TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ February 27, 2024

older lady with uh she uh she was a Spitfire like time I see defense put his the guy being charged on stand and she T it was like that was what I wouldn't want to testify telling the truth that's what I was like I was like this is like a grandmother he's like I know there are cookies missing from the cookie jar I found crumbs in your room and he was just like yeah so she's I mean she's been doing that for year like 30 15 seconds I she's good at this very yeah all right

good good evening everybody like to like to call the uh meeting to order of the Durham select board uh we got a full Quorum this evening and Why Don't We rise to pledge allegiance to the flash [Music] please I pledge allei to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands One Nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for

okay order of business any amendments to the agenda this evening Jerry we have to put anything in a different order this evening have everybody I don't believe so we just have to talk about those budget items at some point um okay so I'd like to make an amendment that we uh we do have a couple additional budget items to discuss um

take us through that um ahead of the warrant article review probably makes sense okay few items that came in um okay uh any um any other amendments anybody has all right uh public comment anybody here for public comment sir come on right up have a seat up please introduce yourself gentlemen

good evening uh my name is Ryan McGee I'm a resident of Durham uh for over 20 years and I know I have uh three minutes max so I'll just get right to it and explain why I'm here tonight I'm sure there's some people that know me that are wondering why is uh Ryan McGee here so as I said I've been a resident here over 20 years and I'd like to respectfully request the Duram Town selectman take a comprehensive look at law enforcement coverage in the community of darm I'll start off by seeing the ing County Sheriff's Office does an outstanding job Sheriff Eric Samson all the way down to the Frontline deputies doing an incredible job here in the town of Lisbon and we owe them a great deal of thanks the issue at hand is the town of Durham does not pay for police coverage uh when in fact we pay for County Services that include rural Patrol there a misconception that we pay for uh police services when really it's

it's a rural coverage this is a reactive Patrol and deputies come here when they do not have issues going on in other parts of the county as there's not enough of them to go around unfortunately I've heard in the past that Selectmen have asked the deputies to do more traffic enforcement in Durham however that is only a very small percentage of what goes on in our community and they are only able to do this when they're not tied up on other calls in Durham Durham is the furthest south position in the county and they have to drive through several towns that have police coverage to get air in the town of durm in 20123 I did some research and requested all the calls for service for the Sheriff's Office there was about a thousand calls for service in Durham last year out of those thousand calls for service we only had 132 motor vehicle stops this sheds important line on the fact that only 10% of the issues in durm are traffic stops

out of those thousand calls for Police Service and that we do have a public safety situation that requires deputies to be assigned to our community for nearly 1,000 calls for service dur is a community with a population of 4,173 residents according to the 2020 census and we have no dedicated police services in the town of Durham this is concerning to me to say the least the following is a list of towns that have police departments with populations far less than the town of Durham I'll go through them briefly I'll list the name of the town in the population briefly so we can get through this but you got Dixfield PD 2400 Mexico PD 2600 fryberg PD 3400 Oxford PDD 4000 Dexter PD 3700

Booth Bay uh Goldsboro 17 45 Southwest Harbor 1779 rangley PD 1150 Wilton PD get Nori PD VZ PD Holden PD Richmond PD Pitsburg PD Pittsfield PD and the list goes on of towns uh with far less populations I I try to keep it around 3500 or less which is substantially less than our town now these are just a fraction of the towns that have decided to go with full-time police departments and I am not here tonight proposing this what I am asking for the town selectman to do is authorize the town manager to look into Contracting aneson County deputies to be assigned to the town of durm and not leave the borders of our community this is something similar that is done in the town of Poland and I believe it's long overdue for the town of

the safety of our Durham fire department which continues to have an increase in calls for service we have an outstanding fire chief and Fire department and I believe we should be supporting them with all of their needs and providing police support at scenes for them as well more than once I've heard our fire chief on the radio request police assistance only to be told there were no deputies available at that time and then request uh area agencies having a deputy assigned to Durham is something that would also assist our fire department I believe we have grown to a point where we are too large to continue to ignore the fact we only have rural police coverage in this community and our residents deserve to have assigned police coverage protecting their homes and families while they're away at work I look across this room um I've been in law enforcement for over 23 years and I know people in this room personally and

I know that I've responded to durm myself for crisises I'm a police officer in a nearby community and I really think that uh we should task the town manager at least to look into contractual Services um over the course of this next year and really put a comprehensive plan together this coming year of what does this look like for the town of durm we're growing we're continuing to grow all of us have small children that are home getting off the bus I've been passed numerous times in my POV not a smart thing because I definitely made contact with them the next day at work but it it's come to a point where I personally have seen the crime rate grow in in Durham I live here I've seen it cuz I've responded to this community and I'll just leave it with I'd really respectfully uh ask that the selectman task the the town manager who does a great job to really look into this and get some real numbers of what

this would cost the town because ultimately at the end of the day it's about keeping our loved ones safe at the end of the day that's what it's all about and being proactive we also have a school in town if something was happen in our community school it is a long long ways away for a law enforcement to get there so with that being said um these aren't just numbers that I pulled out of a hat main police employment data shows what the police departments have for population in police departments I'm not looking for a police department I'm looking for a sheriff's deputy to be assigned to our town and not leave the borders of our town I have uh all the calls that we have in Durham that I request to the Sheriff's Department I'll leave with the town manager and I also have um on top of that I have uh guidelines for starting police operations in small communities from the Bureau of Justice we're not the First Community to do this

and there's a full guide with grants and everything else in order to do this this isn't something where we have to say taxpayers need to foot this whole bill because there's a cops program through Bureau of Justice to help fund this and get it started I'm a big proponent of Grant to my agency and I believe this would be a good way as well um to start something in the town of Durham so I'll leave this with them and I have any questions uh feel free to ask me um but I know I just want to keep it under 3 minutes I know was a lot to throw at you under three minutes but I can just say I come with years of larm enforcement experience I truly care about this community uh all three of my kids went through the Durham school system and I had lived here I've got a lot of family that lives here in town and I think it's time that we we as um people that live in the community and also elected officials in the town man are really

really take a hard look at this to to help make sure we keep durm the nice community that it is because we're getting inated in area communities um so it's just that's all I got for tonight and I want to keep it short because you have a busy night tonight with the agenda but if anybody has any questions I'm free to answer them great thank you Ryan um yeah we normally don't take questions during the Q&A this this session um I think we do have a lot of questions I would expect so we'll put this on a future agenda and uh and talk about it as a board a busy night so thank you for your time you sir leaving your type statement you could leave that too so we could I'll email to you how's that sound all right thank you you're welcome okay thank you very much uh any other public comment okay we'll move on to Old business um so next item is uh the union church we have uh two items on the agenda here discuss the funds and

discuss the warrant articles we did um receive a letter letter from our attorney um I I think his his point was pretty straightforward that you know uh use of public funds um is it needs to be for a public purpose um I'll just start this off before we go into a little discussion here that you know I did go through what the historical district Society um provided us Historical Society provided us for a um a um a package uh about a month or so ago uh um the the chair of that board um sent us that information uh that I believe outlines um uh need Public public purpose uh quite well in that package um I didn't didn't see any and also the town planner also provided us a letter

indicating uh public purpose options um that we can discuss um and I thought that was well laid out um I think some of them reply some of them don't but I bet that was a really great job by George uh putting that together as well um and providing that to the board um I'm going to open this up for uh discussion or or a

trying to find it hold on one second please article page that's on the back of the attorney's letter yes um and the only issue that I take with this is that in the um explanation note where it says all expenditures would be approved by the board of Selectmen um we've discussed that at length and um if I'm recalling correctly we we discussed that that would be held by Jerry that would be Jerry's responsibility because otherwise um we are they're in the same boat that they're in now and so I just want to make sure that that situation um doesn't continue to occur and so I feel like that wording right there keeps it the same scenario that it is now where they have to come before us to ask for the money yeah my thought I I saw that too and my my my quick thought on that was that we're we're the we're the keepers of the money once it's allocated so I think Jerry could do all the upfront work and just

come to us with a recommendation to say they submitted their invoice and I believe this is accurate and us just signed off as a like a a you know a bi-weekly um article that we would sign War um part of the warrant article part of the warrant article is what I what my thought was so I see what the the attorney wants us to make that decision um which is I believe why the warrant was written this way um but I I could be mistaken but that was how I took it so but I do see your point we did talk about that in white P okay I don't know if anybody else has any other thoughts on

okay so based on the Artic on the letter from the attorney and George's explanation I know that we had had some conversation around um concerns about whether or not this board felt as though it would be used for a public P purpose um I personally don't share that concern and and given these explanations I feel like it is not hard for us to arrive at the decision that um this would be used for a public P purpose and therefore be able to dedicate those funds um in that

way so I'm not sure if you need a motion if you're looking for us to accept the the draft articles I I think that um when we left last uh might have been last meeting or the meeting before that we we we were concerned that we didn't have public for purpose well defined I believe we now have that well defined and that we're probably in a position to move this to becoming a warrant article as written um so I think we we would just vote for moving that that warrant article forward to the town for a vote Joe yeah I move that we declare We Believe public purpose will be achieved

second for discussion Rich seconds for discussion discussion I'm moving this to public of the outline that um the town planner provided us with with the different criteria that this meets one or more of these for umal public purposes so for

the if it meets any of them in my mind it needs a public purpose and and that's what we're the part we're trying to pass so I think it it clears that especially in um also including what they had submitted to us before about their goals and objectives and what they were trying to do so I'm comfortable with it okay did you just repeat how you worded your motion I don't know if I can I think I said I move we uh Pro that this meets the criteria for public

and George's saying this here and I think someone from one of members of the public had pointed out that um just preserving it for the sake of keeping the historical building seems to pass the public purpose muster plus the other things like George said elimination Town's Current financial liability um and then potentially the

my thought was it just I would make a if I was you know to make a motion on this it would be to take the recommendation of the town's attorney I don't I don't feel qualified I understand what he's saying but it's in my opinion it's a little um it's kind of Switched compared to his first state is isn't his recommendation that we have to make the determination yes and no I mean he's now saying that this qualifies in the past he said we had to so I'm I'm okay as a board member saying we're taking the advice of a Town's attorney I'm just not personally qualified to make the decision on whether or not this is public I can I can see it both ways so his advice is it would be up to the board of Selectmen to determine what the public purpose is so he's saying that it's up to us to decide so if we take his advice it would be to follow

our and then George out excuse me sorry George outlined the four public purposes he did yeah he outlined four potential public purposes and as well as um the uh chair of the uh Durham Historical Society outlined the public purpose in their and their presentation to us as well so I think together that that gives you overwhelming I'll say evidence lack of a better word that public purpose is there and the intent is there um so I think that follows you know as the the letter that the attorney saying we we get to a position that we feel as though that it's it's a a viable um facility for public purpose or or or or um um lacking the word here um you purpose in general it is for for public consumption in in some some manner I think it gets us to being able to vote on moving these articles as Rich says to uh public vote

yeah yeah I think ultimately that's where it ends up that's where it ends up just that so is so do we want to change the motion to moving articles or just leave the motion as is no I mean I think we have to establish that we feel is making it meets the criteria of public Pur and then if we do that then we have articles available to present to the town so we have a motion on the floor to move um that the um Union Church uh its transfer

uh to the Durham Historical Society um um we feel as though that there is a public purpose to this and take the recommendation of the uh lawyers um uh letter um that we move forward with these just a point of clarification my motion wasn't to take the recommendation the lawyers letter my motion was to just say that we declared that it means public purpose

church and let's see here move move to approve that the UN Church uh meets the requirements meet the requirements of a public purpose yeah there we go any other the transfer the transfer lawyer speak over the transfer of the Union Church to the Historic

establish a vote where we are saying that we believe it's going to meet the public purpose and then we move into okay we've established what you're saying is the Union Church meets public purpose but it's a public building right now so of course it does right yeah so so you would so you you saying amended to say that the transfer in appropriate funds to help with certain expenses would meet a public purpose if that's a friendly amendment I will accept it sure to approve second okay any other discussion all in favor

okay but the lawyers figure where motion carries so do we have have any discussion on the next item would be um the two worn articles as discussion seeing none I just gonna say I have the same weird feeling about the last sentence about the approv I they select Board of Select me because I think we're trying to figure out how to streamline it but it sounds like it has to be us in in this account so sorry in that

regard I'm good with it I'll keep my motion okay all in favor I want to hear what you're going to say all in favor motion carries articles as written discussion all right Jerry you want to uh yeah you want to get into the recent budget yeah thank you

up yall have a little handout that looks like this not to the select board all right so the county tax number come in this week it came in yesterday okay so in 2023 it was 6 6773 188 well it's now 742 140 that's a 99.6% increase okay so in the budget

book we we estimated three I just carried what they've done in the past so if the way this breaks down if you want to keep the tax levy limit at 0% or the tax then your un number with a solid waste is at 394 you'd have to use

673 th000 of your fund balance to cover it okay now if you meet the where the budget committee is on the solid waste at 389 then you would to keep the property tax levy at 0% you would use 668,000 of fund balance so that's kind of like where you're at and I know that you had that $5,000 difference and I wanted to just double check with you folks again you've got an 11 Milli budget in a $5,000 discrepancy do you want to do you want to continue with that at town meeting or do you want to I have a question yes um so the

difference between what we had budgeted hold on wait I have it in front of me was County tax uh 698 and now that was what the budget book said for 2024 it an estimated at 3% right and so now it's 742 and change right and so when we what

was our number that we were saying we were going to transfer we were going to use of the fund balance before 633 475 is the number that we had 63347 75 okay um so $330,000 difference but the difference in the thing the difference in the county tax is 50,000 so I just want to make sure do you see what it's I believe 40,000 bit difference but yeah I do see what you're saying see

increase coming from well 60 basic I have both of them right here where Zero's and out but we would be shy because the difference between what we budgeted and what you're saying the new thing is is 50,000 but the difference in where we were and where you're saying we would go to is only 30,000 but the old one you were at 005 though at the tax levy no zero I see

05 these these numbers here what they were before were they were but these numbers here are correct they're right here in this in this budget I think we're just looking for the difference though I think is all that Heather was getting out yeah yeah it's actually a $67,000 change sorry I miscalculated that 742 down 677 okay that still feels backwards though am I is it wrong in my head because if we were at I'm not I'm Jerry I'm not trying to second guess you I just making sure that I understand right um and I don't have the old book budget with me because it's that's kind of move if you want to stay at the zero right okay so so because in my brain what it's saying is that if we were at a 5 is that we said 5% or 05 05% increase right and the difference

would have been 50,000 if with this new number and now we're going to zero it seems like the number that we would be using should be even more am is am I thinking of that incorrectly let me think about it last year then you're raising more no no no because because if the difference is only 30 what 35,000 right but our increase in the county tax is 50,000 yes and now we're going from 0.05 to now

zero you were increasing it and taking up that 05 yeah so sorry but where the 50,000 come from because the difference between what the our County tax when we did the budget was at 698,000 oh 698 and now now we're being told that it's 742 th000 okay what was the what was the budget use fund balance prior to this change

6 it's either 668 or 67 three based on what we do with so you're saying is County tax increased like 44,000 in change and if we're increasing the use of fund balance to consume all of that County tax increase and bring the 05%

increase in taxes off you would expect it to be larger than by the factor that we just increased of fund balance correct Terry real quick sorry yeah did you go 5% or 3% on the budget when we estimated the county tax 3% school I think four okay three I do

want to I do want to comment the the estimated tax is just that an estimated tax so getting it you know calculating it to get exactly at zero it's probably neither here nor there right because eventually when you actually go to Commitment you're going to have overlay on top of whatever the estimated taxes so even even though you're trying to get it to zero on the budget workbook it's really more of a all right it's around zero right saying so even if Jar's numbers are wrong they're not going to be that far off you see what I'm I do can I ask can I just say something is that so my only concern with this is that when we put the levy if if we're in a scenario where we have to put the levy question on the warrant whether we want to increase the levy limit right the town I can almost most guarantee will say no and so that that's why I'm asking this question because if we're that close to where we would need to increase

the levy limit we're not no the limit is we'll talk about that when we get the okay rest my case the only thing I would note in this is that while the levy stays the same the mill rate does go up and this and that's what the towns people look at that's a good point it's a really good point uh again that's also based off of last year's valuation and the valuation is going to be done as of April 1st and generally valuations go up from one year to the next and so this is really a the estimate that you get in that workbook is essentially a worst case scenario right it's well we're going to raise we're going to actually budget to use up all of that fund balance we're going to raise that amount of taxes and the um the assessment for

the town the valuation of the Town doesn't change from one year to the next so most likely it's going to increase by some percentage 2% 3% and that will actually cause your mill rate to go down uh if you just if you raise the exact same amount of taxes from one year to the next and your um valuation goes up then your tax Lev your tax mill rate is going to go down I don't want to S sppy but I understand that you understand that do people most people understand that yeah that I ask that's that's that's why I raise a concern that's I mean I I I get that but that's not that's not how people will look at it when they see it in front of them and

nothing nothing I mean I think that at the meeting there would be the opportunity from someone from the board to explain that if they wanted if they felt that they was getting a lot of push back just say here's our and ultimately

Mark will explain it ultimately the town people don't vote on the on the M rate that's select board vote yeah okay so what you want from us is to want you want to know if we want to stay with our 394 or do 389 so that we're just not $5,000 difference on an $1 million budget right and they use a fund balance that that's married to those numbers if you want to stay at the 0% tax levy limit okay property Levy limit so yeah I'm this isn't a hill I'm going to die on I'm neither here nor there about this does this cause the budget committee to have to meet again no they wouldn't have to although they might increase their fund use of fund balance because the tax the tax came in and we're using it Y what is what was their theirs was $5,000 less than ours right yeah the my trash concerned right my guess is we really concerned about that derailing the town meeting and I mean we don't know if it's going to go over 375 we

don't even know if it's going to go over 380 I mean it could no idea we have no idea an estimate trying to right estimate I get it for the worst case so I mean I yeah I'm all set meeting that budget committee number it doesn't really matter because it is an estimate and and it isn't Hill the dial

yeah I mean if we think it's just easier to meet their motion okay um so I'd like to make a motion that we use balance um towards the 2024 budget and lower our Solid Waste number to 389 and lower our Solid Waste number to

389 389,000 thank you okay second second gr we need that Joe second any further discussion all in favor okay motion carries thanks um $68,000 of the fun balance uh and reduce uh for the 2024 budget and reduce the solid waste to $389,000 which will match the budget committee's number okay okay yep um the

other thing that I want to talk about I'm kind of glad this came in when it did because last year we talked about adding either contingency lines to the budget for unforeseen things and um that kind of got shot down um at least by the budget committee they didn't want any part of it so we just got a workers comp audit so what workers comp Works they'll audit your previous year's numbers um so for 2023 we owe them uh

this summer um one of our fire trucks got damaged so had to get fixed so we're facing $1,000 deductible well there are no lines in the budget really to pay for that um so we should talk about how do we want to pay for that do you want to add contingency I put down some articles examples that you could put in the budget authorizing the select board to to make these payments that are unforeseen I mean we've got 7,000 it's only February um I I don't have a crystal ball and neither I assume you folks don't either to know what else might come in as far as something uh if if you

uh if we were to pay these percentages in the current workers comp line as it is will be 312 over in the town off town office workers comp 2450 in public works and 3235 and the fire department that's how much they'd be over in their work as comp line um so I don't know how you want to I don't know how you want to handle those overspent funds and the first one that example that you see on your notes um this both of those come from two different towns and how they handle their unforeseen expenditures when um

when they have them and I mean it it can happen I mean it's happening now so in other words it would just be an article to Simply say you know we're not bu necessarily budgeting but we would allow the select board to spend up to a certain amount out of the undesignated fun F balance for and explicitly say like workers comp and insurance deductibles or something like that or just for unforeseen expenditures because you don't know what they're going to be yeah is the current situation that the select board can do up to well like just under 10,000 99 I don't think

any authority to spend any money out side of the operating budget because there's no articles in the so I confused because I think on two occasions we've authorized can Josh did you feel like you were going to say something it's f um right we had two situations where something came before us and we authorized and the number was set at 99,999 because if we went to 10 oh it was Chief truck it was Capital you have that okay yeah slightly

different yeah okay and so this would be the same type of thing except that it would be listed as undesignated fund balance to do well you you got the top one whereas if they have you know money left in their budget lines you can authorize them to move like a certain percentage from one line to the next you you could go that route too and well but that's a little bit that would be a little bit so I feel confused about that because right we approve things by article the entire article not line by line so wouldn't you already be able to do that like we're not approving $10,000 for workman's comp

we're approving $500,000 for the administration budget so if you some department or however you want to do it in your operational budget if you've got unexpected unexpected expenditures somehow we got to find the money within the budget to pay for those so you could write an article to go in the operational budget somewhere and so this this would allow you to take it out of a different Department's budget I see so that like for this overspent article Article Five on this example we wouldn't have that necessarily well I'm assuming we wouldn't have it because money went back in to the um the uh fund balance

and in and instead $3,235 would have come out of that fund balance money and used to pay that so we wouldn't had to vote on which is why I think I think that that shows a town that we're not spending more money that we're holding even if they've already paid it uh it's just taking out of money that's already there uh and I think to me that's a more appropriate way to do it Joe I I was just going to say I don't like that approach as much um not to be argumentative but where I'm concerned is like then it's kind of like oh we're running into this issue it's already February and you have one department head hitting up the other department head saying hey where do you think you're going to come in a little under can you cut cut out that thing that you're going to do so we can get some of the money because I'm going to be over on my workman's comp or over on my insurance claims so I think that the

idea of the fund balance as kind of like rainy day fund or something like that is perfect for something like this rather than kind of like trying to find that little bit here and there from other departments because you know there might be a situation like next year like like last year where you know Public Works didn't need to rent a piece of equipment that they were hoping to rent so they have a little bit left over but at the same time I don't want to bank on that or make them say like hey is there anything you can not do to save a little bit of percentage there so rich I've never seen this over the years comingo funds meaning if fire department is like we take from public works I I've never seen that this is a budget and the budget we we it's a forecast there's no way to get it to an exact science um if something goes over or something goes under for example something goes over you you add a

warrant article at the end of the year that explains that and you ask the town's people to pay for it there's just no way to build in all these contingency funds on every single possible scenario that could play during the year I mean it's this this happens every year almost so what you're saying if you over spend that's okay we'll just ask for in the next town meeting well I'm not saying it's okay I'm just saying it's not that uncommon that sometimes unforeseen expenses like a fire truck has an accident or something like that something that is not planned that stuff happens whether it's in life whether it's in a town whether it's anywhere and as far as a concy budget I think that's a great idea for the record we to historically we have proposed that question about probably two three years ago to the town and it got shot down very very fast um I don't agree with it I think the select board should have a little

bit of leniency with it but it's it's never held on the floor I have a question the excuse me sorry Joe um so in the past when you said it was proposed was it proposed in each Department's budget to say hey there's a contingency item for this department of x amount or was it proposed as kind of like this 25,000 no I think if if my memory serves me right it was for like a $10,000 contingency fee and I want to say it was probably two or three years remember it was last year was it last year all these years you'll see all these years go together I think that that's I think a good point is before the town

the $10,000 was it was proposed last year I was just going to say I think that's a good point to bring up I mean I I don't want to sound like you're bringing the same question every year thinking oh this is just going to get voted down but I think it could be a good point to bring up like we tried to do this in the past it was shot down and we're now in the same situation where we're running into needing those contingency funds because I think of it as like a little different than just like a random like oh here's 25 Grand in case we run over when we're talking about it specifically for things like Insurance deductibles on Town vehicles that are responding to emergencies like it's you know inevitably something is going to happen you know and that's kind of one of those things that's like budgeting for maybe needing an insurance deductible I think it's smart whether someone votes for it or not it's a

different thing but I mean we don't we don't have any money in the budget of somewhere to leave and take family insurance we don't have any money in the budget if Calvin were to leave and we to pay him out and replace him I mean we we don't have any of those sort of safeguards in the in the budget at all um what are the rules around the emergency Reserve like is that something that specifically for this scenario we would be able to authorize money out of the emergency Reserve to be able to to pay this bill and and there's not a lot of money in there but I'm wondering like if we added money to that there's 16 , 953 so if we put on the warrant if we do

we want to ask them ask the town to add money to that reserve for the use of these purposes I don't know what the rules are around the emergency Reserve I can't recall what the emergency Reser was for to be honest with you seems like I know it's for emergency but I don't know if it's for like emergent um uh a public saf public safy or public assistance emergency things like that I don't remember specifically what it's for yeah I thought we had that discussion before that's kind of where that money was was was allocated for for those types of I didn't think it was for anything otherwise somebody would have used it by now do you have an answer do you can you recognize I don't know I don't know what the emergency Mark what have you seeing contingency wise and budgets and stuff because you were GNA say something yeah I mean I well and Josh Josh touched on it I just wanted to be clear that these

two different examples um are common right in town usually it's one or the other uh sometimes you have towns that actually have both just be aware that the 5% budget line item is from one warn article approval to another so for example if you use your old style uh

warant articles it would allow up to 5% from uh uh Public Works to go to um animal control for example right U that's unexpended under the new ones it would be it would be at the warn article level so it would go from 5% of General government which includes five different departments 5% of that General government budget to um you know the public safety budget which is both the fire department and animal control so the first one gives you um a lot of leadway without increasing your overall Appropriations does that make sense the second one means that you're actually appropriating in the case of emergencies $25,000 on top of what the town's people already approved at at town meeting I was going to suggest the emergency Reserve as you you already have an emergency Reserve because I interpret the emergency Reserve as contingency reserve basically but that may not be what what it was originally set up for I

don't really I don't know what it was sounds I couldn't I could I honestly could um I just want to add um I would be lary of just overspending and then going to the next town meeting and asking for it because if someone in town meeting says no we're not going to authorize you to do that then and they really push it and it goes to court because it's a misuse of funds I'm just saying this the the the

the judge the judge hold on hold on let me finish the judge could basically order the select board to pay the paid out of your personal assets or the department it's right in the law it's right in the MMA manual so I'm just giving you the information if I don't give you that information I'm not doing my job so all right so so I mean I just want to back up here a little bit so the work as comp line item we have a work as comp line item correct yes and so what you're telling me is that what we've I'll say estimated is not enough because we have now a $6,000 addition3 for 2023 so it's what we had previously right so it's not this current budget that we're talking about it's last year's buget last year's so first of all you want to know where do we get $6,000 from I think we need an article out there for workers comp for an extra6 $5,997 to cover the workers comp overage right yeah and so stop right so that's

that's the first thing right so the second thing is is we have a $1,000 deductible a fire truck separate article $1,000 for a fire truck deductible that we didn't expect them to crash it so get it wasn't whatever it was so hang on let me let me let me finish so $1,000 for whatever the deductible was for in regards to the fir TR another Adder from 2023 yes 2023 so then so that's an additional

$6,999 that we didn't budget last year we need to bind where that money's coming from and and then ask the town for it or just we know where the money is coming from but just ask the town for it and War a go so then the underlying issue is that moving forward what do we want to do right so F first off I just want to finish the budget items here we have these as examples of why we want money allocated separately as a contingency fund question is down below which is the second part of this discussion so are we okay with asking the town for an extra $5,997 for the workers comp to cover it the overage from 2023 so I just want to be clear it wasn't something that we budgeted for it wasn't anything that we did it's just no but it's a number that gets calculated and this is what it came in at higher than what it was budgeted it's that mean it's a budget number when you put it in last year's budget right we get a was

I'm misunderstanding something on how workers comp works well that was going to be my question Jerry did the experience range uh did the experience rating cause the change or just more hours worked yeah have more employees getting paid more but it wasn't like an experience rating like you jumped up a block no we our rate actually went down that's what I thought that's what I was kind of shocked it's just that the workers comp's going to do an audit every year on your workers comp we have to send them that report every year and then they readjusted last year we got 16,000 back right okay so so it's nothing that budgeted for it's unforeseen so that's bill so I mean but that's a good news story we received $116,000 back and then the audit came up with a $6,000 $5,997 difference that we now have to take out of that $116,000 that we got back right I think it works that way no it it doesn't work that way no these are

these are unforeseen expenditures you don't budget for so yeah you have to find a way to pay for them that's really yeah I mean my mind isn't like in the past you would you would pay for that workman's comp this year in that number whatever you have scheduled for a workman's comp this year would decrease and then you would add that at the end of the year next year's budget right but but the problem with that then you're taking the Department's budget and you're reducing other lines because it's by the article so you going to pay by the workman's comp right but still that and should work it should work out it's it's this not the first time this has happened right but what I'm saying is if you have a $100 in your article and you're going to over spend something by 25 that reduces his whole budget he's going to have to cut back in his other lines because that could get it get you know so that's that's not that's not

great but what I was getting at you typically don't come back but that's I'll let you go first so thank you so in 2023 the general government uh budget was 665,000 the actual was 633 th000 the public safe safety budget was 541 the actual was 535 by taking 5% out of these you not the that that change comes towards the end of the year so by that point you should know reasonably well what accounts money will be left in and so and to me asking us to to come up

with whether it be from the fund balance or or raise another $25,000 uh when we've had these numbers and let's also look at the um the funding last year uh the budget was 2.28 million and we our actual were 2.5 million um and so I think at the end of the year there is going to be money left over somewhere to pay this uh $77,000 and other numbers that are

overspent assuming our department heads um act reasonably like I expect they would and and and try to adhere to their budget so I for one would not support um uh adding any additional funds whether it be raised or uh uh appropriated or from the fund balance or anywhere else um I I would support the 5% I think that's more appropriate and gives us more uh room to move than the 25,000 I

do however think there should be a contingency fee for the town manager I wouldn't put it in this budget but the next budget so that there is some money for things that might come up that the town manager knows about and it would help town thank you Josh

around what you're just describing when you're saying you know as things are getting towards the end of the year department heads are looking saying oh I'm going to be under budget here I'm going to be over here I have this unexpect unexpected expense um but we're dealing with this like needing money now right well we're going to pay we have the money to pay now and so but I guess the reason I'm a little bit more for just having a small contingency pool is that if there are

multiple issues in different departments they both might not be able to swing enough for to cover the other one you know or like I just worry about getting in the position where we budgeted for important things for the Departments and they're like all right well now let's make a cut on let's not do X Y and Z because we want to free up a little bit of money because we got to cover the other department and that's kind of getting into like what you were saying about how we haven't done that in the past so I'm not comfortable with that I I need a little bit more convincing but that's kind of where I think that an easier route is we're not planning on touching this contingency unless there's a problem and then it's there because I also don't like the idea of well we got a budget but we expect a bunch of people to be under budget in certain things because it's like in that regard why would why would we budget that much if

we expect there's going to be enough fluff to move 5% from Department to Department you know should we just pick an apartment and say cut 5% because we expect someone's gonna find fluff somewhere I mean that's my only I like being as close to the number as possible is where my concern

allows you to take 5% of a budgeted item from for example from the town manager salary and put it on something else well it's from it's not line by line it's it's waren article by War article so from the general government to Public Works and

yes these are estimates but consistently we've been putting money into the fund balance which means our estimates are not perfect M and so our goal has been to make sure we have enough so what we're doing by this 5% is saying we expect that we will that we have we should have this money left over because some expense goes down or something doesn't get get done this year for whatever reason and that way we're not out there saying hey we're taking this $25,000 of your money however we get it we're saying we've already done this and we're going to make this budget work and if it doesn't work towards the end of the year we have a special town meeting and we figure out a way to pay for it because then we've really screwed up the budget and then we're in trouble if we can't find that and so we're talking about minuscule amounts at $7,000 uh and I don't think it's appropriate for us to say towns people

we're going to take more of your money whether it's from the fund balance that you've already paid or we're raising uh your funds just to cover this $25,000 which of course would be minuscule in the grand scheme of things I think based on historical data that we have that we've been we're pry to we should have enough to cover these expenses and if something goes over by more than 5% uh you know we've done

something wrong and it has to be readdressed and this $225,000 isn't going to cover it uh but this gives us more leeway and it makes us look more fiscally responsible which is I which I think is important uh at least it is to me

thought process there is if we're explaining this at Town Hall what PR prent someone from standing up and saying why do you have so much fluff budgeted into the town budget I know I know I want to I want to just stop you there I want to characterize this as fluff this is an estimate this is a budget that's pretty CL budg are estimates characterization is is an issue my response would be I'm this is this is worst case scenario right this is the fuel Bill the fuel stays the same price electricity stays the same price what if it goes down what if we

get if we get something else where they said oh we you know we estimated this but it's really this we don't know there's so many things in there or we have few less storms so there's less overtime or we have more storms and there's more overtime and there's a call volume increase and then everything that and gas doesn't go down it goes up like it normally does and you think that $25,000 is going to cover that no we're going to be back I think that it's good for things like what we're seeing here and insurance premiums and stuff like that I think that that's where I see it as kind of being a strength you know if you don't need it you don't use it but if you have a massive structure fire that or a massive issue with a storm and then you have to just cover that insurance it helps gives those department heads that cash flow so they don't have to take it out elsewhere that's where I'm coming from from this

it sounds like we're trying to address the same issue just I'm seeing slightly different pros and cons you know year and then perhaps next year if there was a contingency line approved like this th this conversation wouldn't necessarily this warrant article wouldn't because that would have to go on every year right we wouldn't be able to approve it this year and then it would just continue we would have to ask for that year after year after year it would go in the business article portion yep okay okay

so okay that answers my question mark is it okay for Mark to he Mark wanted to say something got a second yeah go ahead uh so I kind of want to just kind of offer my thoughts about all of this conversation so um you have to remember

that this $6,000 or $7,000 um is being paid in this year and really because it's an immaterial amount from a financial statement perspective uh it's really up to the town manager or the finance director on which year to put it into right because as an auditor I'm going to take a look at it and go well it's really for last year's workers come so you really should include it in FY 23 uh and if the town manager goes yeah but I don't want to do that I'm going to just put it in FY 24 even though technically under a cruel accounting it should be an FY 23 the auditor not going to care about that right it's not going to affect the audit opinion and so it'll it'll fly right so I'm going to stop here so you mean to absorb it into the current budget that's already budgeted here on paper and not put any additional monies into any account anywhere that's correct if I were looking at this okay if I'm looking

at this I wouldn't I wouldn't suggest doing an additional warrant article at the current town meeting I wouldn't worry about this being being at $77,000 already at February I think I think it is a good point on Jerry's Jerry's part to say well look I already have 7,000 unexpected costs that I didn't work into I didn't factor into the FY 24 budget and it's only February so you know there could be other things well I'm I'm going to stop you again because I asked that earlier if it was budgeted in here and you said no and there is a budget in here for workman's comp which this number here you said that this was not budgeted in earlier yeah no what I'm saying is when you're doing up the calculations for the different to arrive at the different budget amounts he's just looking at well workers comp is going to be x amount $70,000 a year well well all right but we lowered workman's comp across the board on everything line

item in the 2024 budget so is that an accurate number at this point because now we have an overage that we need to account for so I get it it's an estimate but have we taken too much out of each line item here from a workers comp perspective I'm going to be back next year asking for another 10 grand or should we have left it at $40,000 on this line item and and another well the

audit the audit has been done since those numbers and that's how he knows that the number isn't the same correct right but but but but but if we had the option to load it into the 2024 budget why is it not there right now well the answer is because overall from a 3, foot perspective your FY 24 budget as approved is perfectly fine you don't need to increase it even for this $7,000 you don't need to decrease it the way you have it set up right now where you're going to have X amount of X millions of dollars of Appropriations and the net effect to the taxpayer is that the taxes being levied is going to be the exact same as last year I think is a absolutely perfect budget and on top of that you're all already budgeting to use up to 600 almost $700,000 worth

of fund balance which is I think appropriate given the size of your unassigned fund bounds right so my point being that specifically for these expenditures I wouldn't worry about that I wouldn't worry about having an article in them last for this fy2 24 you could actually probably include them in FY 23 because I don't think they're going to be over budget in FY 23 anyway even if you included them so it's really up to the the town man manager to figure out which year they want to put it in but the overarching concept is how much flexibility do we want to have in the budget and so part of the reason why uh the select the the suggested Warren articles are crafted the way they are is because as as a business manager for towns and schools when I was when I was doing that my our overarching objective is to have as much flexibility to manage the finances as possible so that's why the Warren article are

crafted as such so that instead of having each department have it you have it by category so that now I have a lot of flexibility already worked into that warn article um the uh the additional warrant article of moving being allowed to move up to 5% from one warrant article budget to another warrant article budget only adds to that flexibility I agree personally with I agree with with Josh given what Rich has said about the town PE towns people do not will vote it down if it if it's a contingency fund so why even get into that debate with them why even you know bring it up when you already have flexibility in the fact that you've appropriated x amount of dollars which is most likely going to be more than is necessary and the reason why you do that again is more financial flexibility so you don't have to go back to the town's people and you offset that by ra in by increasing the amount that you're going

to uh uh use from fund balance so that you have the appropriation if necessary but you don't NE you're not necessarily going to use it um and then you simply use the 5% article uh to add an additional layer of flexibility but you're most likely not even going to use this you see what I'm saying so my point would be why even get into why even bring it up if you know if you're pretty certain that they're not even not going to allow it why even ask for it when you can ask for something that is a lot easier to pass I would imagine Y and then even if that one doesn't pass it's not that big of a deal because if you craft the warrant articles you already have built-in flexibility that's my over okay so so you're not necessarily asking to put this asking for a separate article for this you were just using this as an example sorry a CRA right and I and I want to make clear on how the whole workers comp because you send them a

workers comp report they'll get they'll send you a invoice of what your work workers comp is for the whole year and then they're going to audit it and that's what the 6,000 it's not budgeted it's not you can't anticipate

on that because you just see you seem confused on how it gets calculated like it's should have been in last year's budget but you don't know that until they get the report for this year and then they go back and audit it

alleviate that um is go buy like a workman's comp per week so every time you run payroll there's a calculation done on each payroll you can do it that way and that's not the standard the standard is what jer's describing and it's a very typical process that right we'll get audited for 24 that season's over we'll send them the information and they'll audit and they may change the number next year for us okay yeah I mean the other way you do it is is really kind of overestimate what your payroll is going to be because they base their 2024 premiums off of what you sent them for an estim what we sent them for an estimate for 2024 payrolls we said back in October we said in 2024 we think we're going to have X Millions dollars in payroll they do the calculation go okay well if you have that in 2024 this is what your premium is going to be so we're charge you that at the end of 2024 let's take a look at what you actually

had right so I've been in General trying to estimate on the high end for payroll because uh when it comes to workers comp because I would rather get a refund when they do the audit as opposed to having a bill when they do the AIT it means you're you're paying the premium you're paying more of a premium throughout the year than you really need to but you'll get a refund for it it's kind of like income taxes it's better to either get a little or right exactly be getting $40,000 re all that's interest real okay so for clarity Jerry you're not asking for us to put an individual warrant article on to cover this $6,995 you don't want an additional warrant article for that I want something that reads just like what is right here okay which is what the first one the first one okay so article so I would like to make a motion that we add um the first article example on our notes to the

2024 Josh seconds any further discussion all in favor okay all oppose motion so you we're going to go over the Lauren articles now y so I gave you two one that you're used to and one that um I'd like to see the you maybe consider moving to uh just

because it's a little cleaner and it follows the budget the budget book which is the new one well you're you're familiar with this one right you look at yeah you're familiar with that what color is it the the last one same they're both exactly the same you'll just see the different layout and how it's um howay is the one that has

the black stripe the top thank you I got it okay that's all I was looking changes well ones that we should talk about um that's somewhat so you're asking about format first and then well I just yeah I mean there the the content is the same I just wanted you to see both which do you want to go through e they're both exactly we go through the new one or the old one it doesn't matter I I would suggest we go through the new one I like that one better or it's down broken down by category and as we as we prepared the

budget in the larger sums agree with you Jo discussion like this over spent article um but I had talked to the MMA attorneys and they recommend leaving that over spent article in there I I so I I do have a question about this so this is a lot of extra data in here

compared to the traditional methodology of a single line item it's is just broken down into larger sections of the budget the way that we the way that we did our budget instead of line by line so instead of instead of doing separate warant articles for administration municipal buildings and grounds assessing Information Technology planning and code enforcement because we've we've labeled our budget as general government and included all of those that's just how it's broken down so to me to me that's how we broken down the budget and I I think that's what we should do yeah it seems like how we've been discussing I mean I don't it doesn't really make a difference but it might this is the most transparent and the most the easiest for the the lay people in the audience even not so late people to follow I think this um is a better setup based on the way the budget is proposed I think it also I mean even

though town meeting was very fast by comparison last year this This lends itself to even getting through it faster because typically Administration would have been its own vote Information Technology articles old ones 47 yeah

thing that didn't get inserted in this is the ordinance articles but they're in the old one so those so okay Joe do you want to read the Highlight or would would you those are the ones that he wants us to discuss or do you want me to read them or

the highlighted items well you go through it the reason why I highlighted them was because I wanted to discuss them that's all cuz the overspend article was from okay go ahead goe no all right so you want to just any questions on article

don't believe we have to vote article by article we can discuss them and year so I wasn't voting on every article no never voted on the appropriate discussion any changes like highlight areas for say I think and you'll add the one we added yes I that I just wasn't sure since it was kind of a change in appearance if we wanted to start with number five

is an overspent article from uh 2022 and and I was talking with Mark about it and uh we were discussing you know should we put it in there where it's two years old I did talk to the MMA tanies today just to get their View and they said yeah you're going to want to leave it in there just just for transparent it's overspent you should ask for that money so so we're going to leave that in we leave that one in there and and reason why I just want to be clear the reason why he overspent is because he applied for Grants and he used money out of his operational budget thinking that the matching was going to come back and go back in and it it just didn't happen so that's that one um so that that'll stay 17 and 18 we

reviewed already yeah so 17 you're good with those right the way they're written did you approve them earlier yeah 23 okay so 23 is ties to the capital accounts Reserve accounts and this would give the the select Bo authority to

um expend those funds as they SE as they deem necessary but you can read it so this one would be a new one that you didn't have in their previous So when you say reserves I just want to make sure that I understand correctly you're talking about reserves like emergency Grant Recreation telecommunication I'm not sure where and what your Authority in those reserves are I don't know what has been in the past but I know Capital reserves you obious Trustees of those so when you're talking about this right here what is your I'm talking about the capital reserves yeah that whole like the flat funding of the capital and we talked about that flexibility where the board could then spend it as it seemes fit okay this I think that this article is going to require either like something shown on a PowerPoint or presentation to try to because there's going to be a lot of questions about that I think this is

the one that people are going to be like we've never done this before you can just spend it on whatever and I think that's where showing the scheduled um repairs and replacement of equipment and stuff like that the plan explaining the flat funding would be important here because there's going to be I think there's just I mean we can not plan for it but certainly someone's going to say what you know that's just my thought hell I this I had brought this up before and and I do feel strongly about this that I think in terms of transparency whether it happens um I guess it would make sense for it to happen after town meeting if this is approved that there is a section on the website that that ties to what the capital reserve accounts um are at and what the um schedules are so that people have the ability to just easily go and see that this is what we have this is what we're planning and then as that is

updated do that there for them to see as well just so that it's not not people aren't caught off guard by it do have access to that information if they want to go find it mhm so put the replacement schedules on yeah the website and the information like whatever the presentation is perhaps that's that's made for town meeting that H maybe has a

tab so that people can see this is the explanation of what the plan is and then these are the schedules for each capital reserve account that yeah I was just going to say when we talked about the flat funding Jerry gave us those sheets that showed each year showed a graph and then showed estimated what we thought they were going to be and I think that is that what you're referring to is I think it would be useful for us to show that when this comes up and then say if approved this information would be on the website just to build more transparency and try to build a little bit more trust with the community and comfort on that because I think this will be the a lot of discussion on this one sorry I think the schedules could be posted now I don't think we have to wait for that we have the capital schedules now the budg the um I don't think that that's a problem at all or or maybe perhaps assuming it's approved like how

we do the thing for the warrant articles for the land use ordinance changes and people have the ability to click on that Tab and they can see the information ahead or or the public meeting information if if we put a tab that said

this this has been part of what the select board is discussing propos this is going on the warrant so that people have the ability ahead of town meeting to be able to go get some information around this my naive here but can you just give me an example of when you would put this in force when you would ask the SL board to do this sure if if if something we were planning to buy is cheaper this year and we have the funds and we need it sooner or it breaks if it breaks we need to do it or at the replacement Market it doesn't need replac we can say keep waiting because they didn't ask for it in their budget this year because they knew there was that flexibility versus in the past we would have for truck special town meeting yeah yeah or we want to get basically cart launch to the S board well well I wouldn't say it like that I say that's kind of how read you give that's why I'm bringing up this discuss

you give cart blanch to the select board to follow the um the 10e plan for each department based on their Reserve account that's not how read that that might be well that might not be yeah I understand it's not how it reads but this basically grants it says inance with the purpose of the reserves yeah right and so with the reserves change the purpose of the reserves change but we're saying that we would show the intended purpose like what Jerry gave us at like five or six meetings ago the the replacement schedule we'd say like this is what we want to establish the intended purpose and we want to show you all and then this will be available online for you all to see cuz we had that discussion where it was like if a department head thinks oh next year I might need a truck and they ask for the money and then they don't necessarily need the truck it's like well I got the money should I go buy the truck or

versus you know we're planning on replacing this truck in two years it broke this year now we have to have a special time me to get the truck whereas I think this is better and we just are establishing at the same time what the purpose of the Reserve our by showing and then having it on the website that if that someone thinks that I explained that wrong let me know no I do think it's important though we're having this discussion that it's ahead of time I think that that has to be up ahead of time that this is going you know that we're going to do this so what if you just change the language to say instead of in accordance with the purpose of the reserves in in accordance with the 10-year

plan um as approved by the CIP committee but I think I think based on what our plan is we're trying to make it so that if if there's a way we can do things cheaper more efficiently I understand it um I just don't know I just think this is too ambigious I'll just beid of that this can open up doors to a lot of different expenditure in accordance with the purpose of the reserves uh expenditures in accordance with the proposed 10year plan yeah but again it's a 10-year plan it's not a 10-year guarantee it's a plan that plan changes I've giv several examples of how that plan changes over the years it's changed dramatically sometimes so I mean that's a long P like so if something was on the plan to be purchased in year eight and now it's year one and we say well you know we could save $5,000 we're going to buy it now versus wait till year eight I mean that would give you the authority to do that that's the

right yeah but that's that's my problem with it it's it's basically giving you car launch to buy whatever you want whatever you want well within within the context of the plan but Ian it could be that's and and that's that's the intent the intent is the intent is look uh we're planning on buying you know a pumper Truck Yeah so we're saving up money for that we're planning on buying a a new Cloud truck and we're also planning on fixing the roof well the roof uh we plan on fixing the roof 15 years from now when we estimate it useful light is going to be up and we're going to replace it well we had a heavy snowfall and roof caved in we don't need to go to a special town meeting to ask if we can replace the roof we have money already uh set aside in the reserve and available to be used and the amounts that we're raising every year are accommodating that so that we're essentially keeping the the amount

that's being taxed at a reasonable flat or slowly increasing rate like 1% 2 I think that's that's the point that's so important to make is that we don't want to see big spikes we want to try to keep things as level as possible right as opposed to well we raiseed taxes for uh you know um for this year and then well the roof caved in so we're going to pull from the unassigned fund balance and then we're going to have to compensate for that next year's tax revenue right you don't want to do call my insurance company my well right but you understand you understand the con yes I no yes I no leave it at

thing here is just presenting this well and also presenting that you know under this strategy we know that this department is asking for $25,000 for Capital reserves every year for the next 10 years this Department's asking for 195 and the thought process being that helps folks have a better understanding of what's on the horizon versus hey in five years we're going to have to ask for the big one because we need a new you know plow truck or we're going to buy a grater or we're going to get a dump truck you know whereas this helps you know you know you're going to replace roughly replace this in 10 years squirrel away if you get to the 10 year mark and you don't need it you don't have to buy it you might be able to stretch it for a few more years might get it refurbished I think the interest savings is also a thing to point out that will that's worthy of showing why this is beneficial too correct it's much cheaper

this way because you're not borrowing for it and on top of that generating interest on the savings as you're as you're building up that I don't see what that has to do or anything yeah I'm seeing it it's two separate subjects myself so so we've got

anything to do with nothing to do with it but it does it does have to do with how is this a benefit to us and why would we V yeah the first thing is is is is being able to explain the flat funding um uh item and why we did that in regulation to keeping the taxes at more of a more of a gradual increase as time goes on the second part of it is is giving the select board authorization to spend those fund funds against that plan it will that's a second second item that's I I'd like to see us keep that separate you know from the from the the two different subjects in my mind you know you first got to get the the town all on board with I'll say flat funding the Departments with the gradual increase that's a change of what the way we've done it in the past and then secondly is now you're giving the select board authorization to spend those at will for those things I get it they got the schedule and everything but I

I it that's a second leap it's not the same leap in my mind so can I just bring up one concern that I have if this doesn't pass we didn't put any of the reserves the expenditures out of the reserves we're not putting that on the warrant so if this doesn't pass right then there we don't have a mechanism to fund we do we have to have another special town meeting that's correct that's what they have and that's what at some point the town's people have to have trust in this board and this town manager and whoever's sitting in those seats and say we trust them yeah uh there's no way to just magically make that happen but this is something that's going to you know the expectation is it's going to save us money in the long run these two articles com because they're two separate articles but combining them saves US money and gives more flexibility to um the department heads in the town um and it comes you know for

some people it might come might come with a leap of faith but if they don't like what happens they have their power at the next town meeting at the the voting booth at at our meetings and all those things and I would just say to them you know at some point we have to do things what's best for the town and this is what's best what we believe is best for the town not only us but based on the people that we've retained to make these recommendations yeah I think I'd be okay with it if it was at least capped spend up to maybe 15% per year on something like you're basically to say I can buy whatever my credit limit is for that year or whatever my fund balance is I can exhaust it I think that's that's really what the issue is and then understanding though that I mean what that those Reserve funds are four and that if you do it if you do it this year you you're not going to be able to do all these other things you need to do so

then you have to answer to the town's people and uh I think I think it's just a little I mean that's where it comes a leap of faith you just have to have some faith in this that's a big leap of faith to wouldn't even give a I think a $10,000 uh basically uh fund just for a discretionary fund well that was the seven members of the budget committee last year that voted against that what was the town too no we didn't it didn't go to the town they yeah we did have a motion on the town floor for selectboard discretionary fund oh maybe a discretionary fund I believe it was

year and it got shot down like a rocket and that's where I said I think that if we're showing behind the I'm saying this is a bad idea I want to be clear on that I'm just saying no I think it's important to have the discuss going to it's it's it's there's just not enough dialogue yet for me to just to say it's just too open-ended like there's there's no Capal there's there's nothing well there's still you know input from the CIP and then you still are voting for CP is all over they don't me till next year this no input but they helped drive those strategies for what's included there and you know you are relying on the expertise of your department heads to say you know we're not pulling it out of nowhere that this is an expected lifetime for Jo I I think the wor I'll tell you one of the Prime examples of where I draw from in the past that would worry me on this is the ladder truck for many years the fire

chief and we had panels apparatus committees etc etc half buying a new ladder truck half we're never getting a new ladder truck new Chief comes we'll just refurbish the new ladder truck but in the meantime the like board or whomever this year could have just bought a new ladder truck and it could have and might that's my point things the CH the this town especially the way it grows is very fluid and I think you just need to be careful on a quote unquote 10year plan um because a 10-year plan might be too far of a stretch for this town I mean isn't that kind of what we Ted Jerry was tasked to do though is to come up with a capital plan we've been working on a 10-e plan before we even hire right but I mean like and that's why we came with this flat funding I just feel like this is kind of like the Midnight Hour to be pulling out on this process this is the way this question is reading this time tonight

that yeah but the process we we've talked about like four or five minute at this point the process for this year and how much we were spending yes but not overall in perpetuity what if we've been talking about it not in perpetuity well we've been talking we talked about flat funding for this year for specific equipment 10 year presentation on the 10e plan yeah we haven't talked about it in terms of let's just grant this Authority that's what this would do that's what what this would do so not in that context I disagree with you check notes but check them I don't care

it I don't either that's my consider and so so what I would suggest is that this if we include Lang language something like the select board in consultation with the town manager and department head so that way isn't that implied though with that's that's one of his concerns is it's not implied and so if you add that language it's in consultation that way and and whatever consultation means to the board uh you know but to me and and then at the end purposes of

the reserve if we just said purposes of the uh the 10-year plan that each department has created as you could actually list out the the different reserves and then list what the purpose of each Reserve is Public Works capital reserve purchase and acquire and construct Public Works related Capital asset I mean you could just put it as part of this article yeah I'll tell you what to make it quick I just how I personally read it just you guys can it doesn't necessarily take the ambiguity out of it and doesn't limit anything but what if you just put to see if the town will authorize the town manager with the select board approval yeah because you have the ultimate approval any correct that will alleviate it being more of a more of a joint effort rather than a total authoritarian effort from a select board it the the the request will come from the town manager it'll be approved by the select board

yeah I think it's six of one half dozen the other I don't think there's any difference between that and this so I don't care whatever gets people to the Finish Line I understand I understand your point it's wording but I just want to just it's wording that's all I'm I got I I just want to see if I'm reading I just want to yeah do I respect that on you yeah no question to see if the town will authorize this the town manager but the town manager doesn't appropriate the fun it has the approval has to come from us so what if I mean that that's where my that's where my concern which is why I said the town manager in consultation with the select board with the consultation request from the town manager request select board with the request from the town that's F I think that's I'm assuming that's what would happen I'd like to assume this was going to happen but yeah to see if the town will

the upon the request of the Town manager the town will authorize the select board upon request of the Town manager to appropriate to appropriate first to appro First oh to appropriate upon request Town manager a PA the town's Reserve or recommendation request and recommendation of the town man I think it's as long as there's two parties y yeah I think the request is already going to be coming in the I think okay request of the Town manager

okay the request will include the recommendation this is why we're going to do this fund upon request of the Town manager from the towns reserved as they deem necessary for expenditures and accordance with the purpose of the reserves do we like that I'd like to make a motion that article 23 um with the proposed edit to include

upon request of the Town manager after the words appropriate funds [Music] um be included in the 2024 warrant articles so just have a second I'll second second on voting on budget article I mean on voting on warrant article wording I do remember that happening I think what you're trying to do Heather is vote to amend article 23 to state to see if the town will authorize to select board to appropriate funds upon requests from the town manager from the town reserves as they deem necessary for expenditures in accordance with the purpose of the reserves sure so if we friendly yeah if

we aren't voting on The warrants individually we're at least voting to change this one and then we're accepting them all so okay that works for me also okay we El set on the word so yeah and I whatever we want to call that an amendment or amend an article a motion how about you want me to remove remove you want me to um withdraw motion I'll I'll withdraw

my motion there you go Robert rules man Robert a tricky guy sometimes I try to get things going and it just went the wrong to state to see if the town will authorize the select board to appropriate funds upon request from the town manager from the town's Reserve as they deemed necessary for expenditures in accordance with the purpose of the reserves second seconds any have the further discussion all in favor okay

carries unanimous all right article 24 is also highlighted oh I just wanted to say real quick so we did just discuss briefly the need for like the explanation of flat funding on this article and the explanation of the the 10year plan and so are we agreeing that that should be shown on the screen or provided as an intern in the town I definitely think that that should be the case and I also think that it should be on the website ahead of town meeting because I understand what you're saying it's like it's a leap of faith so I want to make sure people aren't getting the information and then being asked two seconds later whether they go and find the information beforehand is different story but at least if we're providing it so it's almost like a little blurb of information in association with the article I don't know if that's been done before can I ask question the land stuff it was if we put the replacement

schedule on the website and we're due to buy something and we don't buy it because it's not ready are we misleading them with that information no I'm just asking I think if it's proposed if the word proposed right this is the proposed plan proposed replacement 10 now yeah I mean it is a proposed it's a an estimate on a on a plan for replacement and then the the the point of it all is that it will um allow us you know flexibility to

hopefully exercise that plan later than sooner is really the the biggest point there you know this that so we don't have to just go out and buy a truck and it also allows us the latitude that if we do wait and we waited the extra year or two and then the truck just goes kaputs we can just go out and get one right then and there you know granted this Le times on things but that's that's a different problem um to have but you can to me that's kind of the some of the the pitch to it um I'm just debating on when we would do that whether we'd present that at the beginning of the meeting or not we can discuss that afterwards I wouldn't necessarily maybe but that's a different we have time discuss it

yep okay so I think I think yes I think there does need to be some sort of of whether we do it in the beginning in the I'll say the manager presentation at the beginning of the meeting um I think it's on us to present this I don't no no I what I'm getting at is during that part of the meeting or or in the middle um either either or um and I I get it that yes the select board should probably present it do we agree that it can it should be a tab on the website ahead meeting the wave of the land use article option to be able to go in and see what those proposed CH problem with putting a proposed 10e schedule out on the website now I don't see any reason why you wouldn't do that ahead of time I do plan on putting a budget on yeah yeah I would put it up there with the budget you know as a separate item that we're all on the same page I mean the 10e schedule could be you know should be out there anyways because then

as we update it the next year will become number year 10 after this year's up right so you know it's a revolving 10e schedule you know so you just keep I would not put live edits up there I will say it needs to still go through the the chop of the CIP before you go and put the next year's schedule up but well I'm not meaning well the CIP looks at that schedule so the department heads come up with their schedule yearly correct the 10year schedule you're going to add a year next year right because you're going to get you're going to get 2035 on there whatever year is the 10th year that'll add on next year don't post that until it's vetted don't don't make it a live update meaning don't update it continuously I would only do it once a year right that's what I'm saying once a year but I don't know what the CIP committee has to do with it well they're the first ones that look at it next year next

year after you get done with your department had you hand that off to select board and CIP yeah and what are they going to do with it they at least go through and and and look at it and and um look at the request for that year but that's the time but there's no request it's flat funding I get it but you're still going to update the that schedule I um yeah you're right that's flat funded you're still never mind sorry okay almost almost we're almost getting towards the thing where the time at time this will be a referendum before we know it yeah yeah very true yeah so article 24 is just a standard one we have every year and I want Mark to speak to that because I yeah I mean uh ultimately this first of all I don't I doubt that this number is calculated correctly but I think uh that this entire War article is is moot um because

uh the way people think of the property tax and the way that the statute is actually written how it's calculated there two different things most people think property tax levy limit is whatever we raised last year there's a limit on how much we can raise this year based off of uh the property growth factor and the personal average personal income Factor right so that's not how the statute reads statute reads that your property tax levy limit is last year property tax levy limit not the last year's property tax levy but the limit increased by whatever the those two factors are um and so as a result by

now because the the statute went into effect back in 2005 uh and because the limit is always greater than last year's right uh it's actually compounded to a point where now it's unrealistic that any town or County would be over there property tax levy limit and I'll give you the example from last year uh Franklin County asked me to do the calculation because they the administrator was worried that uh the 20% increase one of the one of the counties residents was you know complaining hey you're going to be over the property tax L limit um because it was going to be a 22% increase in terms of property tax levy from one year to the next 22% tax increase uh I did the

calulations and the calculations were property tax levy limit they could have raised 83% more than what they had done in the prior year uh because of the the fact that it wasn't based off of what they had actually raised last year it based off of what their limit would have been last year and their limit last year was based off of what their limit would have been the prior year and so on and so forth all the way back almost 20 years uh and given the fact that you know those two factors the proper growth factor and the average personal income Factor are pretty large they're not like 3% 5% I mean during co uh during the last like three years just the average personal income fact was like 12% I mean it was it was crazy large and and then when you add on to that the um the property growth rate I mean you were getting well I think no the two combined was like 12% so there were in the last

um 15 to 18 years that percentage increase has been pretty significant um to the point where like I said Franklin County could have raised their taxes almost doubled their taxes and they would have been under the under the property tax L limit so this article at this point first I think C the $1.8 million is incorrectly calculated anyway because you're just focused on the municipal Appropriations and and the ld1 doesn't actually the statute doesn't talk about just Municipal Appropriations just says how much levying taxes so that would include your county tax and your how much you're levying to compensate for your county tax and your education so you really should be around $1 million or something anyway and on top of that I think you're probably your property tax levy limit is probably somewhere around like I would imagine 156 million at least and there there's no way that you'd ever come close to

that now you can leave it in if you want I would suggest getting rid of the actual number unless you want somebody to calculate it um if you leave it in and people vote it down doesn't matter because you're not going to be anywhere near it if you leave it in and people vote Yes doesn't matter so all I'm saying is I think it's I think it's unnecessary at this point and I just point pointed out to clients because there is this misconception about what what it really is um that's that's pretty much it so you can leave it then it just doesn't really make any difference how people go for it

that we have it on because you're not going to go required for you to have it if you're going to exceed the property tax levy limit and you're asking the the taxpayers hey are you are you allowing us to exceed what is the limit for the body statute but not going to be anywhere near in the past have we skipped that and not voted on it unless it was we have came into issue we we it was not needed last year we skipped it right if it's not that's what I mean we have just not voted on it unless we are closed based off what you're saying in the past years when we said oh we might cover cross the limit we probably we calculating any what if they raise money on the floor even even if they would have to raise X millions of dollars on the floor like Police Department you get anywh I mean I I really do think that most PE I think most people in M have a misconception about it because they really think that there is this limit of

you know a certain percentage over last year's tax levy but that's really not how the statute reachs statute reads last year the subsequent Year's property tax levy liit and so when you add that up over years and years and years it's not applicable why going take

time and discussion just adds to the Mee close to the tax sounds several million dollars yeah I don't think are we comfortable taking it out I'm good cool okay I do we want to vote on that well I don't think you have to I'm just asking yeah no and don't go with article 24 because things might shift as we take things out I see I see what you're saying okay we'll just take it out on going to take it out y um the so so 25 and 26 you can open up the other we'll do the ordinance on we'll stick with this so these business articles I just left the the um we're going to skip the ordinance for now okay so I just left that in I mean this is your warrant I'm assuming you probably want to take it out um this was the whole reducing the uh but we take that right out I just left it in because it was in last year that was the whole I'd leave it in just to see hey we still can't fill these seats yeah I was thinking leave in we

only got eight eight members now and um maybe we'll get somebody to run or well there is someone new running right there's no papers in correct there are three people running for the three spots there're are okay they were all stuck so take it out because we're all there's three people running and is the the vacant seat was that for somebody who was being elected who would have been elected this year the B seat I believe was which her term would have ended if all three are elected it will be filled with nine it currently has eight and there's one vac not the

don't know tell me I I'm I'm I'm I mean you could leave it in there again I mean think that the I mean my my own opinion on this is the budget committee does not need nine people it's really that simple they they could they could survive with five people and maybe two alternates at most the the the the you know I'm not not sure that you you get value with the nine people and we're always I mean granted we have three people that are running for the seats um you know I I think typically we're short um but um but anyways I just you know I just my

own opinion on that Heather my only concern is that if we have people are going to be elected the day before right you can't change it now what we ran into last people are going to be elected the day before we have three people running we have three open seats they're going to be elected the day before but but I think what we said is I mean you can change the years here the the years would have to be changed the years would have to be changed and you just age out the people when they when they fall off and then that's it I feel like the AC just came on what you said I feel like the AC just came on for 66 so very well 65 yeah 65 but anyway so um I mean I I

don't think this is a bad idea um you I'm not trying to no heat for you trying to try to try to um you know not undermine what the budget committee does for us that I don't think that's the point it's just that it it's a um you know there's a large amount of people on that committee and I'm just not sure you need that many people to make the decisions they're making rich I think I think last year the reason why we put this on was because we were having a hard time filling those billets for a lack of better words um being that we don't have that right now and being that the town was I think they were pretty convincing that they wanted it to stay as it is see a reason for to present it again at this point in

agree with Rich there I mean last year we brought it up and it was a big discussion because there's people who just got elected and said which seat is the seat that you decide to take off and who doesn't and then so if we were having the same problem of not enough not being able to fill it I don't necessarily think it needs nine but we're going to have nine as of April 6 yeah I mean ourselves the vote I i' I'd like to utilize the budget Committee in different ways next year um you know I mean they they literally meet for I'll say six hours on the budget so the amount of time actually the the the you know time for Value there is um you know

I'm not just not sure you get the entire value out of all those people I'd like to diversify what they go do um you know it maybe even change their Charter a little bit um well their Charter says they're supposed to review our audit I I I I I get that there's already more opportunities but you know again again they they meet for about six hours a year as the question is is Charter change would require a to we don't have any authorization charge anything about the budget committee does it's not even worth discussing it doesn't fall they're independent they're independent they're independent than us yeah we don't have any control over the budget committee it's meant to be by Design check exactly

right okay so are we removing it remove it Article 28 yeah my comment on this to Jerry was that I wasn't really understanding the purpose of the warrant article um under State Statute the select board to have the authority to raise what they call an overlay of up to 5% more than what is required by the calculation um that's called the overlay uh so I think that that's what this is asking U because there's no such thing as as the town's people saying that you can't that you're going to limit how much you're going toate taxes if the assessor says hey man I screwed up and I I valued this

property incorrectly and we you know this company paid us $100,000 more than they were supposed to then you got to obey that they they didn't owe the taxes it doesn't matter whether or not it's 5% more than what the tax levy was or 10% more it doesn't matter you have to obate the taxes so this doesn't really make any sense to me because either it's you're you're just talking about can we raise an overlay can do that state statute or you're asking for something that we can't they can't authoriz the town's people can't say no we're not giving back that taxes that they don't I thought that I remembered that

this it did I thought that itle 33 I thought that it said that if we didn't if a budget didn't pass that the the what that this article not this one that's the way that this is worded but that they could use the previous year's budget number oh that's that's a different one okay we're going to talk about that so you're saying that this worn article is not not needed because this is under the S boards Authority anyway when we set the overlay yeah there's a statute that allows you to raise up to so more or less is saying vote to follow State Statute right so

remove make much sense let ta it [Music] think this so article four right going backwards yeah we got yeah CU I didn't highlight this one I just think the year needs to change which does matter what sheet it's very front page both of them both both oh this is what I said yeah right this is memory but that should say 2023 correct yes yes okay okay I'm good y

okay okay so last year's warrant had the same year that's why we're trying to another question so that was wrong yeah I hate when that happens so we'll change that to 202 okay can I ask a question about the business articles sure so I had brought this up last year because the interest number in like 34 and

35 and whatever I I'm just making sure that we're crossing our teas and dotting our eyes that those interest numbers reflect the current like what this what it what it is now what the statute says like because that number changes right the statute doesn't specify the number that I think it's the main Revenue Service sets the number right set every year I don't know what it is for this year okay I don't I think it's more than 2% okay so that I just want to make sure that that gets so we need to change that number to whatever the state indicates do we know where that is you can't go more than that we can't go more more than that but we don't have to go to that number that's corre don't so I don't know

don't want to sh it no no so okay there was there was a conversation like what that if we're holding taxes not paying interest to people on money that people are basically prepaying right but then there was one where we charge people interest if they're late and so I just want definitely for the late to reflect whatever the highest rate is that we're able to get oh is that that's what I'm trying to say yeah well we can look that up okay I don't know I mean maybe other people don't feel that way but I do so you're saying like the first one's saying the rate to be paid by the town then 35 is the rate to be paid by the pursuant correct and right now we're saying the town pays 2% but the to see if the town will vote to authorize the tax collector or Treasurer to accept prepayments no we want that to stay zero and then to see if the town will vote to set the interest rate to be paid by the town on overpayment of Abad taxes so no

where's the other one no no it's number article 34 oh okay um oh no yeah you're right I'm sorry I don't is there no one that says interestate to the town there normally is one right there normally is that yeah sorry I left the conversation it's not in here the article that people pay interest to the town if they article 30 oh it didn't get put in there article 30 just doesn't say a specific percentage

well it actually says it's be Max maximum allow by the state law okay perfect that's that's the same article 35 from last year exactly the same wording okay thank you okay so so we're all set there anything other else on the business articles no yep I have one that I want to go over with you 39 the one in blue yeah I was getting back to yep yeah so this this is kind of getting into my um man my manager report so I had so I think we

need to take this out and not even do it this year and here's the reason why um Donna and I had a conversation and where we're going into a reevaluation we don't want to do a reevaluation and change the fiscal year all at the same time that would

create potentially a mass because you've got some people are building new houses that are getting assessed at the current rate at the but then you have other people who aren't and if we start doing re-evaluations and readjusting the it could really turn so she wants to wait until the re-evaluation is over to get everybody on the same playing field and then do this so I put this on here thinking we would do it this year but both of us aren't comfortable with that so okay Joe I think

heathera so my only question would be that my understanding was that we the reval wouldn't be able to be done until 2027 so we have to wait and even though that's the case we like if we did do it this year that's three years before the Ral is done that's not enough time in between she didn't she didn't like it okay no okay so we'd be looking at potentially switching to a fiscal year the earliest would be probably 28 right I mean we we've been going this rout for this long I would say probably later than 2028 yeah and

earliest so and here's here's another so be before you just asked this so I thought we were coming in here to ask the town it's more to me of a survey vote than anything else doesn't mean we had to do it next year and it doesn't mean we have to do it the year after but does the town have any interest in going this route um I thought was what our um what the goal was here because I I took this as after they say yeah we like it we'll go put a committee together and have them look at how this that would be a good use of the budget committee to go look at how this looks well we don't need your committee to do that it's all laid right out and okay I mean we'll just we'll just do it then towns do it yeah I I think I mean you can do that if you want but then you're GNA say well we're going to do it in three years so why would you ask it now so but that's just my I think eventually I'm a big in favor of going to this but I I think I

think it needs to be discussed throughout the year prior to it going on this for there has to be some meetings about it because it does there it's going to be some changes with it whether it's two tax bills year or maybe a tax bill and a half in one year or something like that so I think we need to get out in front of this probably a year or two prior to it coming out but I don't I I don't see how we could even add it on this to agree with Jerry to get rid of it I think that um last year if I remember correctly the presentation like what when it it listed it as one of the goals and so I think that it should definitely be listed as a goal goal same keep the goal there but also you know at town meeting it's I think it's the I mean it is the largest opportunity that we have with people face to face we we'd never see more people at any meeting other than town meeting throughout the year and so I think that's an

opportunity to say to people please pay attention to the website please pay attention to the newsletter we will be holding like informational Gathering sessions and that type of stuff and we want people to take part in it in a and get that out at town meeting where we do have potentially 200 residents versus Phyllis at our but but it sounds like Jerry doesn't doesn't want to take the time to even do that next year even the informational sessions well I mean you could I mean the informational syst I just wouldn't do it until the reevaluation done and everybody's on the scene okay yeah that's fine okay I think most people are look what's that mean like well it could mean paying for 18 months taxes it could mean paying two tax bills oh so let me let me explain to um what we're doing with the re so um

we got the two bids back that makes so they would complete them in 27 the actual bid itself said ction date by 2026 M so we had they went out to seven both one per one company completely declined and said we couldn't do it two of them said well we'll do it in 27 so Dar and I are like thinking well did the other four not submit a bid because they couldn't meet the 26 deadline so we we resent it back to those four with a 2027 completion date so it match up with the other two that we got okay good and so we we'll see what that just just so it's fair yeah that's a good and that's how this conversation with this all got started with a reevaluation and move into a fiscal issue and then did you want to talk about the well you need to review your the warrant warrant okay which is in your other one it didn't get inserted into the new one so in my other bus

the old formatted one what articles are they wrong those are the well let's not number them because we took articles out anyway so it doesn't matter so don't don't talk about it by article number should be the articles that George gave believe right oh sorry make greater for accessory per to increase lot sizes or Ste requires M on a single lot nothing about that changed correct nothing about this changed from the last time that we had the conversation about this right okay and then 33 to

changed and then to see if the time go to an act me okay wait hold on to see if the scheduled fees for certain pering services so we had made a change it said periodic it said periodically we changed it to annually and I don't see any of that you didn't mention that in there I don't see that but I don't see any reference to it whatsoever now neither one so maybe he just omitted the language we're we're I think that what we're saying here is we're approving the draft amendments to codify certain fees for inclusion in the fee schedule and then if you pick up the copy of the draft amendments it will then right State all that whole document that had that like 26 fees listed out and then we added in the Josh's recommendation of the and anything not previously called out that is called out in the ordinance so I think that this is referencing that document which someone would have to it's kind of like when we did the L like

you don't have the entire solar ordinance listed out in the warrant article you say do you accept the solar ordinance solar ordinance draft and then you go to the copy of it right I understand that I thought when we when we changed the wording of the article there was the annually and periodically change remember we voted we changed the wording of the article but the warrant doesn't contain text okay right we did change that one word periodic and then we added Josh wasn't here but we added your suggestion about the in collect set fees if something's not called out specifically okay if

we're not voting on that so what we're going to vote to accept this with the changes that we made is that I'd like to see it all written out at our next meeting or well we got one's this going the pr okay Jess y goch on it I think we saw that last meeting correct y you you miss last meeting but I think that we had that at last meeting correct if I remember correctly the or the language how we looked at that after we no I just I'd like to see this all together oh sorry that's what I yeah is is it can

we vote to make the changes um and then they send us the draft before it goes to the printer is that it's got to go on it's got to go on Friday so I don't want back I won't have time to come in between now and Friday so it doesn't matter me I trust you

the mercy of time and if something in the in the past if something has come back you can write like a little letter in there changing the actual wording of the article we vote on that at the top right because we can put it'll still say draft you have up to seven days sticky before tell me post it so we still have time I can't remember what it was but I know there was something little insert the only other point that I want col to make is usually you did your ordinance articles first at town meeting this one is set up to do the budget articles you okay with that or does it matter you have any preference or so I just want to point that out I just is there a reason why it was changed or just just wait no just all I

know is you're asking me to attend the town meeting and I'm charging by the hour and last year's ordinance articles took from 9 till 1 I think it's fiscally responsible where I you could just do the budget War articles first or I can show up no I think that's I think that's a Fair article and I think it's fair to you it's people like the chief who don't necessarily need to be there as a non-resident to discuss back Lots or whatever we're discussing in that particular so I think that's yeah is the budget committee going to meet before this goes to the printer because I think we've changed our budget recommendation and if my recollection is correct yeah they unless they want to keep their use of fund balance the same with the new tax county tax coming in they'll have to meet to change it before Friday before you to print yeah maybe they can do it by email vote because we made it easier and we voted to go with

their numbers right but they don't have the they don't I I understand that but I'm saying in terms does does the budg comme vote on on fund yeah they do they vote on everything that has a fiscal impact okay I think we're we're done with this part or do you want are we voting on the whole thing oh we didn't do that yet sorry I I'm trying to keep us moving down the road yeah we're going to vote on the whole thing with the with the Ed the so I would like to make a motion that we accept the draft

2024 Durham Town warrant warrant because it's not just budget um with the edits made tonight second anything discussion all in favor okay motion carries unanimously wanted me to scan this your manager you need you need a copy of all the changes do you have them no I have

manager report other than what I told you about um conversation that I had with Don um that's really pretty much all I got yeah um oh we did I I can report on this I have moved into the uh the boardroom now so Jessica is working on moving to where I was and slow move but we're getting there you going to put a lock or something on that or there is a lock so okay yeah it does lock Jerry's catching up with Calvin in terms of office yes all right do I have a motion to accept the consent agenda so moved second all in favor I just have one question sorry we're making committee appointments can we do that in the consent agenda or unless you want to discuss them I think you can oh okay okay unless we want to discuss them yeah so all in favor we're

back all in favor okay unanimous all right uh committee appointments uh we have Durham scholarship committee oh we just I thought we just voted to accept that and the consent agenda is that part of it or a separate item sorry okay my my apologies all right sign it

that's what you said Thank you to the volunteers for the Committees that have put their name in here Durham scholarship committee Deputy Warden and election Warden thank you my P kind of all right upcoming Mee meetings we got select board meeting on 35 next week which is a workshop um we um got our next scheduled

meeting uh for regular business on 312 those are both of the fire station planning boards on 36 24 uh any reason to have an executive session this evening seeing none okay do I have a motion to ajour so move all right second second Joe all in favor

thank you all very much have a wonderful [Music]