TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ February 14, 2023

come on thank you all right I'll call this uh meeting of the Durham a board of selecting to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay all board members are presents

uh I have one Amendment to the agenda a suggestion of select them in Josh a good suggestion we're going to move the consideration of the consent agreement up uh to the next item because to consider so that if we vote to sign it um we can let our town clerk go home and she doesn't have to sit around and wait for us because she's she's the notary that has to witness the effect would you mind telling Jessica we're going to do this right now thank you um so that I have that on any other amendments to the agenda the movement oh thank God she said okay all right

five up to um after number two actually in between two and three okay so this is um remember we this is a continuation of the conversation we had a couple weeks ago now where we have a resident uh who's trying to sell their house and it was determined in the course of trying to prepare for the sale that that was discovered that the I believe is the front of the house is three is violates the setback by three feet is that right that's a little bit more than that okay it's it's party it's so easy for the porch I thought right three feet for the the house it's approximately eight feet so it's 42 feet from the road instead of 50 feet from the road so not property not from a neighbor right and they're trying basically they're looking for this cons no action consent agreement that you know that if if down the road they have a the new owners have have a neighbor that maybe they're not getting along and they

realize that they're violating the setback they can't go and make a big deal of it and get any sort of judgment from the board of appeals because we will assign this um no action agreement sounds pretty straightforward yep um does anybody have any uh questions about this I don't have any questions but I I would like you know moving forward in the future though is somewhat figure out exactly what the proper Channel because there are there have been other people in this town that have had these issues come up and they've had to go through a lot more than just getting that acceptance rate yeah yeah I don't know what that yeah I mean that's a good point um I think it depends on if

a subdivision that was you know in in a in a in an area a house was built in an area that was kind of like this it was an asset period had to go back to planning board they had to redo maps that it was a pretty big expense where this were just kind of waving the magic wand which I'm fine with I'm not trying to yeah but there should be some type of outline of how we proceed yes and that that's a good point so you know it's maybe something that you know you can work with George and and Al-Anon like you know when we run into a situation like this where we have a a setback issue you know what is the proper process for reviewing that like should it go to the board of appeals always or only in certain situations and what are those situations almost like you know a little process flow on what how that should happen just so we make sure to Rich's point that everybody's getting the same treatment right right if you notice in the attack

the cold enforcement wrote a letter of no action yeah I understand that but that's not really an appropriate thing to do right it's not that's above his authority right right he can write a letter about it what is the concerned right you shouldn't be given a free pass even to anybody it should there should be most towns have a proper channel that you have to go through whether it's a residential a commercial property or whatever that you have to meet certain criteria and maybe the burden is too big to make a correction and that's usually what's found and therefore it would go before select the one and so forth and they would say okay because the burden is so big we're not going to enforce this but it shouldn't be just a wave of a magic wand like I said some people have had to go through planning boards they've had to hire attorneys they've had to get Engineers um I've seen it just from a developer

standpoint I've seen it in this town for a residence that was right up the road from my house and I've seen other times where it's just sign a piece of paper there should be something set forth that's this is the proper procedures going from here on out I I had to once it was three years ago and move low line uh a roadside line go to the planning

board have it all resurveyed for 16 inches 16 inches so what what actually happened here again so I missed the beginning part of the story on why why did this this is a brand new house that just went in in that neighborhood it was but it was purchased by um some folks and now they're selling it yeah so it's the same setback but that was so when the neighborhood went in how is it that it it got located in the wrong spot that's a good question the mortgage inspection I guess my guess my guess is they maybe they paid for cash for the house a code enforcement typically does unless it's so blatantly like whoa that looks really wrong it doesn't go out there and pull measurements and all that stuff that's not atypical so when you go to resell that house the person that's taking a mortgage the bank will come in and say hey such and such a mortgage survey company will go out there and say hey you're in the setbacks by

two three feet and you don't meet the towel do I get that but that was that was a that was a planned neighborhood correct yeah but you know it's kind of a moot point at this point right yeah just worth fact finding like kind of offline yeah but again but and so it's going to happen it's the point I'm trying to make these things happen it's it's a it's irrelevant how it happens it's just what's the proper channel to take when it happens this is all minority this is not even an argument it's just we should really have something for them yep I was going to make a similar suggestion and my question also had to do with the 200 did that cover the cost of the lawyer all the other I mean and and to me um you know you know money for this situation I'm pretty sure it didn't even cover the town's costs no printing with the lawyer with other stuff and so that's something I think that needs to be taken into

consideration but that's again this has been presented in and so I'm not going to throw a fit for this one but if it's something that continues to happen well that's what would it be appropriate I mean to to get a hold of the uh selling party and or someone and say our Lord I looked at this we'd like to be reimbursed for our services uh then then we need an amended agreement and it's two more weeks and you know they're holding up the sound the house really for you know I think it's there's a couple of things here that I think our Point our learnings for the future but don't necessarily need to stop this yeah I'm not in favor of stopping right that's what happens I think they waited long enough it just we just need to define a criteria moving forward what this board feels comfortable doing when these situations arise follow the one that's in place we're following what's we should we should have

a policy yeah right yeah and then you know and then when you know maybe it's a fee that's not uh that should be on Alan's radar or whoever's you know working on the fee schedule should be that like any document furnished by us that needs review by council is time in the federal time a thousand bucks minimum whatever it is you know I'm sure Jack charges a lot but it puts on a thousand I don't know you know just making up a number and my point is the planning board has has I believe um you know regulations to go and prevent this from happening I guess that's kind of why I was like how did we get our situation begin with just curious I don't think the planning board does much once what's the Vellum sign it's kind of out of the plane yeah I get it but yeah you're just thinking back to when we were on the board close envelope yeah it should have been there clear as a whistle but Jessica all right so does

anybody want to make a motion here I'd move that uh that we signed the consent agreement let's open it motion is to sign the consent agreement uh regarding the uh setback for the property located at 10 week Wingate Farm Road um book 11170 page 18 on the Androscoggin County registry of deeds AKA The Better Property all in favor okay let's we all have to sign this while our town clerk is here and then just one coffee right

agenda will be public comment if anybody here to make public comment [Music] I'm seeing none signing this we don't step on Mr Roy as he wants to talk thank you agenda it's been a long day um is uh Mark Royce here from Barry Talbot Royer please come on up have a seat at the table um Mr Roy is going to speak with us um he Jerry reached out to him about you know about the concept of uh perhaps Contracting out um some of the uh duties that have typically been associated with the deputy treasurer's position and so he's here to tell us a little bit about the service and we have an opportunity to ask questions and just to have a conversation about it so yeah please uh yeah so uh as you said Jared asked uh for me to put together a proposal this is a service that we started providing to schools and towns around the state about six years ago um and currently we're still the only CPA from the state that does it

um it's basically there's two core process two core services that we provide there's the AP processing and the payroll processing um but then on top of that there's higher level services like helping the town with budgeting helping the town manager put together a CIP budget you know answering questions about you know financing as far as like if you want take out a loan if it makes sense to take out a loan does it make sense to to at least does it make sense to just buy it outright Etc um so we leverage pretty much all of our financial management expertise I have a degree in master degree in financial management and then as well as our expertise with our other clients right our experience that we we get through our other clients our other governmental clients and then our general governmental accounting experience to help make sure that the town is uh is meeting its its requirements for accounting for the funds the public

funds in a responsible manner so I mean that's that's the you know high level service we provided on a fixed fee basis so every year it's just one set fee regardless of how much uh you use right so the way I generally have been

um gauging these is I take a look meaning to provide a proposal as I take a look at at the town's activity level of activity like how many how much are you processing for AP how many payrolls are you doing are you doing it weekly bi-weekly how many employees do you have you know fire department employees which usually is you know odd right sometimes you sometimes do it quarterly sometimes do it set me annually sometimes towns do it after so many calls Etc so

um all of that factors into my cost which is pretty much labor costs right me and my staff uh and then I I come up with a you know a proposal for a fixed fee and if I get it right and that's good if I get it wrong uh usually there has been there have been times especially early on when we first started it um and I didn't really have an understanding of okay well how much work goes into this where I significantly under bid it um but lately I haven't had any issues where I bid something and then the next year I got to go geez I really gotta up the fee that hasn't happened um so in general uh the fees just kind of go up three percent just so I can keep Pace with labor costs um and then yeah and then that's the kind of the general idea of the services and I could probably answer anything that really you guys have questions about specifically that you know you might have yeah

what's the name of your firm uh Barry Talbot Royer so we're down in uh Falmouth uh Barry tumble Roy has been in Falmouth for the last I don't know actually I think it's been in some form since early 1900s um we started this business so we do we're a full server CPA firm right my partner I are CPAs we have eight to ten CPAs on staff something like that for this service there's three CPAs and then there's three staff so there's some six staff that manage these accounts um and we we're a full service firm so we do you know tax prep and you know uh you know Outsource CFO services for you know uh non-profits and for for-profit businesses and then we also do Audits and reviews and we have been doing governmental audits for decades right and so that's kind of the traditional model for CPA firms is that's kind of what you do right and uh audits Municipal audits well not all CPA firms do that because you have to have kind of

a subset of knowledge you have to have not only fasbi knowledge which is the financial accounting standards boards um uh standards that you wanted to get you also have to know Gatsby's standards which are governmental kind of stands towards standards and so uh of all the CPA firms is really only kind of a handful that do gasby audits governmental audits in uh you know from a business perspective they're they're pretty pretty nice to have because they're perennial income that you can pretty much count on because schools and towns are required to have it audit whereas you know if you do a odd for a non-profit and sometimes they need an audit sometimes they don't you know depending on it and then businesses that haven't really needed audits unless they're real unless they're creditors require it so um so the governmental audit is a is a nice you know business to have um but what we had found is or what I

had found actually and I'm sure others do too but what irritated me about audits for governments especially small and and medium-sized governments is you would go in one year audit propose all these adjustments right and when you propose adjustments that's basically saying your books are out of order right you're not you're not keeping track of what you're supposed to be keeping track of right uh suppose all these adjustments clean up the books and then the next year come back and it's it's the same adjustments over and over and over again right um and it's because small and medium-sized towns uh and even some large towns generally just don't have the resources to hire professionals and

also they don't well you know they don't want to raise taxes for it so what they ultimately end up doing is they just say okay well we'll hire whoever wants to apply and yeah we can't really find anybody who's uh qualified given what pay range we want to get what we want to pay and so now we're just hiring anybody who you know just kind of raises their hand and so often you get people who are not qualified at all to manage um manage the books of government I mean if you think about it I don't know how much you guys raised in taxes each year I mean what is it 5 million six million dollars a year right um eight million dollars a year and yeah when you hire you hire a CFO essentially who has no experience to manage an eight million dollar and I don't know any private entities that would hire you know somebody with no accounting experience no specific accounting experience in that industry uh to manage

those books and yet here you are with public funds eight million bucks okay anybody want to take this job and then every year waiting for an auditor to come in take a look at the books propose dozens of adjustments and then go okay well I guess we're good to go until next year and not really have any any idea so that irritated me about doing uh the audits the other thing that irritated me about it is when you propose so too many adjustments at that at some point you're essentially auditing your own work I'm no longer independent because I'm doing all the work for closing the books and cleaning them up and so I didn't like that aspect of it either because audits you're supposed to be independent an audit should be the finance director says here's my financial statements and my job as an auditor is to say okay let me see some evidence and I will render an opinion on whether or not those financial

statements are fairly stated not here's some unadjusted you know you know an unadjusted trial balance I haven't gone through any of the accounts I haven't you know made sure that they're all right why don't you as the auditor go ahead and clean it all up that's not what a sound monitor's job it's not supposed to be but at that for this for this industry that's what in

the accounting firms have gotten into the habit of doing because they're like well you know I'd like to have the annual income and so we'll just help out our clients as much as possible and we're constantly brushing up against that Independence line where we're like you know I'm not supposed to be doing all this work can you give a sense of um like for the accounts payable yeah operation like what what is a typical I don't know if the time frame is a week or a month or whatever what is the typical workflow look like like what's the what's the town sending you what are you sending to town like what is what does that look like right so the typical workflow for AP is the town uh collects

all their invoices if they have department heads then they their department heads go ahead and sign off or review the invoice to be paid right make sure that do we have to assign where it would be posted at that point like which account okay yeah okay I mean unless it's obvious I mean you don't need to write down the account code for electricity if it's a secret sure yeah yeah yeah no that's what right okay um but you know some things like hey I wanted to go to this account um and then usually especially with with recurring bills which it's not anything that we need to know about it uh or we need to verify but yes in general they'll initial it they'll code it and then uh on an AP week uh the town will scan them upload them to our servers right use SharePoint um then my staff download them we code them we prepare the AP warrant we send out the AP warrant via DocuSign for you guys to review uh then you can review it at

uh the you know you can review it individually sign off on it individually and then if you wanted to bring it at a select board meeting to actually have it part of your public vote you can do that but once we get the majority of signatures then you can go then we go ahead and we cut the checks and we send them out and then we yeah keep everything on file so in case you ever ever need to look at it so for example we have towns where we've done them for the last four or five years and so we have all of those invoices the last four or five years on file that we can pull up at any point in time and then um okay so and then payroll is um where's like the system we use now I'm sure is like Trio so is that is that still part of the picture if we were to go with you well yeah Trudeau is still part of the picture for the property tax module and the cash receiving module you know every day people come in paying

their taxes and all that stuff so uh the revenue side module is still Trio you can still use Trio uh for uh the payroll module and the uh what they call the budgetary module you wouldn't need that anymore so you pay those separately anyway I think the budgetary module is like a thousand bucks 1200 bucks a year and then the payroll module I'm not really sure but I think it's another thousand bucks somewhere in there yeah so big the big price tag for trio is really the property tax module okay yeah so after a while you can go shut those off you don't need them I mean you would you pay for them for a year anyway so whenever your subscription renews you can always just say oh we don't need that anymore so you just mentioned SharePoint you guys use SharePoint so yeah this office would be logging into that would they need SharePoint licenses no no no it's just a it's just a drag and drop it's just a dragon I send you a

I send you a link it verifies who you are and then you can drag and drop the files what kind of I.T security back you have on our end well we have two servers that are remotely located right so one's in Boston one's in Dallas wherever uh we have normal security encryption um as far as like making sure that all of our files are encrypted backed up we have a data recovery center in case anything you know some sort of um you know disaster happens like one fire goes down we might be out for you know an hour or so and then we're back up live with backup data and everything is basically mimicked um for security it's really just your standard encryptions that you're going to find on Microsoft 365 which is the primary software that we use so Outlook or SharePoint or anything like that so Poland from Trio that's done so uh we

also use we also use Splashtop which is just a commercial off the shelf software to remote into uh the town we send it send a link to whichever um uh computer that the trio is on and then we remote in and we can we establish a login for trio we pull whatever reports we need which is really just the revenue reports and the and the property tax balance reports because we reconcile the property tax balances every month uh and then we just um we just bring those over onto our server so after this goes on for say like four or five years how portable is the data it's like the data is owned by the town how is it how does that get transmitted back a little kind of file structure you can literally put it on a thumb drive because so the file structures uh done by uh fiscal year so on our file structure we have uh

you know FY 23 right and then we're going to have Revenue subfolders with different types of Revenue documents in there we'll have expenditure subfolders with different types of documents in there any sort of contract so you guys enter to we usually get a copy of those just so we have those on file because uh the other benefit of this is when it comes time for an audit really the auditor is just you know working with us and we are just sending stuff remote as opposed to you know having them come in have to scan stuff we've already it's already all been scanned so what happens with the Auditors is usually they send us a link right like I don't know who uh you use RKO right so RKO they they will just ask for stuff for you guys to send it you know online and it's really literally just a very quick turnaround time for me to grab whatever they need and send it up usually what I do when I prepare the prepare for the

audit because I'm already closing the books and making sure everything's adjusted so that by the time I'm finishing preparing the financial statements as opposed to waiting for the auditor to prepare the financial statements which is what you do right now um so I prepare the financial statements then once I'm done I send the financial statements along with pretty much 90 of what the the auditor is going to request anyway because to these small towns it's pretty much all the same stuff you need bank statements Bank reconciliations you need reconciliations of your of your tax receivables you need AP items you need you know supporting documentation or schedules for any reserves and activities from your reserves and so I'll send 90 right off the bat and then when they start actually doing the audit then they're really just doing kind of random selections of expenses and revenues that they want to see support

for which I won't know until they ask they'll send me a list hey can you send us a list of all these things um grab them to turn around and send it off to them so for most of our clients actually yeah for most of our clients um they don't even really have to do anything on site right they don't actually go out to our clients there are some Auditors who specifically like to go out on site like I have some Auditors some of my audit staff the older staff that prefer to be on site just because that's how she's been doing it for she's been doing it for like that for 25 years so she wants to keep on doing that and I'm like all right whatever I don't care but for most of most Auditors that we work with they don't really need anything other than the the electronic format and the benefit to the town and to the schools are that well you're no longer waiting for an auditor to clean up the books to know what you're what

you're finding fund balances what your financial statements look at like you already know what they look like because I've already cleaned them up and now at that point the only benefit of the audit is a second independent party has looked at what I've done yeah and says yeah it's pretty good which is exactly what an auditor should be it shouldn't be an auditor coming in Fusion SharePoint is the back end as well or just no that's right now the back end is our own the SharePoint is really just the medium to transfer the files so our whole access what are you guys use it I'm sorry what are you guys using for a back-end Oracle Oh you mean for the accounting software we use QuickBooks right now so QuickBooks is that what you meant right accounting software

going to be pulling reports out of you I mean you can pull them out of QuickBooks yeah I mean it's just a local server you know and I don't know Explorer I guess is right whatever Microsoft's yeah I don't think it's a scale of like an sap kind of yeah well that's what you're asking you're trying to figure out now you know when when you get the day there it's like how are you gonna get it right if you're gonna make it Audible for something else just right so I mean the file format is a come in so I'm going to be I'm gonna be doing this entire process right now with one of my existing clients we're going to be terminating the services which is fine right uh and then right

now I'm gonna be like tomorrow I have to meet with their uh newly hired Treasurer to to meet with her and say okay well this is this is what we've been doing here's the here's the QuickBooks software if you want to use your own software that's on you but here's the QuickBooks file which has all of the accumulated data and then all of the invoices all the historical data is pretty much PDF Excel that's pretty much it that's fine there's nothing there's no specialized documentation or a specialized software that we're using it's all pretty much business standard so for for clients that have that are um that are using you for accounts payable and payroll what if any um Financial Treasurer whatever expertise is like left behind in the town office that you need somebody able to do yeah anything as far as expertise well I mean or tasks like what what well what's happening you always need the statutory treasure so right right this

job is not for me to be the treasurer yes right that's a state requirement so I'm not authorizing any payments I'm not you know doing I have no authority to make those types of management decisions right the treasure is making the decision to select more is making the decision all I'm doing is facilitating yeah actually getting the process done right uh as far as expertise at the Town well that's the entire point the entire point is you guys really don't have the expertise and we're helping you just like you don't have legal expertise and you hire a lawyer right right uh for activity what you need to do we need at least somebody here one person here to collect the time cards because the time kind the the payroll process is essentially the same thing collect the time cards any sort of updates High nines w-4s anything like that scan them up into SharePoint we download

them we process the payroll send the payroll and all that yeah so it's essentially the same process okay but we need somebody here at the town to be able to do that yeah so there's always at least a part-time person right uh or

some assistant like yeah Greenville it's you know the town manager is also the town Treasurer he has an assistant who essentially scans everything sends it up uh every every payroll and every um AP yeah and every every town and every school has that they have either some assistant or some part-time person or whatever yeah from um when you enter into a contract with a new client uh what is the ramp up period look like to to get you get to the point where you're you're doing it we're sending you everything and you're doing it how it depends on the town or the school it depends on the client uh how complicated their system is so your system is not particularly complicated meaning complex there are a lot of people that would beg to differ but I mean complex like there's not a lot of complex accounting yeah right right but yeah the the ramp up period so when we have a start date

um you know for the engagement that's when we start to actually okay well we need to come to the town we need to gather a whole bunch of historical data just because I like to have that on file because that's going to help inform me on how to set up your um the accounting charts of accounts in the software on my end uh and then we set up the you know we spend time setting up the chart of accounts getting to understand the the um reserves anything anything special basically yeah yep uh and it can take I tell clients it takes anywhere from two to three months depending on your complexity and also

kind of your willingness of the staff because I have run into with a couple clients where they were not willing and it basically just delayed the process right because they were just not on board with it so I I've now learned my lesson I avoid that I only want clients where yeah no everybody's pretty much on board I don't want clients wear oh yeah everybody's on board except you know of the you know the administrative assistant who's been there for 20 years they're never going to fire him and and he just doesn't want to doesn't want to participate yeah so like for example right now I just uh we just had um a client where we on ordered them we started the contract January one and we're going live with their AP they're just doing AP they're not doing payroll um we're going live with them on next Tuesday is there is there County Commissioners meeting and until that point they still had to like pay their

bills you did yeah yeah right I mean basically whatever they had going on before we showed up they continued doing that and then once once we go live then they don't then there they really don't have to do anything usually what we find is for the existing staff they're kind of repurposed right okay well you're now freed up from having to do what you were doing and now you can do this in situations uh where really we're being asked to come in because somebody retired somebody quit somebody was fired and they just can't find anybody which is the majority of the time yeah uh they kind of limp along until we can get going what kind of checks and balances like when you first start up and kick it off there's got to be some checking back and forth to make sure everything I'll say is accurate between your team and the office yeah so for uh well like Well normally what I do is I just take whatever you have in Trio up until that

point uh and I just incorporate it into QuickBooks so now I essentially have the similar um you know the exact same data I really literally just reformat import it uh and then at that point you know after after we start going live then my my next kind of you know phase is to clean up anything that's that I need to clean up so that you guys can like things got paid during that week yeah right and stuff like that and then in general I mean we have general you know checks and balances where with the AP I really just have uh the clients fill in a quick list I give them an Excel template that says okay in addition to scanning up all the invoices I want you to just type out you know the vendor name the amount and the expense code on this Excel list because uh what we do is I want to make sure that everything that you think you've scanned and sent to me is I've received so in addition to scanning and scanning all these invoices

I have this additional list and I can compare it right and say Hey you have on this list that we were supposed to pay you know Almighty waste I don't see An Almighty waste invoice at that point we ask you for invoices we say hey did you need it all my ways or it's oh yeah well I I we didn't I did that by accident we were going to pay it but we're not paying it and that's part of the standard process not just the ramp up or is that no that's part of the Standard Process once we get on the checks and balances really for whether or not we're where we've gotten all the data right it's really just me grabbing the trio data year to date you know up until that point and incorporating it and then I just it's really just on me to kind of compare okay well if I pull a report in Trio as of the last date that you guys started doing it and look at and look at it in QuickBooks I really just do that kind of comparison

um and the other sorry yeah no that's any other questions on uh payroll or AP because there's a couple other subjects I want to ask about what I want to clean yeah I just had a question on they this is exactly what comes to Navy and the payroll in regards to the liability end of it one particularly the payroll and payroll taxes yeah um how do we work that out so example you're paying you're you're writing the checks or you're doing the electronic deposits or are we doing that no where so we use again we're still using QuickBooks so QuickBooks has a payroll module okay uh and it's all uh direct deposit unless you guys have some employees that want sure but whatever but then uh into it Intuit is the one that is pulling the the net payroll out of uh the bank account and is doing the direct deposit so they're actually doing all of that um and direct deposit stuff then we go uh online to the federal website and

Maine's website to uh remit the um the federal and state taxes and then if there's any payroll liabilities like to main Municipal Employees Health Trust main purse to unions whatever your company would be the one that's right the federal filings and so forth yeah yeah yeah yeah so we take care of all the payroll and that's awesome that's fantastic so in regards to the AP and it's exactly with that are they your checks that you get an account no they're yours they're RTS and you would be a signature or no you guys are a signature we do use an Electronics ignition basically whoever is the signer on the account we scan their image of their of their um signature so they don't get the hard checks for us to sign and then no you wouldn't give us I mean we can do it whatever way you want the the way we're doing it now is is designed to be as efficient as possible so I do have like that this new client that I just onboarded uh the

County Administrator is like well I don't know if the Commissioners are going to want to do a DocuSign okay if you don't want to do DocuSign that's fine I'll I'm going to do the exact same process I'm going to scan everything to you sure you just have to print off the warrant have them sign it scan the signed warrant back to me and then I'll cut the checks or you can just do a little DocuSign and I'll get a notification automatically I don't care either way it's really how you guys want to do it it's the same could happen with the checks too if you wanted to physically sign up for uh I'm uh unless we pass a specific ordinance um we we have to sign the warrant in in any public meeting all of us here we can't sign them individually unless we there are ways there are things we could do to enable us to do the future board to do that um but we don't have that right now I would please right so other towns right

you're exactly right I mean you basically have to say Okay well how are we going to meet the public meeting standard right and so some of our towns they just they enact an ordinance or policy I don't know I let them deal with that how simple to me is you sending us the warrant printing it off us signing it and then tomorrow morning someone's sending it to you yep

simply do payroll taxes and things like that because simply do a an announcement at the uh at the select boards meeting so the policy is okay whenever they do um an AP warrant the town manager will read at the public meeting how much it is and whether and either they do a vote or whatever to approve it yeah but it's basically they need they come up with some way to meet their their requirement to to meet the public State all right so um thank you so did you have something Josh uh no I mean the only thing that I noticed was going we currently do weekly payroll and this would go to fruit to bi-weekly if you want I mean we can do weekly it's just that just drives up the cost I don't do everything twice as much right yes payroll is pretty much take the data from the time cards enter it into the system make sure everything processes well if it's you know two weeks worth of payroll I only have to do

that half the time right so it takes me half the time so there's a reduction in fee if you want to do bi-weekly if you do single or every week I we can do it okay um I wanted to step outside the AP payroll for a minute because you said some things your introduction that definitely piqued my interest you know one of the things that we're wrestling with as a town as part of our Capital improvement process is you know we're we've got actually we've got a pretty good schedule like we kind of know what we um will need to do over the next several years or at least what department heads are saying we need to do um where we what we don't have is the financing plan for that like for instance you know uh what should we be setting aside for reserves versus planning to raise in taxes versus leasing versus uh financing

you know is that the type of thing that somebody from your team could help us figure out um I'm assuming it is but yeah have you helped pounds with that type of thing before oh yeah I mean so it depends first on what the town's preferences because different towns are different obviously sure yeah so some towns like to we'll just borrow everything and we don't really have reserves and then there's other towns and me personally my personal you know preferences well just raise it and save it and set it aside when you need to buy it um so uh right now the towns um the capital Improvement plans that I help with towns to say okay well get your department heads together have them think really you know like as far out in advance as possible and then we put it into a basically an Excel tool that you know it shows the cash flows in and out each year right and then the idea is to the idea is to raise as level

an amount each year to either pay for you know to both pay for whatever cash flow is coming out that that year plus also setting aside so that it your Reserve balance is always sufficient to maintain that kind of Even Flow so you don't have these spikes and dips but again that's only as good as how well how well thought out your plans are so if you already have that in place then it's pretty easy to figure out okay well you just need this right um but it gets updated too right so for example uh town of Greenville which we had put together this CIP plan and so they were raising you know I think it was like 400 000 a year 500 000 you're pretty pretty steadily right yeah and then they're like well we need a new public safety building which we're going to borrow from the main Municipal Bond Bank for that which then I go okay well if you're gonna do a 15-year level payment or 20-year level I mean level principle

here's what that would look like put it into the put it into the spreadsheet say Okay now what's the new level that you have to kind of raise for every year even before you get the main even before you get the bond because they even haven't gotten the bond yet right right uh or issued the bond so last year last year's budget included that but it did mean that there was a spike from the prior year but then after that try to keep it as level as possible so it depends on how far out in advance you can plan okay great we help with all of that awesome and then it's really kind of showing you your options and then yep and then with the written policies you'll go through the written policies and procedures and yeah yeah so right and that's as robust as you want it or not right I mean a lot of times people go overboard and it's like well you're putting in a lot of work for something that doesn't have a lot of

risk right so I I do kind of talk with the town managers and the select boards like when you're figuring out what your policies and procedures should be and those related controls you really should be thinking about well what's the likelihood of something happening and if it happens what's the likely impact of it happening because that's going to kind of dictate how much effort and cost you want to put towards controlling for it because you can't control for everything and not everything is worth um putting you know all of your all of your you know resources towards it so you want it and you don't have you have you don't have unlimited resources anyway so you want to kind of manage those resources to attack the highest risks first um the biggest risk that I see for most clients is Cash handling obviously and most clients don't have positive pay or most town and schools don't have positive pace so that's one of the first

things I kind of tell my clients we definitely want that was a positive pay so positive pay is where you're basically sending the bank a list of all of your checks and the amounts and the vendors so that they have a list before the checks come in that they compare it to and if it doesn't match they don't they don't clear the checks and that's a huge that's a huge thing because uh this client there's you know it's easy enough if you know if you've ever gotten a check from uh you know anybody you know what their Bank routing number is you know what their account number is you know what their signature looks like to create a fake check is not particularly difficult right um and so presenting it at a bank some Bank uh you know it's pretty easy if they don't know who you are and they that you don't have positive pay all of a sudden that clears now banks in the past have been saying well we'll cover that for you but now

the now banks are like we'll cover that for you once yeah right if you don't get positive pay off this we're not covering for you the next time it happens okay but you said you already have it so that's great so that's one big control I see and then other other because there's not much you know in terms of theft when you're thinking really about theft other than you know physical assets like trucks and stuff which that's not anything I'm going to help you with but uh when it comes to financial assets tenants don't really have anything other than cash right right cash maybe some CDs and stuff and basically we're going to focus on the controls for that and with Greenville didn't they start out with a negative on designated yeah unbalanced well that's what so that's the other thing we help you out with I mean we help you out with making sure that you have a first so you have a good fun balance uh and that you guys know what

your fund balance is because um you know often you don't know what your fund balance is because you're waiting and waiting and waiting until some audit is done right right before you even know how you did you know at the end of last fiscal year so it's six months down the road eight months down the road you're already through budget season so for Greenville yeah I mean the first year that they hired us it was me and the town manager actually got hired at the same time right they hired a new town manager they didn't have a Treasurer so they said well you're going to be the treasurer but we'll hire this firm as well and when I started doing it it was like this was after they had already done their their new fiscal year budget because we started at the beginning of the fiscal year it was like this is a couple months into the fiscal year I'm like uh you know you guys budgeted to use 150 000 of your fund balance but

going into the fiscal year you already had a negative fund balance why I didn't know is because they didn't have good accounts right they didn't have anybody who's managing it so uh with you know good management from the town manager where he's like I'm not going to spend as much as they approved to spend that budget uh over the last couple years it's now it's now healthy from us yeah 1.4 million or something like that um one of the things that town is is starting to think seriously about is is transitioning from our current calendar fiscal year to uh uh July to June fiscal

year um and one of the one of the things that's been called out about you know switch like that is that when we actually are reviewing the budget you know that we wouldn't necessarily be reviewing the budget after the previous year is complete so we wouldn't have actual right because that would be that's typically how it is you don't have full l y actuals so when you're do you

do you help provide like projected end of year like you know based upon you know whatever this is what it's looking like and this is what you would use as you're projected exactly so and actually it was funny so I'm from Lewiston and Bill Webster was the um was the superintendent school yes and then he happened to be a Treasurer at one of the School departments the Town School Department's Small Town School departments that and so he'd been doing this and he was he's a finance guy he knows everything he's like why the heck are you doing these projections unlike bill it's because he's like we never did these projections for Lewis and I'm like yeah Bill these this town doesn't have the resources to just say well whatever we had for a fund balance last year is good enough for us to help design what our budget is going to be this coming fiscal year right so uh what I do for the schools primarily

and then even the towns um is we just say look your fund balance at the end of last fiscal year June 30th of last year was X we know what your revenue is so far let's do a projected annualization right we're halfway through the year just double it yeah we'll get a kind of a good idea and then as the budget season goes on I we usually update that number as we get closer and closer so at least we can say look as if you especially if you have a very tight fund balance which schools do because they're limited by State Statute to have a really like you can't have now it's nine percent uh but it used to be you can't have more than three percent it's like holy criminal three percent of your your prior your expenditure which is really tight yeah yeah um so I was dealing with you know a school department that had a hundred thousand dollars of of unassigned fund balance but you know two two million

dollar budget or a one million dollar budget I'm like this is really tight so um having that projection of well where are we going to be at the end of this fiscal year so that we can make a good decision on how much do we want to budget to use of the of what will be the existing fund balance of any fiscal year without that projection yeah you're pretty much just going I don't know I guess we're good

well you've got such a you've got such a big fun balance Todd you can do that right all right um any other uh questions thank you this has been very very informative and yeah no I mean like a job interview you have any questions no I've talked with Jerry um you know basically uh he said that you know whenever we could if you guys approved it basically whenever we could start up we go ahead and I told them I probably wouldn't be able to start until May 1 meaning that starting process which means we probably wouldn't go live for a couple months after that and does that does that mean like if we if you know within the next few weeks you can start May one or what if what if yeah so what if it's a month or two from now so right so this is the thing so I have uh right now I have three different towns that are asking me for these to kind of all start right away yeah and because it's kind of a haul and I have

six staff right it is a hall a lot of work on the front end to onboard them yeah I'm trying to stagger them so that I can reasonably attack each one yeah so uh basically I tell each client look whoever kind of says yay first that's the one I'm gonna go with first and then got it probably two months after that three months after that I'll be able to onboard another one another two months three months so okay um yeah so it's really up to you guys um and then I'll try to get it done as you know onboard you as quick as possible right I mean just because I say two months it doesn't necessarily mean it'll take two months sure sure um I try to onboard you as soon as possible but slotting you in is really just how what clients do I have coming on board because I've gotten a lot of a lot of interest in this just new line business and I'm actually surprised that uh there's one other CPA firm that I think has the the

competence and probably the ability to to come in into the market which he hasn't done it yet but I don't I wouldn't you know be surprised if all of a sudden he starts getting on these types of services um but yeah I've gotten a lot of interest because partially because of the labor market is what it is you can't find anybody anybody even if even qualified people and then on top of that people are just yeah how's your retention Ben our retention has been actually pretty good um my my partner was just out of a conference in in Las Vegas with a whole bunch of different accounting firms and he we're the only firm that that we were like well we've been able to hire and maintain we've actually just hired um a new member for my staff and I had the freedom to let one of the staff members go so I just hired somebody probably six months ago and he wasn't working out so I'm like look I can't I can't be

keeping somebody on board but normally you know when you can't find anybody else you kind of make do yeah well I haven't had to do that lately so so we our retention has been pretty good we do try to make an effort to uh make sure that the very top of warrior is a place where people want to work because we are a smaller firm and so uh the wages that we can pay are not comparable to what they can get at like Baker Newman noise or bear done or something like that so we have to make sure that the kind of the work is interesting and you know the work-life balance of all that stuff

appreciate you yeah thank you more sharing some time with us thank you um why don't we just you know digest that and then we can um put it on next week's agenda for further discussion sure sound that sounds all right to you guys yep [Music] all right so next on the agenda is the town manager's report okay well business as usual just a couple things uh maybe some of you know but over at the Eureka Center during that cold snap it's a pipes burst no not a whole lot of damage uh but it's all it's all repaired now so was that was it because the the heaters were not

on like or like why did why did they freeze the only thing on was the heat pumps and I don't think it was a that's all it's over there isn't it yes sometimes they were wrong 40 in there you might need to build a fire or something a trash can fire whatever you got to do this that is there that is their kind of but it does call out like are there are there certain like if if we know we're gonna get a cold snap like that are there precautions we should like should we be draining the pipes like you know when we know something like that it's coming you know maybe put some styrofoam around them whatever it is something mitigated somehow because I mean rich is right I mean those those systems are not built for 49 below zero we were lucky that it got caught when it was still frozen and didn't fall yeah because then water would have been going everywhere yeah I'm not sure I I think they fixed it because Calvin wouldn't

that says a lot more flexibility yeah I think that's what they fixed it with I mean some of some of those cold areas they usually are the same areas so you could you know a cheap place on sometimes you could incorporate some heat tape on those particular areas you could also just just offset some of the heat in there with a little space heater let me know what's going to dip into like the negative 20s or something of that nature yeah this is the first time yeah

well those old Empires the BTUs on those are not yeah okay yeah and then the only other things as he was we're going through the audit right now so uh uh it's pretty cool it's pretty busy uh the auditor was here last week she's coming back tomorrow and uh just like you said they just asked for random stuff and they want to produce it and some stuff they couldn't find but we have sense found it but it's a lot of it's a lot of work to to um satisfy the auditor on audio so it's been pretty pretty busy in here that's the type of thing where you know if we had that service then like that it becomes a lot easier in the future right yeah it's you know for me being new to it is it's unbelievable what they ask for you know like uh myself and Jessica and Cindy have to fill out a fraud report just all kinds of things that I wouldn't have imagined or because you know in this house that I worked before

the finance director took care of yeah right right it's it's I was surprised at all the it's like 27 different different items and pages and reports yeah it's quite a bit strings in the system with her so hopefully they'll she's coming back on Thursday hopefully that'll be it and hopefully within a month or so maybe we'll have a um a report but she is going to want to talk to one of you folks probably at standards every year she does that so do you see anything suspicious right exactly that sort of thing so yeah but other than that it's all systems go and things went pretty well actually right good so yep anybody have any questions for Jerry oh I yeah the you know Jessica's out next week and I know there was a note I think on the website about not doing the vital records right and I don't know if there's a another way to get that out to make sure people we put on news blast put it on our website you know she's

gone but if there's like a sign on on the front door or something because I I feel like next week's school vacation week there's going to be more parents home some of that stuff might be okay [Music] keep your powder dry on that shotgun wedding no trips to Vegas right yeah all right is that it Jerry yeah that's okay that's pretty much all I got all right so next on the agenda is our vote our formal vote on our recommendations for um the budget

and I'm gonna go through kind of where um there were differences um and then you know we have Rich uh Rich Neil and Milt here if we need to get clarification from the budget committee on anything you know what why they did what they did so and guys if I mistake something jump in if I get something wrong um so starting with Administration you know the original amount requested uh 55915 the budget communities recommendation reduces that by 15 000 for um they identified the contingency line is something they weren't interested in in funding and then they took half of the um the line that was in there for election payroll the reasoning being that well 22 is a big you know state election year and 23 is not big state or federal election year so um there would be uh less need for that

payroll um and then moving down there 9380 includes fifteen hundred dollars for a sign at um River Park Jerry had previously identified there's a River Park project fund that has money in it that potentially could be used to fund that but um you know it's kind of six and one half dozen the other you know funded out of recreation it's um uh is a possibility then Public Works uh

this was The Sixteen thousand dollars we were talking about at the beginning of the meeting our current number is one three two two nine twenty the budget committees is one three three eight nine twenty that's sixteen thousand dollars that's the Calvin's late amended request for um some additional money uh mainly because of gas expense I believe it was uh Solid Waste remember when we knew that our Solid Waste number was a little fuzzy when when we uh because we didn't have the final thing from Casella which we then got it and uh budget Community actually kudos to them good catch you know they figured that the budget figure here should really be six months at the 22 rate and six months at the 23 rate not a full year at the 23 rate so that basically is twenty thousand dollars higher than um than what ours was um and then on the capital expenditures they're recommending uh 50 000 in public works

reserves instead of a hundred thousand and then over on the tax impact side in terms of the amount of undesignated funds used I have 230 and there's our number but our number was actually 200 initially um that was before we knew about the 16 for the gas and the extra 20 for solid

waste um so going into the budget community meeting I told Jerry I said well my recommendation to the board would likely be to add that 36 000 to the undesignated fund appropriation and fund it that way so that's what he communicated to the budget committee they didn't want to be quite that aggressive um and so they they settled on a a 230

number or undesignated but other than that um those a handful of things I just went through um the budget our budgets are pretty much and you know the Public Works capital reserve yeah I mentioned that no did you yeah they're calling for 50 000 instead of a hundred yeah so um one of the things I wanted to bring up was you know and I don't know Jerry I don't know if you want to add anything to this but you know Jerry made the pitch early on in the budget process that you know it it'd be great if the uh so like Board of the budget committee went into town meeting like in alignment and like 100 alignment not just close and basically you know the theory being that you know the budget committee and the select board who are much closer to these numbers and the thought process behind them then you could ever really realistically cover a town meeting that

it that the interest of the Town might be better served if we if the people that are closest to it are kind of having that back and forth conversation and then we present a United recommendation to the town so um that's part of what we would discuss tonight um on whether we want to um simply match what the budget committee did in these areas or if we want to go to town floor with um

variances so I guess I would open that up for discussion everybody's got any comments there so I think my question would be the the sign that 1500 bucks is that something that you determined couldn't come out of that designated fund

took that out initially because it was going to come out of a designated fund we did and then the budget committee put it back in that's why there's a discrepancy there and well I guess why recommendation I'm not sure exactly I might have been clear as you know that it was a fun that that money it was a quest that they wanted the sign we didn't see any reason why not the fund the sign I'm guessing we weren't made aware or else it wasn't clear that there was another fund that the fifteen hundred dollars could have been transferred from did we not change one of those um I'm just native fund transfers to increase that time from the very beginning of the list one of those yeah where are you which under the

capital tab spreadsheet I forget what you call it Kevin but yeah of designated funds twenty thousand the capital recommendations it was two at the very top they wouldn't cover last year the public were extreme Crossing in the it's up on the screen there is that what you're talking about I thought we I thought we'd grab that fifteen hundred dollars

at this it we can he uh do we know you have right there what is the what is the current um fund balance in Recreation it's up there isn't it like could actually we can we can we could make this number um this obvious the assigned fund transfer we could make that the 93 80 and then it makes it kind of a six to one half those in the other it's it's not money that has to be raised you know um so we can do that that's if we want to yeah if we want to fund the sign you know from there um so and then so that that's just that was my question on that because I thought that's where that was coming from and the same question earlier today and um so maybe it wasn't maybe it wasn't uh uh is clear um to the budget committee that that was the plan and then um Jeremy my question for you is you know the the 15 000 from the

administration won um to me that was a smart use of resources because there are things that are going to happen especially where you're going through everything so thoroughly um is that something because you know you you've already got somebody coming in to go over past stuff which is coming out and [Music] um you know I want to make sure that [Music] the budget that that we present doesn't prohibit you from doing that because you know business yes but we also have an obligation to provide the services right and and make sure we present correct information to the town for not only the budget process but so everybody knows um and so I don't you know if you think you need that

to be able to be thorough and have correct information then to me that's that's a battle I would go I would go for because I think that's important and as much as you know not spending that would be nice for everybody I to me that that is one of the more important things that needs to be addressed well thank you for bringing it up if you look at most Municipal budgets they're going to have a contingency line in your budget we just got Androscoggin County each not each department but there's like three departments that have a contingency line and it's there for unforeseen things that happen so two months on the job when I found out that the um statements weren't getting reconciled I had to hire someone to do that and it was an accountant well I didn't have an account of mine I had a legal line so it was like well this past the straight face test so I paid it out of the legal line and they're still working on it so

that will come out of that line this year as well show that not having a line for those things that are unforeseen it it's risky you know because if something else were to happen where do you get it um so I'm gonna keep beating that drum I mean I'm I'm we haven't had it before so I'm kind of willing to give it up and hope that you know maybe the budget committee will understand that it's you know a fund

where you just spend whatever you want out of it it's for those unforeseen things so I think we can get by without it this year we've gotten by without it before but it's something that we need to consider moving forward um I mean the mess palette that I worked at every Department had a contingency fund it's just it's just fundamental Municipal budgeting is all it's not a it's not a line just to spend willy-nilly it's there for for a reason I I think it's good practice to have it absolutely it is yeah it's MMA they have a list of like recommended articles like to so that you have so that the board has like legal permission to do things like you know uh assess taxes and borrow money for Tans you know and stuff like that and one of the one of the recommended articles is a contingency article that basically says you know empowers the board you know to whatever amount you put in the article ten

thousand dollars whatever to use as they see fit and then that with out of undesignated and that's really for anything within the budget and you know and we try to do that a couple years ago and couldn't get the budget committee to support that um so we might you know might make sense to take it out of the run at that next year because if you think about it that's actually a more cost effective way to do it because then you can you have one contingency that you have a lot of flexibility with rather than having to build in contingency to multiple articles um which you know you very unlikely to need contingency and like every article that you have a contingency fund but if you have one contingency bucket that you can use anywhere that it might be needed then you have to fund less contingency overall right so um but you know that's that's a next year discussion at this point yeah um and you know and I don't like using

the legal line for anything other than legal representation and you never know what it's going to happen and that'd be more of those consent agreements right right I think we talked about you know I mean that's we can change I think we're gonna change that to legal and Professional Services or something yeah then it would cover both and right right and then I think we'll be okay well you know you just don't know it's really not it's I mean I I completely hear what you're saying about you know you want to have like the right line but really the line that matters is the bottom line you know as long as you're exactly as long as you're within the total of the article you know then um you know then I think you're I think what you did more than passes the straight face test right I mean if if legal representation comes to 15 grand it's going to hit that line we just don't want to go over the article it's

just like it's just like with the election uh payroll we're gonna spend what we need to spend to do the elections right and I think it's very likely we're going to see an actual over budget next year um uh because the the town clerk was texting me during the meeting while the budget committee was having that conversation saying well yes there's not a gubernatorial election but there's still three elections and you still need your people there and all this other stuff and um

they're going to be here all night they're going to be here the next day so but the thing is again it's a bottom line budget so and it'll be a learning like maybe you know that way we'll we'll post it as it really is is right and so we'll see okay yeah we you know what we were okay reducing that line or like you know what we weren't okay reducing that line and so let's do it differently next year and and then my only other question

elsewhere you know Public Works fire department everything's operating well concerns about the hours of operation here at the town office is there any way in this budget that you can open this office more yes it is okay part of the plan is to open Wednesday

so the part of the plan is to work the the staff 36 hours and have window time at 32 right now we're currently at 27 and a half window time so all right [Music] the uh we had Wednesday for a short time and it was popular it bothers me that all of our cars are here on Wednesday and people pulling in thinking we're open and then they turn around never used to be like that I used to eat it like there was if you were closed Wednesday then it was right here yeah once they see you guys all park at the school and walk around

that we should have a contingency line in there yeah it makes the most amount of sense for you know given the latitude for for incidental things that come up that need to be taken care of so you don't have to run back to everybody and ask for permission to fix a very simple thing um or a simple items yeah I try to make the argument in that in that meeting with the budget committee that you know the well I get where they were coming from because you know it's a the administration line is a bit percentage-wise is it a big into always it's a big increase versus no why right I mean there's a lot of you know a lot of changes more than comfortable explaining that on Town floor I mean there's a very there's a number of reasons that line up that explain it and that um but uh I've been losing my train of thought I'm sorry no I'm sorry I was going to say to get to to your point about going with the unified I mean unified

recommendation I could get I mean my only concern is the Public Works capital reserve I was going to say because I think to me you know you just heard the professional talk about putting money away yeah and that's I it's a double-edged so it is like do you put it away or do you borrow it a leash later which is we've talked about that and then you know I'm just looking at you know there is a you know I got the five from being in the CIP you know I've Got The Five-Year Plan and the of what's coming up over the next you know four or five years and yeah in a couple years you know unless you stop putting 100 away every year you're gonna be short and you're gonna be asking for more than 100 on that third year right and that's going to be a hard pill to swallow for folks and and it's just to maintain the older trucks that are going to go and age out it's uh it I mean and there is a plan which you

know the accountant said you know loading that plan in and level loading the budget over time right makes it very constant for folks I mean even like you mentioned the other day the mill rate's been constant right yeah those taxes have fluctuated a little bit due to you know real estate homes that exemption exemptions Etc but not because the town not because it wasn't because the mill rate went up we didn't you know we've been trying to level load it try to keep a balance there try to buy a truck every few years here on the schedule but the thing the thing is hot the thing is though and and I generally agree with that and I you know I could go either way on this one but there's two things that kind of lean me towards like not being that upset if it was the 50 000 number one is that um in terms of ranking of this of the CIP committee it's at the bottom of the list because the stuff is on the list

here except for the one item that we didn't even put on the list the generator for talent office so this was technically next to last um uh but it's last among the things that we're actually considering um and the to your point Joe is like we don't have a plan right we don't have a financing plan we don't so my my point is like we shouldn't get too bent out of shape in the absence of a plan I mean I think uh I was very um intrigued and and I could almost feel like okay we can get this you know with the conversation about the help and planning out the capital plan and how to fund it and level it and I think then I think once we have that and we go to the town and we say look we have a plan and this is what it takes to fund the plan versus now this is it's not even back of the napkin it's it's like it's kind of a wing and a prayer right I mean it's really what's it based on it's it's a number Calvin

came up with yeah well it's based on the projections yeah I mean we've got I mean this plan is what and I'll say but but it but it's also based on on a purchase there's no it's you know it's it's not consideration of you know maybe it doesn't make sense to purchase that truck maybe it makes sense

better rates and better better yeah return on investment I I don't know I'm just playing that was Advocate I'm not like I said I'm on the fence on that one I could go either way well and I agree that if we can make the numbers between the two committees the same that does stand up way better at uh on the town of law um the Optics are way better that way the only thing that that the the thing that I'm not that I wouldn't on the on the operating where there's operating differences I feel I can I can very clearly stand in front of the Town say this is why our number's different and this is why I think you should go for a number I can't do that on that capital reserve number because it's right it's a I couldn't either it's a it's a maybe it's an educated no but it's a guess it's something you are it's likely going to be at some at some rate in the future and likely if we don't start planning now you're gonna

need more coming up whereas if you do it now it's a less of an impact and and to me that's yeah that's all very true that's not very true to me that's persuasive to say I'd rather I don't mind my taxes going up to cover that now so we have it uh and we're not going up double triple that if the need arises which it it may anyway right

this will slow it down minimally right right and and to me you know I think getting ahead of the game is important look what happened with the roads right there was not that planning and I remember the first time meeting I went to and that was and I said to myself you know I'm not involved I've never been involved in town government even I know you got to do this right and here I am some you know 30 year old never done this right and to me it's it's very similar and I think it's a slippery slope because then we're gonna then we're gonna come down in two or three years and say hey we need we need two hundred thousand three hundred thousand in that line and it's gonna be oh that's such a big jump why didn't you plan ahead is an irresponsible number but I don't think fifty thousand dollars is an irresponsible number knowing that you don't know what the end game is well you kind of do know what the end

game is when you don't yeah you know what you know the end game of what's what what the need is or what the what the plan but you we the end game of fine paying for it that's the piece we don't know maybe we should be leasing but is that gonna is that gonna need that much less money right even leasing you gotta still spend money yeah yeah you're still going to spend a couple hundred thousand bucks on a truck there's so many variables that can come into play over a course of a year two years three years just look at how the economy sways I can tell you it's gone from one extreme to another right um I will say that you know he doesn't have a I'll say a huge I won't use I'll use that Loosely you know until like 2026 is when I believe you have a large truck coming up but you do have a couple small ones in between was that for public or public works yeah so I mean that that to me is your your big hitter when you start talking about

280 or more thousand dollars for a truck in three years and you've got how much in reserve now yeah um see that's that's where we need the expert help we do is to plan that out it just just I just want it to be open kimono that you know uh I'm not sure that you know the 50 is enough right now to not see a spike later right okay yeah I just I just want to point out that in one article in public works we're asking to pull 50 000 out for the stream Crossing and then in another article we're putting 50 000 back in I think that's what fifty thousand was added because we didn't spend it but which 50 000 are you talking about stream Crossing yeah you think it's what wasn't that wasn't that there because we had already put we put it in there because we weren't able to send it and we're just pulling it back out no this is a new we spent that 100 on the one caller right the first one the first talking the one that the two from last

year that we didn't get through we got one we got one done and that and all the money was on went to that one right so you needed another 50 to do that right this is this is new money right you know um you know keeps it quiet so it makes no progress on I mean let's say hey I look at that okay so then that actually argues in favor of the hundred number in my mind because you're well flat funding it with the 50 I was going to say you're with a hundred you're you're you're you're building it up a little bit whereas if you just do 50 you're not building it up at all yes yes

well then we're taking 50 out so the net result is zero so but if if we want to increase the Public Works Reserve balance then it needs to be a number higher than 50. right right that's that'd have to be a hundred it could be 75 could you know that 50 is uh what what is in public works right now right now

buying this new truck that's after it's going to go down a little bit because there's some surcharges it is that so is that end of 22 number 22 12 31 22. okay so we'd have to take take 50 out put whatever in so we still have 220 000 yeah

which I don't think is crazy it's it's 20 it's more than 20 of your operating budget it's right after 20 I mean I don't that's not yeah yeah that's not that's not a bad Nest Egg no most people don't have that in their own personal lives sometimes in responsible to do that especially Public Works and to do the 100 is that what you're saying responsible do the 100 right so I think so I so does somebody want to make a motion on that so then we can actually formalize the discussion and take a vote on it somebody have a motion on what the select board is going to recommend for Public Works capital reserve um there's a contribution what would be a motion to change our original well we never we we didn't have we haven't had a formal vote on any of this so we need to form a lot of um we did a consensus recommendation because we were all in agreement if if we had not all been in agreement before we sent it to the budget committee we

would have had some votes then but we were all in agreement on the initial recommendation knowing that we would do the formalized one after they met so I I would make a motion um that we adopted budget committee's proposal for the operating budget

um and the capital budget but for the the cap Public Works capital reserve and we make that number one hundred thousand so you're you're trying you're going to do the whole budget in one motion wow okay I don't particularly like that I don't I I will be the first amendment I do not particularly like taking out that fifteen thousand I think I think with what Jerry is doing having that money there as a safety net in case something else okay let's save that for the discussion let's get a second on the floor first is there a sec the motion is are you secondly yeah say it again okay I think the motion is to adopt the budget committee's operating in capital expenditure recommendations uh in total with the exception of the Public Works capital reserve which our number would be a hundred thousand um the you say you said that okay I want to clarify that the way that motion was worded it does not um

there's still other stuff we need to vote on in terms of undesignated that's a separate discussion but in terms of operating expense on the expense side of the budget that's the moment okay discussion so that means that we would adopt

the 535 924 the 9380 the one 338 920 and the 372 540. um and then hundred and there would be a 50 and that would be a um we'll Duke that one out on Town floor that's all okay do any further discussion on that the conservation line oh that's that was coming out of the designated fund right I'm gonna ask him what so what was basically the revenue the assigned fund um transfer would be uh

[Music] news so the budget the budget committee we've already the budget committee's given their recommendation on this article right here which only has 78.80 in it um if we um so it can't be amended on Town floor is that the one you were talking about it is a 9 9380 right yeah

if you did that then yeah yeah that's what that is okay the budget number is 93.80 yeah yeah right no you just need to thank you thank you for pointing that up all right I'll tell you if if if I get ambushed by people on your committee about changing that now all right

so then we can uh we can do that so all right thank you Todd for pulling that out all right any further discussion these numbers and The Debt Service is The Debt Service um and all the capital numbers except we would be stick with our 100 number here instead of the 50. you know and understand I I being in the CIP committee and seeing what we've asked the department has to do the last few years I think they have done a really good job weighing out a plan I don't disagree that some of these numbers are in flux for a number of different reasons like Market the market right uh I mean but if anything they're underestimated based on what the market is yeah yeah that's probably true when these when these were weighed out so there's a you know it's been like I say it's been three years we've asked them it's evolved over time I I you know it's the only way that the CIP can actually make a good judgment call on whether

this goes to the topless I agree it was on the bottom of all the other things there was a large list this year but again I I I think that we'd be short-sighted not to keep funding that line at this point because I don't think the equipment costs are going down anytime soon and it'll be a big upper when it when it comes time to replace one of these bigger trucks regardless of how you do it look at that plow truck has gone from what would we pay for the last one 190 185 that was over two it was like 220 something I think yeah for this for this one we have the one before oh yeah yeah it was around 190 right Old Uncle Harry Joe Somebody

time we always get a deal any further discussion if I just throw in something um technically no all right I'll recognize the budget committee chair it's not a technical thing I go I I disagreed with the budget committee so uh but I'm just thinking if you wanted to shorten the meeting at all

so I mean yeah at it I like the idea and I understand the the spirit of you know Jerry or with us being in some particle with the the budget committee but in the same token there's part of me that says that's really not what this was designed for yep it's good to spare the discussion on the floor sometimes there will be plenty of time opportunity for spirited discussion on the floor these type of things don't get a spirit and it just moves forward and some of the other things that you don't expect become spirit I can't speak for the forefathers of Durham and stuff but I don't think when you create two committees to try to create a budget for a town that they should try to come to the same conclusion on their budgets you should give the people options most municipalities will try to get there right there

say that several do but I'm not sure it's fair to say that most I wouldn't say most I certainly wouldn't say but anyway so I think we're really close here I I think yeah yeah you know what I'd be in favor of doing taking bulky waste today oh take that twelve thousand dollars put it into the administration budget as we it that course has left the bar I know the horse is towing a trail or a bulky waste down the road right now just froze one because I know you're part of the CIP meeting Kevin maybe you could answer this too or you know Mr Town manager you know what what are we looking to have for a healthy Reserve in a reserve account with a with the Department of let's say a million dollars just to keep your numbers even budget what do you think a healthy Reserve is I don't think it's related to the operating budget at all I don't think I don't think because it's not a savings it's not like reserve fund

where you've got to have money to cover operating expenses that's where that's what the uh that's what assigned honestly fine this is about the determining factor of this if if it's an appropriate amount or not is like what are your future planned Capital expenditures and that's what the plan we need help professional help to put together and so yeah I would agree with that and thank you um so I guess by that rationale what's what's everybody's quote-unquote yes of a number of what it should be so it was about a hundred thousand dollars that's that's was my point earlier we don't really we haven't planned yet so we don't really know so that's where I have a problem is I'm asking I'm asking townspeople to submit money where well I don't really have a plan for it I'm just asking to put some money out of your savings account into our savings account where you get nothing and we might get nothing also but at least

I do think though that the the future expenditures are high enough in the current balance is low enough but there's no question that that the money is going to be needed for when it's always work yes right but I mean but if it was like if there was already like uh you know a two million dollar balance in there we were asking for more money than College

same discussions um so I mean it just what Calvin had out played in the laid out in the CIP plan was a hundred thousand dollars every two years essentially into the budget which brought you down and funded everything down through 2020 into 2026. with all

due respect to Calvin he is not a finance guy so I I understand but it's it's a plan on what he's looking at First Capital Equipment what he's seeing for a replacement schedule on these these vehicles so I mean that's really all he has to go on right is that he knows that truck that's X number of years old it has so many miles on it and has been plowing salt and rusting out for that many years he's going to die on that year or their opponents maybe you can get a sweep a little bit out of it maybe not but he knows that these big ticket items are going to come up based on the schedule of how long a truck lasts so that's kind of where I think his numbers came from looking for that kind of money on on a recurring basis every two weeks right so doing the 50 I mean I guess this year and do a 50 next year it gets you that extra under but eventually you run out in 2027 you're done the thing I I guess I I'm putting

no weight in Calvin's financial plan because it's it's it's based on nothing other than his what he's looking at the schedule and like a simple math equation and it's much more complex than that so we just I think the point the fair point there is that we know these expenses are coming and that we you know what we don't know is what's going to be the most uh cost effective way to pay for them is it going to be to build up reserves over time or whatever and really as you know Mr Roy said the purpose of reserves isn't really to save all of it to buy the thing right it's to as you look at what you're going to need over a long course of years some years you might need to raise more than others depending upon what the truck is or expenditure is what the reserves does is fluctuate enough to kind of counter the the curve of the expenditures so that ultimately the taxation is a smooth as smooth as you can make it

over multiple years and I think that's what this does but it is a pretty smooth curve I mean you it's a flat curve because it's a simple lead added everything up and divided it by a number of you it's just well and not quite I mean well but okay that's kind of tangent too though yeah but area but but that's just I mean I think some thought was put into it it is a curve that rolls with the years you know it doesn't go down quite to zero it doesn't go up extraordinarily yeah either um I think it was a good cut at what we're looking at okay any further any other discussion

adopt the budget committee's operating budget recommendations and capital budget recommendations with the exception of Public Works capital reserve in which the select board's recommendation would remain at a hundred thousand all in favor raise your hand

Rich voting no okay so the next question is um about under what amount of undesignated funds to use so every every dollar of undesignated funds we use is one less dollar of taxes to be raised the budget committee our initial recommendation was 200 000 but that was before the edition of 16 and then another 20 for gas and that and solid waste the budget committee landed at 2 30 and um they were hesitant to be much more aggressive than that keeping in mind there's another uh 22-ish thousand that would come out of undesignated to cover uh overages in 22 from Solid Waste in the fire department um so that so the total amount of money coming out of undesignated on the budget committee's recommendation is actually like 252 and change I think something like that sort but this is the amount we want to use towards the 2023 budget so

to go from uh well let me uh let me do this I mean I mean because because we want to have as up-to-date as uh you know so [Music] tax impact um the difference so right now the only difference in our budgets is the undesignated fund amount and the difference in sort of Municipal

recommendation is a this is a mill rate increase not necessarily a um but it's not the budget increases a 1.2 percent and 0.3 percent on the budget committee so if that number is close to 230 those that should numbers should go to point three percent as well

extra fifty thousand oh right that's not the only difference right you're right yeah that's what it is thank you um so it's the capital and the so it puts us at 0.9 and there's there should still be a point point three so less than one percent um the thing that so what I what I suspect when you see that low of a number and we what we don't have here as part of the calculation is what the updated valuation number is when that valuation number comes in at least on the municipal side um it probably shows a decrease in the middle rate should and uh we're probably gonna get offset by at least the preliminary uh the County assessment as you can see here is looking close to 13 increase from the

county um this year um with that we're looking at 3.9 percent um that's used in a school number of three percent and that I guess I guess that's looking like it might be four four and a half or whatever but um again even having the same thing with solid waste we would only be taking half of that increase this year because we're because of the way our fiscal year Falls um so we're looking at you know either way we're looking at her I think we're going to end up with a flat mill rate again this year or or very very close to us they're very close to it because we we should be higher on evaluation for sure it didn't some guy the other night say we should expect ice creams [Music]

um so anyway so that's did I put the oh yeah I think I put the 230 number in there so my thinking was originally I think I said this earlier um when we learned about the additional 36 000 it's like we'll just add that to you know undesignated and fund it there but I'm okay with the 230 number and not because I getting into an undesignated funds conversation on Town floor would be that'll be a much bigger nightmare than um a difference in uh reserves um the uh the in and I think the budget committee made some good points in that you know um we could probably safely do the the 236

or whatever but you know we don't know for a hundred percent for sure until we get a little bit further along in the audit reconciliation process I mean I I still think we're being fairly conservative with this number um and it should still leave um the unassigned fund balance um you know well over the um 1.6 million

um which is on a 10 million dollar um budget that's before that's total expenditures before any revenues or anything are taken out you're at you know you that puts you at your 16 which is a comfortable level to be at um so

so um so that would be my you know my recommendation is to Matt would be to match the budget committee on this one at 2 30. we can see what the numbers worked out as is there a second that go second so the motion on the floor is it our recommendation would be to use uh 230 dollars in unassigned fund balance um to help offset property taxes raised for the 2023 budget what did I say dollars 230 230

000 yeah yeah that's after it's getting pushing 8 30. all right 230 thousand dollars any further discussion all in favor all right we have 5-0 on that one okay I I do want to say you know as Town manager and for the record I did agree with milt's explanation on taxes and doing it incrementally and can't stay flat forever so oh yeah that was one of his arguments yeah it was I heard it I watched it and I'm like you know rather than hit them all at once so I just [Music] yeah okay so the other thing um in terms of our recommendations that we need to vote on are the um the funding and um uh yeah the funding articles so there's two here these are the the two articles for where we overspent in 2022 and basically asking to fund uh pay for those out of undesignated and then our capital budget articles you know these are the you know thank you um some a lot of these are thank you Bill a lot of these are a yes or no versus an

amount um and then funding articles this is where we're doing a little bit differently this year this is where so we just talked about the one where we we use undesignated this one basically authorizes us to use all the all the revenues all the stuff on this tab you know to offset taxation a lot of times these are estimates so could be higher could be lower um but we'll know that by the time we get to Commitment we know that um whoops there we go and then um this is the one where because these funds telecommunications and Recreation are are assigned funds with a specific purpose in the excess any unspent funds go back into those funds we have to ask separately to use those funds and the only thing we have to watch out for here is that we don't put an amount in here that's greater than the amount of the budget for that category right so even though there's 20 something thousand dollars in Recreation

the recreation budget concert with conservation is only 93.80 so we can't that's the maximum we can use article you know we're gonna you know pay our debts so sure yeah so moved so the motion on the floor the board uh recommend yes to the 2022

articles regarding overspending uh yes to all capital budget articles with the amount for the assessing the market valuations Reserve at sixty thousand and the amount for Public Works Reserves at a hundred thousand and uh

the 230 000 for unassigned fund balance to be put towards Taxation and a yes on using government and intergovernmental revenues and uh 93.80 from Recreation and 52 000 from telecommunications towards those funds budget and yes to funding our debt service was there a second to that

thank you all in favor we are five zero all right so I believe that takes care of all of the board's budget recommendation the budget article recommendations so at our next meeting we'll get into um a recommendation well basically our vote on on the uh ordinance change articles and the business articles and

um one thing I wanted uh to put out there on the ordinance thing like we said in the email is that you know so the public hearing the first public hearing is tomorrow and so we've had the specific language proposed language of the audience is out on the website for a little over two weeks um give people a chance to read what it would actually be and then tomorrow is kind of intended for as an opportunity for people having read the language if they have concerns about it to come talk about that and in any other concerns they might have or questions about doesn't have to be concerns questions about um the proposed ordinance changes and then what the coming out of that what the town planner and the planning board will do is um they'll consider at a planning board meeting you know if based on feedback they got if any changes to the language are are warranted uh in their opinion and then that language will be presented

to us at our meeting on the 28th and our role at that point is to is to is kind of a yes or no like yes this is ready to go to town for a vote or no it's not so um but we what we shouldn't be doing is editing the language ourselves because then it's kind of come out of the public hearing process and there's no opportunity to make a change um out of that so so it's just an accept or reject on the 28th yes yeah so and we all have an opportunity to like anybody else to go tomorrow or express it some other way to the planning board you know via email or you know call up John or whatever you know but um or George the town planner if you've thought of something that maybe was overlooked or whatever so um foreign

so anything I think so all right so we're done with our budget articles next on the agenda is the consent agenda I would take a motion on that [Music] move to accept the cassette agenda go ahead a second Todd seconds all in favor unanimous okay upcoming meetings I think I just mentioned the public hearing on February 15th have they landed on a firm date for the second Like official pre-town meeting public hearing

for the ordinances I know they were running into trouble scheduling but I think they are okay I think we are I don't know we don't know for sure sitting right here what that is okay so people can keep an eye out for that that'll be later in March right it has to be I think it's March 15th 15th that's what I thought then I thought they were ran into trouble on that date for some reason but um anyway we'll confirm it make sure it's on the website calendar uh and then our next select board meeting is um February 28th and then again March 14th here uh at the town office um and we do have an executive session that we need to do tonight

executive session pursuant to one MRSA 405 6A for the purpose of discussing the town manager's six-month probation period which ended about a week ago okay Rich seconds all in favor okay we're an executive session all right take five