication funds that's that Reserve that can be used for that so I think until we have a plan for our it plan for this town there's no need to move

that money was is in there for telecommunication purposes the the town is at a crossroad um we need to we need a uh permanent meeting place um the ob one one of the obstacles in picking a location is the lack of uh telecommunication the lack of being able to uh broadcast live or or use the

internet um until we have we don't know what that's going to cost um so until we know and and that's a really that's a pressing need is finding a permanent uh place for these types of meetings to be held and so I do agree with Josh uh when when he spoke up at the select board meeting um whether that money is going to be spent at the Eureka whether the money is going to be spent at the school the school has has options um in the past what's held us back is because it didn't it didn't offer the need for uh certain telecommunication meets it couldn't do a live feed it couldn't I can't remember the the particulars but until we've explored the where where our our our

meeting our meeting room is going to be where is our meeting place going to be I say don't touch those monies because wherever that meeting room is going to be those monies are going to be needed to get that location up to speed um so I

I would I that I I am in favor of the motion of not of moving zero dollars out of the telecommunication fund yes so I have a question about the emergency fund there's $16,000 in there I think now is it 16 I guess my question is why um why

put money in the emergency fund when or what would we spend that what would determine what we would need to spend out of the emergency fund that couldn't be spent out of any of the other Reserve Reserve accounts that was my question is that a question for me no this is this is this is committee discussion sorry oh go ahead no I don't I I don't want to hear select board this is committee decision right know something to say well I guess who could answer that question I don't know I honestly believe that when we have these Reserve funds and it gives the flexibility of the select board to make that decision on when to disperse those B the information that they receive we don't we're not involved on their daytoday their twice a month meetings the details behind all of that and they I believe they should have that

flexibility but if we're if we're talking about where are we going to have a meeting and it's coming out of doesn't matter to me whether it's out of emergency fund or telecommunications no because they're going to have to use all the upgrad in

out one of those funds I have the confidence in the select board that they'll make that decision the proper decision so you're saying installation of internet at the Eureka Center is an emergency and therefore I thought about I thought about that for the last 12 months yes I mean that's my concern I don't consider that an emergency I do because right now this meeting should not be here yeah this is this is a critical Department to this town and I believe I'd have to I haven't had a chance to go back and find it but when the emergency Reserve was created the wording of it was such that the select board and the budget committee had to get together and vote I believe that I've read that online today I so I would think it would be more restrictive to send it to emergency reserve and they have authority to spend money from any of the capital or building Reserve funds now to do just what you want they don't need

emergency money to do that I think leaving it here we give more flexibility than putting an emergency depends on what your definition of emergency is I guess well and the answer your question Phil is I don't think there is much that they I mean I can't think of a real emergency that doesn't isn't covered by the capital and right and building reserves that's why ask any other discussion it's interesting I I listen to the SL board me I reviewed those a lot and they had an awful lot of discussion about all these Reserve counts whether they should something should be and there was no to my knowledge there was no final vote on that I believe that meeting adjourned and there was a lot of discussion without a final vote from on what on moving these money mount in reserve M specific they did take a vote on moving the $ 53,486

one I agree as that is true missed it any other discussion so the motion has been made to leave the uh Telecom telecommunications Reserve fund as is to transfer Zero from that Reserve fund to the emergency Reserve fund all those in favor of the motion please indicate one two three four and all opposed 7 to two it passes and since Alan said I had to explain why I agree with him I think you know the select board uh has thought through that and you know wherever it is there's money in Municipal funds and some other the solution to getting out of this place is a lot more than $50,000 and so you know or 73 or 83,000

but I but it is a solution we need to get to sooner rather than later and I'm talking about a new major rehaul or whatever but anyway to come before our board so um there's some at the last meeting to provide the budget committee with updated franchise fees Revenue yeah we don't have that yet okay um and the request is that following tomorrow night's s meeting that we start fresh with our any changes we just start give us a whole new report yeah we'll make our changes to our budget tomorrow we'll adopt those changes um sure there there I can tell

you they'll be I I don't see us moving much off of them um so but you'll have a clean you'll have a clean version after we finish it up without edits some sheets the same some you want to email do you want me to print off nine copies how do you want get iint I'm a printed person okay do both we can do both thank you I don't want you to L paper people you want indicate whether one I I ran the numbers on the budget we can take the 57 57 sheets of paper so that's what the papers for if you don't use it we start a little

at what point will the select board be able to provide uh article verage we're wrapping that up at our last meeting in February because it has to be to adjourn on time so our next meeting is scheduled for Monday February the 24th starting at 6:30 right here at the fire station and basically we're going to now um listen to and vote on motions to

um either accept the select board recommendations by a department or make changes so I'll be ready to hear be anxious to hear your motions and your um explanations and we should be able to as we its members for attending tonight thank you another meeting night I accept a motion to move to close second moved the second in favor that ends tonight's meeting thank you everybody Hey Jo what was your thinking on General government how you shut your shut your mic off and got make we off the air