TranscriptSelect Board/Budget Committee Meeting ~ January 12, 2023

order select board meeting with a workshop with the budget committee stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please liberty and justice for all that we do have warrants that we voted on at the last meeting that we need to sign during the course

point I'll turn it over to you Jerry Thank you Mr chairman um thank you all for showing up again tonight I know it's the best night to be out here but it's better to be in here than outside I guess um so tonight I'm going to have uh to fall first present the capital Improvement stuff they'll go first and then we'll have a real commissioner Calvin bowmir to present in his budget and then when he's done I'm going to update you on some of the stuff that I have done give you the Telecom if you have Services stuff and talk about solving waste a little bit software Paul wants to

you want to sit over here absolutely chair of the CIP committee um so this was the CIP committee's I believe fourth year doing the CIP process this year and um it was a fairly typical Year and that we you know we all met uh an initial time just to vet the materials that were submitted by staff and uh to ask any questions to

the manager that we have with regard to The Five-Year Plan and the schedules um and also the applications and then we had a second meeting we put put our questions together and we had a second meeting where we met with both uh the road commissioner and the fire chief to get any answer any questions answered that we had that were remaining so um I'd say overall it was a challenging Year from the perspective of uh a number of projects that uh really Rose to the top in terms of importance and after we after we met with staff we all all the committee members uh there are four of us we went off on our own we scored the projects according to the uh scoring metrics that are in the policy and then uh those scores were then aggregated and developed into the ranking of the projects that I believe you received in your notebooks and I don't have a copy of your notebooks I don't know exactly what you received but

my understanding is that you received the both the memo and the rankings so um number one and you can also refer to the notes in the memo with regard to why some of these things rank where they did number two was the fire department

number four was the Public Works truck that's I believe that's a one ton the next one was assessing and that's saving up for the reval following assessing was the the Chiefs truck the fire department Chiefs struck and then following the truck was the the fire department generator

then the Public Works Reserve and the town office generator then was the final one that was ranked so I will encourage you rather than going through the memo in detail I really encourage you to read it because you know we all took some time as a committee to develop these thoughts these notes with regard to you know why we emphasize some projects and not others so please read the notes in the memo and um I will mention that

um we will be meeting you know we we'd like to see the reserves generally rank higher and they've been ranking uh I think we need to do a little tweaking to our scoring regimen which uh seems to emphasize projects that are more of an immediate need and that have for example an immediate Public Safety benefit and so as a committee we're talking about getting together later uh probably next fall to see if any you know tweaks might be needed to the scoring which would then go to the selection um but beyond that also you know another thing that I'll just mention here right up front we'd like to see a better definition with regard to the account balances and uh The the Reserve accounts

need to be set up in in Trio in the accounting system as separate accounts so that they can be better tracked so I'll leave it at that and I'm assuming also that as you go through your meeting tonight I don't know what you guys did last last week or I guess it was winds Tuesday if you've met with the department heads but I see them both here tonight so I'm assuming you're meeting with them tonight I certainly did find that through the process this year uh both the Public Works director and the fire chief did a tremendous job with regard to really um putting together complete applications I think they really nailed it pretty well in terms of the detail so if you have specific pro project questions that might be worse saving for the department heads when you're doing their budgets I would suggest but if you have uh questions about CIP uh I'd certainly be happy to answer them thank you

things that are given to you and then you make recommendations based on that or does your committee work at all to identify any potential Capital Improvement projects or is it just what you you're just reviewing what just what I'm given so that's up to staff to bring projects forward and to submit the applications and you know we have the the policy if you haven't seen it it uh it gives a very specific process for like you know putting forth the application and exactly what to include on the application so we look for those applications from staff and we you know we look for them to be aligned with their schedules you know with what their their plan is going forward but at the same time we realize not all projects are going to be on the schedule sometimes needs come up uh Capital needs that aren't on the schedule could a um I'm just wondering this is probably something that I can read so if this is

an appropriate time to ask that you can certainly tell me are other committees allowed to fill out those requests or are they only allowed to come from town staff uh I think they're only allowed to come through the manager okay yeah so that those any Committee Member could go through the town manager to submit an application okay and they before they come to the committee they go to the select Mount so both the schedules and the applications go to the selectment for an initial vetting just to make sure everybody's on the same page with regard to yeah this is something we should be looking okay thank you

each project has what appears to be a summary um amount requested Department name date prepared Etc one of those is potential funding sources um who who made that recommendation is that the CIP committee okay yeah great question so you know we talked about this initially um at the end of the day you know we really felt that for a number of reasons it makes sense for the decision with regard to for example are arpa funds to be used for that to be left to to the selectment or to the community or however the selectman determined that that decision is going to be made so potential funding sources was filled in by the selectment uh no potential funding sources were filled in by staff but those are just you know potential at the end of the day that's a decision that gets made prior to town meeting um you know and will be included on in the warrant right I assume so but we're not really to the point it's really at

this point it's too early it was too early for us to say we don't have that full picture with regard hence the word potential I was just curious exactly so yeah we didn't wade into that um I think From cip's perspective also whether it comes from the right pocket or the left pocket that's really not um a decision that we're in a position to make or yeah that really uh would be useful for us to make I can expand on that a little bit just to summarize the sound the process like what happens next and so the board takes um the spirit of the process is the way it's articulated in the process document is that the board would take this and that we would resist if at all possible unless some unusual circumstance changes or whatever you know messing with the order priority order you know really the decision we have is how far down the list can we afford to go this year you know given you know what's happening on

the operational side of the budget you know what do we feel comfortable with proposing to spend on the capital side of the budget and then on the funding sources in a typical year the question would then become how much might come from reserves how much might be raised his taxes that year or how much might come from undesignated funds or something like that this year we have the added wrinkle of arpa funds so one of the things that will be in the in the discussion when the board is going through these is you know which of these things are potential arpa funding candidates and so that they don't impact taxes or require drawing reserves but that will be part of the board discussion when we when we go through these

general one how do we know how much money in the and you bring it in I said right now we got a lump sum of all reserves I'm assuming that one of the things you're recommending or came up on the list was assessing those 60 000 approved last year which has got to be used for assessing if I understand the process right but how do we know on the breakout first how much how do we know that whatever it is that we approved for the fire department is going to buy a new quint in seven to ten years or we are not okay this is a very important question and I'd like to address um from a couple of perspectives one is when a department head makes a reserve request there are two types of applications okay there's a reserve request and there's a project request Reserve requests are to build up the savings the reserve for future years okay a project request is to do something to buy something or a service or something like that in the next

fiscal year but that money is to be spent that next year so um you know we've been going through this process for the last uh four years and it's important that the uh that the reserve that we have separate Reserve accounts so those funds can be stewarded separately and it's easy for us to track you know what has been appropriated for Reserve over the years so we have a definitive we have a well-defined balance and we know what's available excuse me so just to expand on that so when the CIP started their work this year Jerry was really just starting the process of trying to figure out all the accounts and Trio and the bank accounts and what was in what and whatever and he's called in people to help him he's worked with our representative Andrew Scott Bank a lot so we we and the auditor as well so we know now because it was always tracked on on even though the money was in oftentimes like a

single account we do have tracking as to the balances for each of those reserves and and when CIP started that process quite honestly we didn't have numbers that we were confident in about those balances uh but the uh the accounting work has been done and Jerry I think we feel good about what what the balances are we know it's in all the various reserves but Paul is right we need to go to the next step and actually have them be separate accounts in Trio so so that they're they're tracked better yeah so when we had that meeting with the auditor that showed up that she handed out the overview Reserve balances are there so we're pretty confident so what I got to do is go back to the warrant last year and add what's supposed to be in there and you know

yeah and you know I will I I just want to commend the staff because I know that the the new manager uh you know uh uh stepped into all of the you know all of the pieces that are around being a manager and taking on this big new job uh here just not long ago and was able

to pull together all the CIP uh materials very effectively I I feel but there was when the committee met there was still some lingering question with regard to what the reserve balances are I haven't since that time I haven't spoken with Jerry you know I don't know where that landed where you guys landed with regard to reserve balances but I think still in the future the important thing to note is that they should be tracked with separate account numbers and Trio which will make it just easier from an accounting perspective I mean that's that's just that I think that's the the committee's suggestion and you know my suggestion but of course you know these decisions are decisions of the Selectmen and yeah if I could maybe just rephrase my my question is the only uh Reserve that's a

recommendation is here is for assessing fire department it says okay so that starts building up something for a new dump truck or whatever but should we and maybe this is the wrong year to do it should we start saying that in because of the way I read it you fixed the Quint this year and it's good for seven to ten years so if we assume that a quint is a million five do we want to build up a reserve to pay a million five borrow the money 10 years from now that's what I'm being the new guy having trouble well I will say uh you know in particular with regard to the Quint we haven't really crossed that bridge yet we've really been focused on crossing the bridge of what do we do with regard to the current Quint and uh do we does it make sense to um you know purchase a new Quinn or a used Quint or invest in the point we have and I think the solution that was arrived at um was based on quite a bit of research

and negotiate look at is the schedule and hopefully you have the reserve schedules in your packets um if you don't have them this year then hopefully you'll have them in the future are you talking like the five-year plans for each department um well you know you can look at The Five-Year Plan or that's fine or you can look at the schedule uh there are uh three pieces to the process one is the schedules the schedules go out approximately 15 years and they look at

the expenditures um the anticipated Department expenditures for Capital Equipment for the next 15 years and they give you a sense of you know what's coming up you should be able to see that also on The Five-Year Plan for the next five years um so um but you know yes the answer is yes you know we need to be funding those reserves we do need to be funding them and I think it's unfortunate that the Public Works Reserve ranked as low as it did this year and I think that there's you know a couple reasons why that is um but um we need to be funding we need to be funding those Reserves and what happens is based on their schedules um the department heads each year submit a reserve request so you know they will tell us as we start the process how much they're asking for to fund their Reserve uh you know keeping in mind what they've got coming um you know the next year out the year after that year five year six

you know that that's the purpose of the process is for them to come to us with a reserve request to layer onto that the like when you look at a schedule it's not necessarily a given that we need to have saved reserves all the way like for everything on the schedule it's always you know there are multiple funding sources it could be reserves it could be just you could be uh borrowing money uh you could just raise taxes and pay for something so especially in the current environment like for years and interest rates were so low that um there were a lot of board members that felt that you know it wasn't really cost effective to be piling money into reserves if you're paying one and a half two percent you know to bond money um because you're not really making any money on the reserves in fact you might be losing present value owners and Reserve so it's it's tough to know how you will finance something 15 years out you know but I

think to Paul's point you try to have the objects of the reserves is that over time like in a particular year you might tap into reserves more than another year you might tap into it less but the objective is to keep the capital impact fairly consistent you know from year to year so that we don't have big you know spikes and troughs in terms of what we're raising in taxes to fund uh Capital items Heather you had your hand up for a while I was curious about I remember last year we looked at a spreadsheet and we input when we were trying to figure out how much money we wanted to allocate to these certain things and we were able to see if we put

you know sixty three thousand dollars here how that played out is that the schedule and does that represent the money that should be in the account and has that been a cross-reference I think it was what you're I think what you're talking about is the it's actually a spreadsheet that I built a few years ago that helps us see what the tax impact is so like if we did this much money in reserves this would be the tax impact if we did a different amount this would be a tax impact well the one that I'm talking about it was like the specific thing and then over a number of years and if we put the money in and then we bought the truck this was what we had left over and that's how it played out going forward we do not have that right now in fact that that's that's probably a next step on this in terms of you know getting the schedule and then having a multi-year reserve savings plan if you will right but that's a very complicated

Financial Endeavor to do that out when you're trying to track in and out so I think that's um that's kind of like a next step in terms of CIB so when I I remember when we looked at that I thought the numbers on that specific thing were the numbers that we had in capital reserve accounts I don't know if that's helpful to try to cross cross-reference with or not but that was where we were like that wouldn't be a reliable document okay so yeah Jerry

you're talking about and then like it went all the way down to like 2039 and the truck was going to be like 425 I don't think that's very helpful to us today I just didn't know if that those balances represented at that time which would have been last year in this process how much money was in each Capital account in reserves yeah it's so helpful to me I can certainly share it with you and things are always moving so it's never really accurate for any more time like we just bought a we just bought a scanner to do CEO and so that would have that would have moved so it wouldn't have been accurate so I would rarely but you'd be able to tell what you've purchased since Sunday yeah if you if you knew about it that's right or you should know about it you know I'm thinking yeah I wouldn't know about it right and I would put it in there but it still moving like there was interest rates in there that are just estimated and it's

just not very accurate information this stuff we have a twenty one thousand dollar accounting system that we're doing things with spreadsheets I'm not saying we don't use spreadsheets to help you but you certainly shouldn't be a spreadsheet I just got a new computer and I got Office 365 so when I got that my spreadsheets are now acting really funny because it's a different software than I mean it's just I have to be very careful when I go in there and change things I was working with Cal today thank you changing which is automatically update no it's not automatically up because I got a new version of excel so it's not talking you should uh anybody that has Office 365 should always open it in the desktop app don't don't work in the 365 environment yeah so I've been I mean I was updating spreadsheets and I was I was like yeah so they're typically was

because this isn't really it doesn't um germane to our scope of work that we have right now I mean there's a lot of work to be done and I think Joseph there's actually CIP is going to have you know follow-up meetings over the over the next few months to talk about some of these issues um and and try to make the process uh work even better I would like to make one comment and that is um so you know part of this process is as we mentioned that the department heads you know they put together these schedules based on what they think their needs are going to be in the coming years and then they come to us with a reserve request um so then the reserve request comes to you and you figure out you know kind of what the balance is how much you can fund this is one of the reasons why every year it's a dynamic process because it doesn't get funded fully you know the money is usually not there to fund it fully it usually gets cut

because so um anyway thank you and it sounds like okay that's true I have one more CIP question if it's relevant to the work if it's related to the work this year then great yeah yeah um did fire department submit a request for a reserve because I don't have that in my booklet they did not submit a request this year now I know my understanding is is that they have currently they're carrying a healthier Reserve balance then Public Works is so I think that their emphasis was more on the projects this year rather than the reserving public work didn't submit a reserve request either today I have a second question that is foreign

now what are we going to be getting for a capital budget yeah I mean yeah eventually what we'll do is we'll have a spreadsheet that brings together operational capital capital stuff those are typically um each one is uh typically it's old and warrant article questions on the uh on the article on the warrant and so you guys will be voting And discussing individually whether to recommend or not to fund that that Capital request

question for you so I'm under the capital budget um it shows for last year's budget um a total of 4 million 215 000. 51. under the proposed budget for 2023 if all nine suspended that the total would be four million four hundred and seven thousand and three dollars which is a higher amount than last year's amount four million four hundred and seven thousand versus four million two hundred and fifteen thousand that sounds like the entire budget not just capital right that sounds awful lot

question will still work yeah last year's expenditure for capital budget was 500 74 000. listed for this year in Fall nine um go through would be 605 600 5 800 versus last year's 574 000. however it it's showing and you follow columns it's showing that this year's amount [Music] is a decrease

it's showing last year's figure it's it's showing a decrease of 100 percent that to us then you only send it to them well they've requested it in an email so I just said that it says Durham is Municipal budget Kevin needs to review it

that column numbers aside what's your what's the question we're bigger than another one well because I'm sick I was seeing a higher number under expenditure for this year than last year but I was showing it as a decrease in the last year versus this year column correct but it's it's I understand my I've answered myself yeah because we just yeah because the numbers haven't been entered in the Ty column yet yeah so sorry about that yeah no that's fine but if you look if you looked at the grand total

question would have made sense but my question is only related yeah we have it yeah because the number yeah right so but that will that eventually eventually that'll all like for instance when you guys will get after the select board you know after we make our recommendations you'll get a version of that document um that'll be updated with you know what our recommendation is for everything right and it'll be all filled in and you'll be able to see you know if if approved as the select board have it this would be the tax estimated tax impact is important that we say it's estimated because we don't know our state valuation there's a lot of variables that we don't know until we actually commit taxes in July in fact it's almost always the case that what the tax rate actually ends up being is less than that estimate because that estimate uses last year's valuation and the valuation almost always goes up and

it's certainly in this environment we would expect it to go up again so but you'll at least have that as a ballpark estimate of what the tax impact will be does anybody have any questions specifically for Paul because he looks like he might like to leave this well I'd like I'd like to hand the mic back over to Jerry because I'm hearing questions that are non-cip related so I kind of feel like he should have his mic thank you thank you Paula okay thank you all thank you

to make a general question or statement okay um so in the current process that we have requests go to the select board then go to the CIP channel to to rank them well I would say they go to town manager and solicits them from department heads or maybe it might be a committee chair or or whatever and then they all come to the board for review and we don't I don't think we've ever said no don't send that one it's just we just look at them and and maybe ask some questions and maybe sometimes things get tweaked a little bit before they go on and then they go on to the CIP committee where where I could it could possibly happen down the road it's like when the board reviews those initial requests that's where the board is having discussions about the schedules and the board will I think in the future and has in the past um work with you know Town manager or department heads about what should be on

the schedule like you know I hate to pick on the quaint but I'll use it as as an example you know it might not be on the schedule for a replacement in seven to ten years it might be something else you know or it might be but that's that's where the board would make it would make a decision on what even goes on the schedule and then that kind of provides the parameters for the CIP and town manager to work on from there so with that said though

every year for the Departments to put in a wish list for their capital reserve a dollar amount but if it doesn't even make it to the town floor then I mean shouldn't that be separate than the actual projects well it's it is oh are you talking specifically yeah it does it does go to town floor I think she means ranked separately um

Public Works asked for a hundred thousand or whatever but shouldn't every Department based on their Five-Year Plan be asking for something to to kind of move us forward um potentially yes but I think uh I think that's part of the work I was talking about earlier where we we need to get a better handle on what is the long-range savings Reserve plan we need to execute against the schedule as is presented and that's worked it's a lot of it still needs to be done but it is as it is now it's up to department heads like I I asked the chief myself but really no no reserve request from you this year and and he had a very good explanation for that you know it's just uh you know for this year given the balance of his account now and the other things he was looking at um that he didn't feel the need to to ask for that this year I don't know if you want to add anything to that Chief I don't want to speak for you it's nice to

say all right let me explain in Massachusetts the question arose in I need an ambulance in 2029 okay that's a 10-year that's 2019 2029. do I just keep asking for 50 000 because it's going to be 500 000 by then do I just keep asking for 50 000 for the next 10 years and boom I have a half million dollars that's not up to me it's actually up to you do I hold your money for for five to ten years and then buy it do we Bond it the question is how did you want to purchase that in 10 years it's up to me to explain in 10 years I need an ambulance this is probably how much it's going to be and then we have the powers to be that are voted on how do you want to do that you want all that money in reserve do you want half of it in reserve that's an excellent point as a taxpayer I don't want to have to come up with 500. correct but as a tax rate in one year

and that it's really up to the department heads on their schedules to put out you know you know what will need to be funded and then it falls upon the town manager and the select board and then probably with some um with some expert financial assistance to figure out a funding plan for those

needs in future years like you know with our you know and there's so many variables here like what do you think interest rates would be like in five years you know or what you know um because it again if money's really cheap that puts less of a premium on reserves and it makes you know bonding pretty cheap one thing Jerry has brought that might be a little Innovative for Durham is when it when it comes time for um you know the next dump truck we might look at a lease a lease type of arrangement versus you know just buying you know that's something that that he's interested in looking at and has some experience with so um I think that's so it's up to the department heads to put on the schedule what needs to be funded and then it's up to town staff working with the board and finance people to figure out you know how

committee so I spin my hat and become just uh just the citizen looking at these projects we did talk about you know some of the CIP ranked and as maybe separate entities from the reserves themselves and not have it be in one list because you're right it's something you have to look forward to but it's always going to get kicked today don't go to CIP yeah it might be reserves don't end up eventually because it really is once you put that plan together for 10 years and you've nailed it down and I say nail it down Loosely something might happen right you might have something go wrong with a vehicle that you have to fix that's set that aside for a second but if everything was a perfect world and you planned out 10 years and it might be just up between the the finance committee and the select board to say all right if I dependent gets this Bunch every year because we have these five things coming up over the next 10 years

and Public Works gets this amount and it's just automatic every year it ends up on the warrant that's what us and then if you take those off and you just end up with your capital projects for the say the next year or maybe the two-year plan of capital projects that you're saving for immediately um you focus on those um so it may like Paul mentioned that we you know we talked about getting together later on this year a little earlier than when it comes time to do this process and start looking at a few of those things to see if we tweak the CIP methodology a little bit and present it to this Blackboard and will cost to think about it but I'm going to go to Paul and then I'll come to you Heather okay uh one comment here that I think is relevant and that is right now we're paying for past Capital expenditures and we're doing that to our bombings and we currently have to 950 000 yeah plus or minus five so you're not going

to fund these accounts because you because you both for your past and your future you can begin to build up these savings and I think the question about you know what what's the goal what what should we be looking to on that in five years in ten years and in 20 years that's a really good question that piece that background is is very important and you can't expand these accounts fully right now starting next year bonds start to come off and that's what you have to have to look right going forward so it's fairly complex there are a lot of elements right that we have to plan in and that's why it hasn't happened yet we're still getting really the foundation built and then we can tweak it somewhat no different than having your car payment go away and say well I'm going to keep redirecting my next cause something something to that alignment you know may work shorts well so my brain was doing this before

we got here because I've been looking at the way some other municipalities do things in the separating out of these things I do see happening a lot in other municipalities um I I also feel like that really leaves the decision about the projects in the hands of the voters if it is separate because the Quint is taking a hit here I'm sorry I'm just using it as an example there may be residents when you put that on as a capital Improvement project that don't want to fund that but still want to fund the fire department for that year they just in they don't see the point necessarily as a priority so I do think separating the two is definitely worth exploring and I do think it's the way that a lot of writing on the CIP rankings yeah or just the projects go to CIP like Joe was saying just the projects go to CIP and uh reserves are not tied to that right I mean that could you could see a center so if we were on almost like uh

if we had a planned Reserve schedule right then then the calculations for the board instead of right now it's like okay this is what we need in operating and then Capital how much how far down the list can we go it would become okay this is operating this is what we need to put aside for reserves on the reserves plan how much do we have left for projects that year you know it would be kind of like that kind of or here's the project where do the funds come from well that's part of right like how are you using reserves throughout that process because there's there's kind of two types of reserves too sometimes sometimes reserves like for instance with the the Old Town Hall reserves are for a very specific purpose but whereas

um you know reserves that go into like say fire department or Public Works they might have in their mind that well yeah I'm saving for this truck or I'm saving for this you know piece of apparatus but you know it's as long as it's used for something within that department it could be a different truck or a different apparatus than than what the Amiga were originally thinking um but as long as it's within their world then that's okay but it might be and again use equipment Maybe who said you know what if the town you know what we really need to have to win and that's going to cost us a million and a half bucks so we want to do a specific Reserve account for the Quint and then you would like go every year and assessing is an example of that now we're going to be asking for I don't know what are we asking for fifty thousand dollars a year for a certain number of years to do a full revaluation

in the town reserve for a very specific purpose yeah Joe I'd like to follow up with your statement to clarify you made the comment that you didn't request Reserve funding because you felt it was up to um you kind of said all of us which I know it's not up to the budget committee um so were you under the impression that just because you didn't request it the select board could still put it up as a warrant at town meeting

you know day-to-day discussions in the town manager who votes Reserve account that could pay for everything that I asked for that's what the voters wanted that's what you all the select would come up with I also wanted to let you all do it now Rockport would you like probably about 30 000 every year in their budget was a reserve that was apparatus Reserve so my budgeting Theory would be 530 and 30 of that would go to reserve it was a lineup and you could do 50 you do whatever you want but this year particularly I I wasn't under any auspices of of that opinion I wanted everyone to figure out how you all wanted to pay for that now if that is a reserve line account for Calvin and I every year you can come up with 30 or 50 whatever you come up with we can do it that way or there's specialty years of ARCA funds

now raise it it's not up to me I did say arpa because that was one of the questions I was just filling in the Box for real I I didn't and it's also a Scotia politics it really is because I asked for a lot this year for the fire department for Capital and I knew we needed that so I wanted to keep level funded for my budget as we're asking for more on this side I'd like to level up on this side and I didn't want to ask for a 50 000 just for her you know fire trucks are getting more expensive we have a 2001 several 2001 so you know those are expensive but I want to be told how you want to pay for it how you want to plan for it and then I can input the wisdom from that was my thinking just with this department had being nuke still and learning the flavor of the town this is all about their own taxpayers the budget this year that you've not you had to be affirm there I didn't want to add a reserve because I asked for a law okay

thank you for clarifying sure I think I hope it did I think putting down the funding source and saying arpa is helpful because you know unless you read through that 94 page Manual of what funds can be used for you know it it's helpful to know if something listed can be paid for that way or if it's not an option to be paid for that way so I I appreciate that detail yeah and by the even if that detail wasn't on the um the actual application I mean that would be part of what you get to review for recommendations well you know we have to identify where the funding is coming from um for everything we're sending over to yeah okay okay yes Jill um I was hoping to get some clarification I guess from um department head Jerry the town manager um as to why the market adjustment did not get performed that's a good question uh that that is a good question um you all voted when I come here in August it wasn't done

um I talked to Donner she thought that it was a little bit too late to do it the market adjustment and it's been a while since Durham has had a full reevaluation and she believes that it's it's time to do that so she talked to me and said we need to put money aside to do a full Market reval because every 10 years you're really scheduled to do it it's been like 12 years for us so by the time we do it and in 2025 is what she's thinking it's going to be 15 years and well past due yeah that's not how it was presented to the town last year right no I wasn't but yeah no but I can speak to that so yeah I mean initially I think it was actually two years ago where we came to the town for the funds for a market adjustment you know it was really just before the pandemic and we all know what happened to real estate values you know going into the pandemic and so she had she had us she wanted to hold off a year

doing that at that time because of what was going on with real estate values she thought they might come back down but they really haven't come back down that much um so yeah they keep pulling up um and then by the time we got to the point okay you know we're ready to do the market rebal like Jerry said her recommendation was you know at this point you know that her advice uh was to just wait you know save the money do a full reval because to spend the money on a market adjustment now when things are as out of whack as they are in terms of our valuation in total uh versus what

um we have on our books with evaluation that we'd just be you know we we'd be doing the market I mean sorry the full revaluation right on the heels of the market revaluation anyway that would make waste of money so it was her recommendation that we do the full Market rebound save for two or three years to do that so I guess I'm still confused what occurred in that four to six months because it was presented to us that if we did the market adjustment we'd be able to postpone the market re-evaluation by 10 years and it was a savings to the team that was before what happened in the real estate market due to the pandemic so if you want more detailed information then you could work through Jerry it's more of the expertise yeah than that but at Market if you don't do a full Market rebound you just do an adjustment that that can't go 20 years old it would go 10. and that was this and that's always investment that's

always an estimate with assumptions on market conditions and whenever you know nobody's got a crystal ball things change and in this case things changed a lot so that changed the game wasn't it was pandemic it was last year because no the original money was pre-pandemic and I think we may have reauthorized it in the last year but I don't I don't remember exactly but that money the money is still in the assessing account it's just dedicated to that it's not going anywhere else right but our Homestead percentage that we're getting back is going down because we keep not doing this because dot dot dot yeah well and again that's part of what I said earlier is that you know we're so out of whack now that are because of what's going on in the real estate market that a market adjustment is not going to get us there back to where we need to be to get 100 Homestead uh exception reimbursement so hence the recommendation to do the full

rebound which we're overdue for anyway even now and I just must and I just I met Donna and was talking with her and Donna's the expert I'm going to listen to her all day long if that's what she's recommending yeah the experts said this but we're gonna do something else that you guys would be killing us no I guess partner yeah you would part of my frustration is we can we can find several things where we recommend where the town approves spending the money and then the money didn't get spent that happens every day every town all across the Phoenix to it you know I mean just like just like the stream Crossings right no but that's why I was asking nobody I didn't I'm kind of Quasi in the real estate market nobody predicted what was going to happen this year with real estate um and look at it still continue you thought you'd slow it down with this you know seven and a half eight percent interest rates we still have it

um so it's just one of those things that she made a decision based on the market she's the expert for that particular Market we followed her advice okay all right so are we just one more thing so my concern I shared this concern my concern was that we raised the money specifically for that but I'm back looking at last year's warrant and it just says appropriate from the existing account the existing Municipal so I have less concerns about the fact that we didn't raise the money to do it and this is a process question I'll ask later just putting it out there that he didn't want to come back to what would happen under an obligation if we had raised it versus appropriate but we don't talk about that now

to uh Public Works thanks Paul thank you is about as skinny as I could make it so I'll go down through if that's what you want and then you guys can ask questions afterwards but follow along in the written in the text they should all be in order except the janitorial wages which on here is on the bottom and here's number

disregard that one I guess we'll take care of it so the uh starting with the road commissioner's salary uh Mitch fryer interim Town manager set that at 73.5 um with expanded roles of facilities manager a lot of things that weren't getting done for example under here once I started going through all the buildings a lot of the posts that are holding up this floor were laying on the ground and had rusted off and were just laying there and other parts of the motor were gone I don't know what's holding up this floor but so I was able to get that fixed and do the HV AC and air conditioning at the fire station town office and I'm still working on putting a list together so that there's one place that's keeping track of for example the furnace that was over the general office had caught on fire and hadn't been cleaned in so long the side panels blew off and so just having a place where someone is managing all

that in one place uh labor looking at uh five percent for increase for uh assuming we'll do a merit rage based uh review of all the employees how much of that will end up being Merit based and how much of it will end up being Cola will have to be determined by Jerry and what the Market is at the time FICA per Town manager or actually workers comp Jerry got that number reduced by 7182 dollars directly from the workers comp insurance FICA increase of 7.65 and he got that number from wherever you get that from Medicare increase of 491 dollars insurance

increase of four thousand four hundred and forty six dollars to 95 650. um and and that is uh I don't know but that is uh insurance is this insurance is uh Maine Municipal Health Trust premiums Dental income protection life insurance that kind of stuff for employees uh the electricity utilities is that 19 spent 16 410

I'd like to decrease that by a thousand dollars that's internet cell phone heating oil cable electricity Communications two-way radios repair maintenance employees cell phones stipends I don't see that we're going to need a new radio for our new truck this year we already have one that's in the old truck we're going to swap over and we have a couple more on the shelves so that pretty much is all going to go to cell phones stipends for employees

went over by 14 934 dollars and uh so looking to add a eight thousand eight hundred dollars and so I'm looking to bring that up with the cost of new excavator tracks bring that up to 60 even 500 of that being for the new rubber tracks for the excavator we've gotten about six years out of those and so that's they're they're coming apart so

the rental equipment looking to hold that flat under spent that by three thousand fifty three dollars but a lot of that was due to the fact that wasn't able to get a uh we had an employee that was out for a considerable amount of time this past year so it was difficult for us to pull two Crews together to rent another machine to run two two Crews at the same time and that won't happen again this year I'd like to hold that that flat facility maintenance decrease of two thousand

and that is uh like to reduce that by two thousand as a field we have some less expensive maintenance items to do this year last year we overhauled the entire rear door of the assault shed and uh we had quite a bit of furnace repair and other things that had to had to get done this year we'll be working on the front door of the salt shed and the maintenance of our regular garage doors that need need

maintenance that they have to come in with lifts and go up and they have specialized equipment to deal with the high capacity Motors and things like that they use a lot of exterior trim that's rotten it's going to have to be replaced that's Pine trim that was put up that wasn't wrapped in metal that as the water comes off the roof sits on Netflix the fascia boards and corner boards are really deteriorated that you can stick your finger through them and some of the siding is starting to come off and it's got to be addressed and uh so you kind of wrap the new stuff right that's the plan yeah

so the and then we have periodic inspections by Maine Department of Labor they come through and tell us we've got to make changes and we always have to jump through some hoops there to put in extra gfris or replace them or anal idea or

so there's there's always them coming through that always seem to find something tree work I'd like to add 1500 get that back up to uh where it usually was cut that uh last year to get in line with what the select board wanted to fund for the total budget and so this

year we didn't get to the tree works there wasn't enough to do a project but I do have a project that does need to be done right off the bat that's going to chew all that uh beat that up get that four thousand dollars that I want to get up to um that I need to get done right off so training uh you overspent that line

I'd like to increase that line by dollars to get that back pretty much get that up to where that used to be and you can see we spent a thousand six in it now that Maine local roads is back up and running they're going to be offering a lot more classes that they weren't offering with with uh so I think I think a thousand is stepping in the right direction culverts and drains can decrease that line we've I think we've made good Headway we'll go over the years we had a lot of old rotten metal coverts in town that we pretty much have gotten the majority of them replaced with HDPE pipes so I'd

like to cut that uh we could cut that by four thousand down to uh five thousand erosion control a little bit flat that's our grass sorry fertilizer jute mat rip wrap erosion control Fabrics uh the cost of everything is going up considerably so I think uh like to keep that where it's at uh signs I'd like to hold that flat uh four thousand I know we under spent that some but they're telling me the prices are going to go up significantly the cost of Steel and other things this year so I think holding that flat would be reasonable

personal protective equipment hard hat safety desk loud safety glasses cones barricades shop safety things like that that by sixty seven dollars supplies it is flat we overspent that by 274 dollars that's office supplies cleaning supplies drinking water paper goods toiletries Etc

that was another item we cut last year and you know there again we would have gotten more Paving done but due to the labor market contractors couldn't get enough people together to to get the paving in fact it was very late before they could even get a lot of it that they did get done and so um wearing a three-year contract it's next year with an adjusted pricing for liquid asphalt we're at about 331 229

then we have Road striping and crack ceiling that's included in there so then some of the shoulders didn't get done this year that will end up having to get done that didn't get done in 22 are going to end up being passed off to 23. um

increased that by four thousand dollars that is called gasoline on here that to 40. you know we had we had a contract in place up until April of last year and that prices went through the roof and then they came back down and leveled out and the I think that we are right

I think at 40 I think with now that prices are back down I think we would be okay at 40 000. uniform clothing uh that is uh I hold that flat at 1800 and I know I had two thousand on here I noticed that but I think that I would be I think I would be okay with putting that back to the 1800 which I didn't spend it anyway so

I'm willing to put that you don't have to negotiate against yourself well I saw that on here is it change spreadsheet are you put that back down I don't know what I I don't know if I was on the wrong number or what I was doing but uh traffic control uh flat I know that we didn't spend that but there are times I have to have flaggers and probably I should have taken some out of the labor line and put it on there like sometimes I'll have somebody come in to do some flagging on a sharp corner or a vertical curve where we can't safely awaren but I'm having two guys come do some flagging so I'd like to keep that line funded as once we are able to hire people you haven't been able to get any flaggers because the flagging companies just don't have them so there's a lot of contractors out there working without any flaggers and situations they shouldn't be but unless you are having flaggers every day that there's there's

none to be had nobody wants the job so but that as the market changes hopefully we get more back to a normal labor market that'll be available Professional Services decrease that's engineering surveying uh drug testing drug truck diagnostic subscriptions GP Cog good fees Etc

I think the we're going to need some work from our Mill Pond bridge and some other road work I think that last year we spent quite a bit on the stream Crossing grants and getting the applications ready for our Army Corps of Engineers I don't see that happening again so I would like to decrease that by 1789 liquid devices dropped that by a couple of thousand dollars I think that uh think that that treats about 2 000 tons and price did go up a little bit but I cut back on the amount number of gallons I'm putting in per ton and uh using less of the treated salt when they were in warmer temperatures

thousand dollars sand decreased that by four thousand uh I think that based upon what we've been using for sand in the year we've been adding a stone to it so it's holding up that a we can cut that back to 550 yards at nine dollars a yard puts us about five thousand dollars salt to increase we had a ten dollar per

yard increase in our cost this year that equates to about twenty thousand dollars and we overspent the line by seven I think that twenty thousand twenty six thousand dollar increase just holds us Keeps Us flat we've got to pay it's a Cooperative bid so all the towns have to pay the same amount

switched over to seven more aggressive cutting edges that I think will wear a little bit better I think that we should I'm hoping that the thinking that we should be able to get by with just one set this year that'd be a decrease of 3500 winter equipment maintenance increased by 2000 as you can see we were we were over that

think that that's uh as these trucks are getting older these trucks have a lot more high-tech equipment on them than the older trucks yeah they're starting to cost more to picks weather technology that was eliminated but generally said we couldn't take it off

it was on there before I guess so if we dealt with that last year that's what I got if you have any questions weather technology was weather technology something about janitorial wages but did I don't remember what you said well it's out of order we just moved it yeah these don't match I got it

spent goes to undesignated plan and can that be used this year sure like uh undesignated in general I would expect because we have a fairly what we think at least hope the auditor said we have a fairly healthy balance I'm not designated so one of the one of the part of our recommendation when we forward it on to you will be when we talk about how the computer would be funded is which you know here's the estimated revenues and then we recommend X dollars from undesignated be apply

we don't know what that number is yet so is this general ledger stuff you gave us Jerry and there's a at the end the last page is the fund balances undefinite upon balance 22 million four okay to explain about me because I've had I'm still sure we have about four million in the bank right now to get us through

we're going to have to pay for that truck and then we're gonna have to take on the tan depending right now so the money's on paper it's a cash flow right it's a result of because we're on a calendar budget cycle and we don't actually collect Revenue against that budget until August so it's kind of like for the last three months of the year or three or four months a year we have like way more cash than we need for those three or four months on hand but you know it's it's but then other parts of the year we don't but it's in turn it's it's just a timing issue of when the money yeah I get it yeah so these two fund balances that are here uh designated is like fire and Public Works

designated designated one balance yeah I think that was in the auditor's definitions right that's where those are accounts that are where those are where there are actual accounts our house have a specific purpose um yeah so those are probably things like for instance um that might be like where the reserve accounts are or the town advisor yeah exactly and the um

Old Town Hall um uh I don't I don't know if Opera funds are in there I'm not I'm not sure about that well we'll talk about that because I haven't had a question yeah the way your budget is set up in the way in your in the way we are here with the calendar year in town meeting in April don't text don't collect taxes again until August the best time to buy anything is in August because that's when you have that big influx of cash and then you hopefully you get through the the what you got back it's very different than what I'm used to

I don't have to enjoy them all at once if you don't want me to um this all seems like Calvin you're speaking about these numbers that are here like you're really confident in them um in terms of what has been spent out of the account and I saw some changes which I assume is because what Jerry was saying invoices came in or whatever from when we got the first one and so I'm wondering if you're the person who inputs this information into I'm assuming this is from Trio for

your own Department well once the year-end bills are all submitted and paid stuff that's outstanding orders that are delivered and that goes to the office and then those bills get paid they go into Trio and that gives you your actual tolls right are you the one inputting these numbers because you're speaking about them very confidently that that that's what you spent on salt or are you trusting that this is because this is what was put into this line item oh no these are actual this is exactly what I spent okay but let me so thank you the trio report

that I ran was before he paid all those bills so if you're trying to compare no that's gave us a new one my question is just is it Calvin that is inputting this and that's why he's able do you know what I'm saying like how yesterday I said was this a mistake because this labor line reads this crazy number and so then you had to make it make sense in the other lines I'm I'm wondering if these numbers are accurate if they have been entered into the right lines correctly because he he knows because he did it or are there potential errors in these lines like in some of the other reports which lines any of them

um said that we are a contract expired and now we're currently paying 267 and 3.97 is that a contract price it's not if we didn't enter a contract this year because were so exorbitant that the Mitch and I that right most times we're holding off and not entering in the and the suppliers were suggesting we're not enter in because they said they're going to come down at the end of the day they did come down and balance out we they spiked and we did pay more initially if it came down and we ended up um we ended up ahead of the game okay um and then with regard to sand I remember you saying last year that we have been stockpiling sand and he wanted to run that down so that we could determine a baseline do you feel like that has happened and that numbers reflected in this budget yes I think this is a good Baseline based on we've gotten rid of the overage and the stockpiles the old sand that was all worn out

some of the edges weren't sharpening okay and then my question about salt you said about keeping it flat but the number is twenty six thousand dollars more is that do you mean flat in the amount that we're using but the price has gone up no that was a mistake

uh I had to twist Jerry's arm to raise it originally I was going to leave it flat yeah but once they explained it you know it was enough money it's out of my control I can't if I go up twenty thousand dollars I gotta pay it so okay I just wanted to I just wanted to understand the flat I didn't know if it was the amount and the price had gone up or but that answers that question so thank you um and then when you were talking about the flaggers are there safety requirement or training or whatever that flaggers need to have and so they have to come from a specific place well we go to the main local roads classes put on and there's some of the cost for that's luxury I mean something dollars for all of us to go but we also have videos that we watch and uh but does a person have to have some kind of safety training to be I'm just part of me is my brains are my wheels are always turning where there's like let's say

some high school kids that if they were I'm I'm like James after my kid he flagged for your trees all you know for Christmas I get that but the liability well that's why that's what I was asking I was just asking if it if it meant not holding off work that needs to be done because you can't get flaggers is there a potential to hire kids that live in Durham that could maybe take a safety training class or whatever to do that job um I that would be a Jerry questioning so they don't need to be sure they don't need to be certified when they work on dot roads I would be careful about hiring kids

they're responsible for the safety of the people in Matthew so they don't want to be certified but I do have to be trained right okay employees have to be trained so we have a video that we get from dot that everybody has to watch and the guys on the screen and you go through the whole thing like you're in class so we do that but we also like to go the actual classes so there's more more interactive okay and then my one other thing and then and maybe there's gonna be more but this is actually two things number one we all shared concerns around the idea of undesignated going

back into the general or unspent funds rather going into the general undesignated and and that's why we the budget committee did the funding of the Articles the way that we had always done it in the past um and I just want to commend you Calvin for not spending nine part of the concern was like they're going to have this money and they're just going to spend every penny of it if they know that it's just going to lapse back into undesicated and not go to their specific department so I want to take this opportunity to commend you on not spending ninety thousand dollars of your budget knowing that it wasn't going directly back into your budget so thank you for that um and then you know last year was my first year on this committee and I spent time in the meeting which is probably why we all got out really early last at the last meeting making suggestions about how to reduce some of the costs

and I'm not going to do that now other than the fact to say I noticed in the explanation there's an employee cell phone stipend and I brought up last year that I um hey I add my employees to my cell phone plan and that's cost substantially less than giving a stipend for a cell phone and I don't know if the town has looked at that as a potential option but it might be worth exploring so we're only paying like 20 bucks a month toward their phone

less expensive this way okay so they're not paying the whole cell phone bill okay thank you that's all I have right now be able to answer my apologize if you can um the plowing that was scheduled for instance excuse me the painting now is scheduled for 2022. is that going to go on to 2023 would that be the priority and with that said

you'll be able to accomplish the 22-23 payment in your estimation this year and the only reason why I asked that is if not would they honor that because all those all those contractors budgeted off of that number that contract was obviously going to lapse it's going to be probably a pretty significant increase is it is that something that you feel confident in that we can get the 2022 and the 23 done or at the minimum say hey you guys couldn't get to this in 2022 would you at least one of these roads um at this contract price prior to the new contract well and some of it we could just couldn't afford to do because liquid asphalt prices went way up for the fuel and okay so there had to be some cuts in there and then some of it you know they couldn't get to but that's certainly worth uh I mean I can ask them and see if they do that

yeah so in Paving he's got a price what was it 70 24 75 75. that was signed back in March of 2021. when liquid asphalt was 552 it's up to 665 now which is a hundred and something dollars more like show Calvin today how to figure that so when you when you figure that liquid asphalt it's like 6.2 percent of the liquid is in the pavement you have to take that 150 times it by that six percent whatever that number is gets added to that part-time price so it's no longer 75.50 it's like 86 something or to that effect so I just put that out there to you because if you know that price it isn't really the price now that's the danger of sort of getting into a three-year contract because you don't know what that price is going to be you have a plan and I and I told this to many people in my workshops you plan your work you work you plan and if you're if you're out there that far and now you can't afford it you know Mrs

Jones is going well you said you were going to pay my road when you ran out of money now you can't do it and it just that just raises down when in the eyes of the residents that never happens you know also just caution you on that that things ain't as as black and white as

lots of things happen yeah I do recall Calvin when he explained it the way my brain remembered it is we're under a contract for the roads but the price of the asphalt isn't it included in this contract and we don't contract like the 22 contract didn't say these roads at this price it was for so many material essentially yeah but it's a set price for with escalators in regards right well my real question was where my concern is is the labor market it's not on I know I know the liquid asphalt is already in the contract as an escalating or DS yeah it's not a set price it's it's a it's a Marketplace um along with other things but the actual labor component is where my biggest concern is because that's probably where we're going to see the biggest jump in that contract yeah I mean it is trending downward and so we're going to try uh liquid asphalt right is trending down so from last summer right I mean it was up

to 900 and something right so what's what's kind of scary though at this time of year having it be 665 when there's really no demand and the supplies up there when that demand kicks in I expect that liquid to go up even more so we'll

see this is all crystal ball stuff we don't really know but um you certainly can't do as much as you anticipate when you have a set price and you don't take that escalator into account there have been times that I've seen when the price has actually gone down and towns have gotten a reduction in the because it also de-escalates it's really fair for both it's fair for them for the customer and it's fair for the um the contractors so I just I just no I appreciate that so by that rationale what what did we use for a variable or or for a number to make this how many road miles could we use to make listening uh 2.47 and uh

and as I set up like extracts for you know liquid asphalt Etc and come up with a number for that no I had the engineer adjusted for this year based on what they uh based on what the liquid asphalt prices were and what the contractor told me he thought they would be at this community yet okay so we have an idea what they're going to be able to be looking at compared to what we were last year uh We've adjusted it at 331 and I think our old contract was our original price was

going to set at like 331 so if you take the 331 and then we add the at the crack ceiling in the uh number to try to get it all done little bit lower than I remember in terms of we try to do X if we do X number of miles per year 10-year cycle and we're touching every road every 10 years yeah and what happened with that was we had figured that you're going to be rebuilding a road every 30 years so you'd have to take that out of the equation and say if you're going to be rebuilding one you don't want to be considering it for repaving so there's always going to be roads that are being well you do in year 10 and year 20. before you get to 30 right yeah so if you took that out if you did a road every 30 years I'm trying to remember back now that basically is like 12 miles every 10 years that you're for rebuilds yeah so that brings your number from from like three or four from like four miles down to

what about streaming overlaid slash you know just the basics yeah that's what I'm talking about just the basics because that 2.41 that's not a that's not a rebuild that's just a that's your shipment it should be a while before we need to rebuild because of all the bonding work we did so I think that's where we were coming with the okay so now we've got we've rebuilt everything that need to be rebuilt uh via the bonds and that now the idea was that the operating operational Paving budget doing X number

of miles per year would to keep everything on schedule so that them now we're doing rebuilds of Roads as you said like every 30 years and obviously things change in one road might be 27 might be 32 or something like that that's right you know but does that because I think I think we want to make sure is that over the long haul that you know as the price of materials and contracts and everything changes that were funding the paving

line at to keep up with the you know shim overlay maintenance Paving before we get to a rebuild situation right what are we getting from mileage last year image as far as how many miles how many miles did he get done versus how many miles

every time next year yesterday want to speak up one thing in municipality that really and they've done this a lot across the state is and they spend a lot of money on rules they spend a million dollars on roads they turn their back on them and they don't maintain them that's so you spend all that money then you don't turn around and maintain that money I mean

getting you right now when we do maintenance pay let me keep them that way when you do that they'll last a lot longer than 30 years you don't want to be getting into the rebuilding real interesting that that that's a lot of that's a waste of money you can there's a lot of different things you can do to maintain the roads and I'll work with Calvin on that yeah that's the point

rebuild right because absolutely so we want to make sure that we're following up on that and doing what we promised the first thing you can do is spend a million dollars to build them and no money to maintain it right that's just and that's what we put in a very aggressive plan together to make sure we're doing that so oh we did I just want to make sure that the reason for my question was to make sure that we're reading the lack of our words the mileage that it's going to take

did it when we did with interest rates um labor it's five percent this is not a comment on whether it's good or not but it's five percent in here it was hard to tell with the cheese because he's moving FICA and a whole bunch of other stuff around um is that sort of the town's guidance and is that a good labor increase given the market yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna go into that with myself because since the last meeting and looking at things like um we'll talk about that I will wait patients any other Public Works questions comments I might have one hold on

yeah no no I had after our meeting I had sent Jill a text pointing something out and I didn't write it this that that was what I was going to do is try to find a line so I could refer to it but there's I think it's under expense but I'm not certain um it says that summer Road repair and maintenance payroll was 224 800 but the

total labor line for Public Works was 74 274 8 and I'm just wondering how we only paid fifty thousand dollars in labor outside of summer labor it obviously has to be a mistake I just that's why I'm asking if we're confident in the numbers that were that are on this because I it's hard to make an informed decision if these things aren't reading correctly do you see what I'm saying like if just the summer leave our line it it says summer I wrote it says summer roads repair and maintenance payroll was 224 800 but the Total Line for Public Works labor was 274 feet

I'll find it go on without me and I'll find it and then I'll come back okay enough to stick it outside any other you'll have other opportunity to yeah general question about Union Church I know the select board has had a lot of

discussion about the deterioration in the union church and is there any plan of possibility of relocating we're putting we continue to put money into a rabbit hole that's which it seems like that's what we've been doing over the past few years so much what is the status of that discussion

I think um the status of that is is honestly similar to where it was last year at this time is that the technology needs to be someone to look at that and talking about what is the what is the long-term what does the town want to do with that building long term like is it something that's in a town wants to keep investing money in

people have because one of the problems with the building where it is now is even if you fix that up there's not much you can do with it because there's no parking or anything like that right on the water you know yeah so some people say well maybe we should move it over into you know this complex here where we own the land and whatever so that that could be an option but um I think you need to go before the town probably with a series of public meetings and a committee to with people that are engaged to look at

think in the short term there really is no plan for that building I mean we are obligated we think to you know at least keep it from deteriorating so like if something needed to be done with the foundation we did that or the roof or a broken window it's kind of like we're in break fix mode right now I guess you would say something to be addressed to keep it watertight you do it but we're not investing any money beyond that one other question on Opera funds are they going to be a secretary by law they have to be so like just like on the special town meeting if something's going to be Arbor funded it'll be like that on the warrant but to

use so the determination of those funds will be addressed at the April meeting where the board will decide is what to put before the voters on on account can always say no no okay thank you back over to Jerry um he's the ones out of time you've got your debt it's a Debt Service

importance I just wanted you to have it so you think about one because you want it and I should have included it the first time but I didn't one one that I didn't include before so I want to wrap that up and then we'll just go back to the fire and the administration part and we'll look at those sorry

yeah full-time employee that did that worked the Telecom or it was our time uh and then there was a part-time secretary and then for a period of time those two decisions were kind of combined with one person so okay but they but they were a full-time employee you know because there was technically yeah all right so um if you go if you look through your you your budgets and add up where the meeting secretary and the public information officer meeting secretary was spread out all through the the budget and then there was a information officer if you add those up the budget for that was 26 300. I'd reduced it down to 25. and and Telecom you're looking at them right there they uh they do a super job the access Channel I I you know we're considering getting rid of this I well we're streaming I I don't know what the town would like to do with it I don't think many people are watching it so this is

one week you could cut if you wanted to I think it's up to the to the board yeah remember we need we need to we don't know what legal obligations we might have to keep the channel or if it's part of the Comcast contract or what we need to I think we need to look at if we can

it's you know it's like having a typewriter to write your stuff it's just like it's just done it's old I like that but the older people in town maybe not looking at a computer versus I would disagree with that even the you know the elderly people I mean there's almost nobody that doesn't have you know email or something at this point now that it really is I I have a question about it is so

um it has a channel like how you know ESPN or CNN or whatever you can go to the Derm Channel like in your channel guide if a person I don't have fighting is that how you say it video um but I know that a lot of people in town are now switching over to that and so if you have them as a service provider can you still access the public channel right don't no you can exit I I switched over to video I know a lot of people in my area have too A lot of that comes through YouTube TV which this is on YouTube right so therefore you can access it no we're talking about accessing the action s

you get you don't have so Alan I'm gonna call on you because you have them they're your internet service provider but you watch TV through like YouTube TV you don't watch through that's correct okay streaming or you don't even get any of it I mean we just get streaming yeah a little plastic antenna a lot of communities like I know like Freeport as they stop their local action Channel and a lot of communities are I just wondered if if the majority of residents were going to switch over to the new internet service provider because it is such substantially cheaper is that how many people would then still be accessing it if they're no longer using contacts as their internet or cable provider I don't know if you'd be able to access it right I don't think Infinium offers cable television right right that's what they're saying so I think anybody who does switch over now we're just left with the population in

town that is using Comcast still as an internet provider that's probably true and I don't know how to vet that out to determine how many people would actually have access but you could probably find out we're on a per diem rate with UK data defined I'm not sure what your how you remember them so there was two lines one for emails and one for services they do both so really what I did was I just combined them services and emails into one line just for the accounting part of it so I just zeroed out the emails and just put it into the uh services for 15 grand can I ask the question yeah I thought at the last meeting you stated because of the new hire you were going to not no longer [Music] no no no no BK backs up all of our uh

files they through the server we need that specialized at the lady in the office instead of calling bek to fix the problems like if the drivers aren't working and the print is aren't working the mass and it's all through the trio she can call Trio and get it resolved much more uh efficient it's cheaper than column you call bek when they pick up that phone it's 50 bucks right so I guess that's my question is that reflected in the budget no that's just a normal you know back office helper no I guess my question is

we've had to budget bek in the past for their backup options and and the things that they're doing behind the scene but a big chunk of it has been the per diem calls that we've made into it as well it adds it does add to it we pay like 8.29 a month for uh bek to for the emails for

them to make sure that no one's hacking our system and all that stuff and then we call them when something doesn't work and nobody's there to fix it we have Cindy do it because she's she actually worked for a computer company so um so we just we're not aware then of how much savings that's going to be in the end oh no you there's no way to know I was just curious if you know because again these are 20 grand these are all forecasted numbers okay

time this is not anything new really um so I removed the workman's comp because I Telecom people they're vendors they're not really employees so we don't have to cover their workman's comp or anything so I just took it right out where before they were covered that's why I asked in the beginning if they were employees and apparently they were because we covered there

it is in case they wanted to do some training or whatever and uh Hardware you I just kind of left it the same you never know what you might need software same thing supplies 500 printing I think that's for the uh annual report for the most part

right over that so I can't believe we're using like this Drupal 8 is that what it is Drupal seven Drupal 9 which is a which is going to be uh more expensive so we bumped that up to three thousand did you do you remember what they quoted us like 2 500 270

they haven't reached out lately or did just letting us know what our options were yeah yeah because we were looking at a more robust yeah and it was uh yeah you wouldn't like that price but it was awesome because you could do polling I mean there was all kinds of nice things but you

something near and dear to my heart okay Kimberly do you remember what he said for a price um set up and then it would be uh annually uh and after the first year set up purpose correct and does that so one of the things that we had talked about was that you can't yourselves go in and post and make changes to the website correct that has to be done by you have to get a ticket well there's certain things that I can access the things that I can

call them and switches I had I would like to be able to make on a website myself without having to call because I feel like that's what I can do it um so that's something that I'm trying to work in when they made the change from from so the calendar updates you can you can manage that part it's the fixed things yeah you know I basically the header and the footer I can't control those that's on our main page like like where our town hours are or phone numbers

because that's part of the page temperatures okay upload all of the agendas and minutes to where they go can't dictate how it will look okay so if that doesn't end up being part of the process of things that it might be worth if I mean we changed hours a lot last year it might be worth making hours a tab the way departments is a tab where people can choose so that you could update that if if that doesn't go away I agree that that expense for the fancy website is a lot and the annual expense of that is equally a lot um but and we'll talk about that later the one one of the questions that I do can I ask one more question um one of the questions that I had was that when we bought the new computers or we're in the process of buying the new computers with the arpa funds that were allocated towards this um there was a lot of conversation about the EK uploading all of the software to the computers

they were going to take care of all of that um and so I'm wondering that fee that you're talking about for the 829 that's the monthly fee assessed to monitor all of those things and not related to the initial costs to set up the computers is that accurate right okay yeah and it includes the emails

and so and then if you call for a problem depending on how long you're on the phone that's in addition to that 829 okay and so having this person that you're suggesting going from part-time to full-time that phone call doesn't necessarily need to happen that's something that she would be able to do in-house yeah first uh first person that's going to try to resolve it is the person in the office like I said when the um the other day when we switched over to those computers and tried to print registration registrations they didn't print we get on the phone actually with uh bek who was trying to get in touch with Trio and they said we'll get back to you I don't know how long it was but it was three four hours but we just had Cindy call up Trio and it's fixed in 10 minutes so it's not that bek charges for that four or five we just want to hear anything just couldn't register any Vehicles yeah I understand and so Cindy's very

good I mean she for a couple years she worked at Burgess computer which is just another be cage just a different name so she's very she's very good so the website the Drupal thing is that um I know that a lot of municipalities websites look the same is this something that is that the reason we're choosing this or have you looked at other service providers Drupal is behind the scenes at Civic plus is what we is who we use in most a lot of municipalities will use acidic velocity if you go on that page and you look down and I'll tell you which one who they're using so we looked at a lot okay so it's so Civic Civic plus where does that expense come in I think that's the part of the thing that I'm interested in upgrading is the Civic plus side of things not necessarily who the service provider that is the service but that is so what's the Drupal the the operations it's like a software update it goes from

version seven to version nine I see I see Jerry I have a couple of questions yeah but they're basically part-time they only come in when do you come in for the most part well I'll tell you there's there's a lot of there's a lot of there's a lot of folks out there that would see more activity on that website it's part time so we you know

wants full-time but I mean the more you want the more she needs to be there to do for the most part so forgive me maybe you said why is it going up that much because they're going from Drupal 7 to no no 1008. that's all coming from other lines it's actually going downhill the meeting secretary used to be in a different articles they were all over the budget they were in the planning they were over here they were over there and I'm just condensing it down to one line so it's easier for a college because we need some help with the accounting a couple questions so what you're saying is

um so just control your committee over there um even though they're part-time so they they FICA and Medicaid doesn't apply no they're vendors yeah so so that's competitive vendors yeah yeah another question do you know what the 2023

know what the 2023 franchise how could you how much we're going to collect for franchise fees uh I would go to the 2022 Revenue okay so that is because I I don't remember we said we've kind of moved on from the franchise fees pays for all of Telecom because as you've heard tonight fewer and fewer people use Comcast franchise fees are trending down but Telecom expense is not trending down right so whatever we do collect a franchisees will be applied to uh the budget but it won't cover probably won't cover all the telephone

one of the things that's built up the um Telecom budget is because we weren't at one time spending all the money so we tried to find creative ways to and one of them was the annual report the annual report that used to be covered in a different account and it was just a couple years ago I think two two three years ago that we said why not move that to Telecom because it's a communication mechanism that rings a bell so I just I I guess it

it probably doesn't it's gonna if money has to be raised it has to be raised anyway so I'm not I I know like Jerry's trying to label things better if if the the Telecom account was designed to offset franchise fees and I don't know if we need to re-look at it and there's something for example the annual report needs to go back to where it originally was so that franchise fees are paying for what they were intended to be paid for as opposed to our be having become creative the last few years and are raising money not now have to raise money because the franchise fees won't cover everything well I think that I think that's fair but I also I guess I would also add that I think I think the scope of telecommunications article has grown it's not just about you know what the franchise fees used to cover it's really kind of a larger scope in terms like communication really so that's why you're seeing things like you know

mailings and town reports and things like that in this kind of like you know Public Communication type of an article and like to your to your point I mean if we you could move the printing from this article into like say Administration but it's it's 601 half dozen of the other because remember this year we're doing things a little bit differently where we're taking all the revenues of one lump sum and applying them to the budget as a whole we're not doing the well this Revenue goes against this this Revenue goes against the other it's all getting pooled so it it it's it's not as much of an issue made now as maybe have been in the past in terms of mapping those things together

um back to your comment about 108. so am I understanding correctly then the 2022 budget only that amount the twenty thousand dollars only reflects the public information officer and not the meeting secretary don't know really what that represents so you're you're 25 000 was the sum you came up with adding up all the other lines yeah yeah and that sum was 26 300.

information officer in the meeting secretary those are mother and son here right there so I just combined them and they're good the work that they do is going to come out of this one line there they're going to get paid out of that one line

taking notes for like the planning department that's them now in the accounting and the lines to make it actually to me I I because it's been confusing let's explain it right the I'm going to change I'm going to try and revamp the whole thing so

you're probably be surprised next year when you see it um no no seriously though and I want to make it a little bit actually a little bit better so we can understand it that really there really should only be three departments right you've got the general government you've got Public Works and you've got fire well we all have office supplies we all have wages you know we all do fuel so that's really how it should be led because we budget by department and if you look at most budgets out there it's really by the department what's the in like um Public Works will definitely have a bigger bigger budget because you know the town offices ain't going to buy salt they're not going to buy sand so you won't see that and they Administration budget but you'll see office supplies and you'll see FICA and all of them and just better like Calvin's utilities budget is

includes fuel no fuel is its own thing and under fuel you have propane gasoline and everything so you can keep the better track of actually what you're using if you call me up and say well how much did we have in gasoline I got to go to his utility lines and sit there for 15 minutes and try to figure out where it all is add it all up where if you do it right it's just one click of the mouse and boom there it is so that's the sort of stuff that I am going to try to clean up for us to make it better and I think you'll like it it'll be one more layer actually it'll be like like I said we just have two layers now so it'd be like town government Fuel and under fuel

will be propane heating oil right now it's just fuel well what fuel so that's what I'm trying to that's what I would like to do well it's not what I like to it's what I'm going to do so because it's just I want to be more it's more transparent I think in what we're what we're spending our money on and easier for accounting

all right so let's also the small stuff um so Heather had asked a question about permits I just handed it around Alan always does this for me he had he already had this printed out he wanted to know what we had for permits and one thing that's not on there because you didn't he didn't do it I didn't make duels it's also a question about um subdivisions there's been one one application and there's one that's amended that the application that hasn't gone through yet he's still working on it two two this year no there's one that is amended I don't know if that happened this year but he said there's one that's there that we're amending and there's one well there's one the brown brown was amended it's completed Deer Creek filed their money last year so he I don't know that he would track that or if George would track that well they they really were close together so he that's why he doesn't include it on

his report next to me what it is yeah it's not a lot of money right you know we don't charge enough yeah yeah that's what I was that's what I was asking under the revenue for subdivision fees and whatnot I was wondering and um escrow and there was one other line that

applied to that I was wondering how many had been filed to make up those numbers I think it was that one new one two two last year yeah that were filed and should have paid fees uh to this point yeah to the updates to the

well I'll get fire out of the way because that's easy because there's only one line item change so I am proposing uh raises I hand it out to you what other towns are looking at um that's just there for your information but I'm gonna proposed five percent

Chiefs he goes from 73.5 to 77 175 if you wanna yep so it's only the chief that's getting the five percent yeah I asked him I asked him if that happens to snow it's just me so can ask you right so when did I get to weigh in on this one what's the question I just he my brain heard there's going to be a five percent increase in wages for the fire department but then when I looked at the spreadsheet I saw it was reflective just under um fire rescue Chief salary and not reflective under labor so thank you Joe it's a great question 17

five so half of the department just got it because we paid um the other half of last year got a five percent raise because of the wording on the ballot or or the warrant was do you want to give the fire department members a five percent because I think there's still a question on a wage pool and how that's all going to work out and now that we strong leadership I think he's working on all of that but last year a town meeting of five percent was given out to the fire department specifically so I got a five percent and I did pass it on to every member well like I said currently um and that was I think I was here less than a year but it would have been a whole another two years um before two and a half years before I got a rate um they're not common they're not negotiated in my part I have a contract but that was just a starting contract so there's nothing in there about like a term limit and there's nothing about

renegotiating the contract and there's nothing about pay rates so again I default the way Durham was doing it you're more of an expert about pool you know or Merit or all that currently I guess you can do this which he did on his own it puts me over half a million and I'm kind of busy about it

members did get a raise and want to do that my part-time thank you so last year the chief got a raise he wasn't expecting so if you get some pushback on this issue that might be why okay don't we usually get pushed back When We Were Here on Tuesday night I told you I wanted to talk about raises this raised pool I don't I just one of

the first times I've ever heard a raised pool typically raises are reflected in the salary because that's where they come from and it's a much easier way to account for that for instance if the weight and maybe I just don't understand but if you have a wage pool when you pay the salary you pay 95 percent out of the salary line and five percent out of the wage pool how does that how does that work I don't I'm not it's a rhetorical question I really don't need an answer but it's like perplexing to me I think a wage pool is more based so that you

right right you get to choose which employees I think what we were in years past it's not a matter of every everybody doesn't get a raise if they don't deserve a raise let's talk about that too because I think when you when you talk Merit I mean that was that way when the state where I worked up there was 600 employees so let's let's run down the employees that I'm going to be giving merits to he's wonderful so what would we base that Merit on

he's got his certifications he belongs to the associations he's doing his job so do we does he go get a master's degree now and then that's what he gets his raise on I mean he's he's doing a good job he's going to get us raised there's nothing more I can ask him to do for his professional development for him to get one I don't think we're talking department heads I'm thinking we're talking more

just because you weren't here yeah we did it as a wage pool because it was kind of a it was kind of a scale like some employees might be entitled because of maybe longevity maybe a four percent increase some employees might not have been there that long they might have only got a two percent or maybe some employees were um needed a performance review that necessarily we don't um so they could maybe achieve a higher raise or something of that nature so the wage pool was set up so everybody wasn't just a flat three percent right and I think no that's that's corrected and the other the other reason we did the pool was to eliminate those have been around for a while you know there were times at town meeting where there would be an open debate on an individual on a raise for an individual you know and so we really that was really the main reason that that I brought the rage pool idea up was to stop doing that

um and then others it has other things too but admittedly it is a it is a strategy that is typical of larger organizations in the um it's not a typical way the municipal sector that you would um that increases are handled typically in the municipal sector it's kind of in two and check me if I if I get this wrong here but there's kind of two ways there is a colon I mean Cola is a fact of life in the municipal um and it's it's largely because a lot of it is unionized even though we aren't but kind of the The Benchmark out there is Cola and then then there's occasionally for if there's something extraordinary that happens there might be you know a merit increase on on top of that um so but I think this year you know what I think what Jerry's looking at is because you know he he's got a lot of work he wants to do on the structure of pay increases and um pay schedules and things of that sort but this year I think he's he's looking

for that kind of across the board you know five percent um not merit-based but more more Cola based and that's really you know ultimately that's that's his call working with the board to kind of you know for him to come to the table with his philosophy of compensation and how he will manage that and and what the criteria will be and he has said he's got a lot of work he wants to do on that I I'm just going to give you my philosophy on way Merit increases of giving somebody a raise or not giving somebody a raise I don't like to withhold a raise for disciplinary action that just lowers the morale even more for that employee if he's having a problem if that employee is having a problem you don't address it at a performance appraisal performance appraisals I'm all about because I believe those are more about professional development but if somebody's having an issue and you're waiting until the performance appraisal

you're not doing your job so you address that through other means a performance plan set Milestones goals not during their performance and if they don't meet that then maybe you give them time off without paying and then if they don't smile not they pack up their stuff and they go they have to understand we never had a you or someone in charge like that doing that that never happened right and I don't there were no performance reviews because I because my fear is you know of course I we're so small you know in bigger organizations if you if you have if you use money as leverage but discipline and you the person's probably going to walk out the door you know if I said no you're not getting your raise but his colleague or his buddy gets one that's just going to cause riff and

perhaps maybe that does send him out the door and maybe maybe that's a good thing but in this labor market you want to try to keep who you've got if they're really good and you don't want to like Leverage and discipline with raises because you know I got my codes guys you know he's got too many he's two Master's degrees he's a smart guy we want to keep them there's not much that I can do with him either other than he goes to trainings because codes

those codes change every three years he has to stay up to date with that and he's and he's invested into his career we're going to hang on to that guy you know because he's good at what he's doing and a way to keep him and this is all about Recruitment and Retention in the labor Market's tough and though so I I just don't like using money to discipline people I I'd rather just find other ways to do it so yeah that's just my so I have two questions based on what you just said um with that in mind why didn't you propose an increase in the fire department's labor line he just went through that yeah he just talked to you well right but he got a five percent raise last year along with the laborers so if you're doing another five percent raise this year why isn't it across I'm just asking I know I know right so I we work well together so when

he came in and I asked him about do we want to give you a fire department a five percent raise he said no that's why I didn't do it yeah her DM schedules are different than standard pay schedules there it's a different it's a different animal yeah I don't I really a lot of these decisions that I've made in here was in consultation with the Department

to them I mean for the song this cold increase with the the reference towns my only question of that is doesn't tell me what the market is there anything that reflects current market of what no whether it's a town or whatever it may be in a no and another thing it doesn't tell you is what did they get last year or anything else yeah yeah these are just playing catch up right you know and I don't know that I'm not gonna I'm just there's emails that go out on the main town of city managers the same what are you proposing for Kohl's this year I just copied it they put it together in the past I don't know it's probably been

super nuts from basically black persons to the town first Etc account managers can think and just give us a baseline to see we were at with a comparable town so we would know if we were Market above market and then we would weigh what the question would always be well we might be a little light on the wages but our health insurance and benefits are a little heavier than theirs so there's there was a balance there so we've actually so it it's only actually been two or three years because that's a lot of that's that's on the MMA website and we've kind of because we've had you know so much turnover the last couple of years as these new positions have come up we have gone to the MMA site to Benchmark kind of where we need to be you know manager and a new fire chief and it is pretty Treasurer you know so that that work's been kind of being done on an ad hoc basis yeah but it hasn't um it has been like a comprehensive okay

here's everything are we uh yeah I know my my only you know the question always comes up with um you know we try to find similar demographics for the town of Durham that's typically how we've probably done that but it's not really indicative of our Market our Market is really our neighbors and what our neighbors are paying it's not what a ton of green Bills play yeah what's the titleism thing because it's really not does it's pretty cost effective to drive across the bridge for five six yeah seven dollars more per hour we need to be cognizant of that more so than yeah that's definitely part of the conversation we've done that in actually more than two or three years ago too not just in that but in health you know sure things stuff like that even though we look like we're in maybe sometimes the right spot but just what Kevin said we're sitting right in the middle of Brunswick Lewiston Auburn New Gloucester

and Elizabeth so that's where our competition is exactly question yes bill go for him top nobody's talking so I'm I'm just a little confused so what if I achieve one um salaried position contracted position but we have you know we have a town clerk we have a deputy tax collector we have a code enforcement officer

question ahead of time maybe when I get there I'll answer it but well just according to your latest spreadsheet I don't I say that I say the increase is all all over the place and none as low they're all higher than the five percent increase being offered to the fighters no you don't go with those percentages in there that these increases and decreases are based off the 22 budget compared to the 23 budget not actually what they're getting paid by hour party Chiefs so the five percent that you get proposed of the pie Chief that's based on an hourly pay no that his his pay was right at the 73.5 this pay was right but all the numbers we're seeing here are wrong pretty much if you look at the hourly rate that they're getting paid why are we giving a sheet with wrong numbers wrong they just it's just that you they're um there's other things you know when you're looking at the annual number of the budget and the actual you know there

are things like you know did that was that employee did they work like every hour or every week that you know that they were budgeted for maybe they did maybe they didn't you know so or is um or was that position vacant for part of the year and and that's why the actual was low and now the budget the next year is High I mean as all those variables that go in so I think what what Jerry's trying to say is that if you're if you're looking at the plus minus increase decrease column and you for a particular position salary and you're expecting that to be plus five percent it's not going to be plus five percent because that's not the only thing on an annual basis that's in those in those numbers let me try to explain this way when this budget was put together they didn't get their raise so that was put in now they got their raise so their actual is going to be a little bit different and so then I'm going to base this

Budget on the last budget so I I can't go in and change the 22 budget that's that that was fixed they're going to make more money but I'm going to base this Budget on that raise that hourly rate and times that by five percent and that's why you're seeing what that is this you know what

of the town clerk you know it's it's not just a five percent increase it's more hours during the week so that's why we'll talk about that too but I think this if we if we just use Trio to do this this would really we will so well this year is going to be so much there's things There's issues with Trio and this isn't as exact and precise as we would all like and and hope that it will be next year um but at the end of the day it's what's what's more important is the bottom line number for each article not necessarily the known skewed detail at the line item

level because that needs to be cleaned up I appreciate it but being my actual if you're looking at that I'm not attracted track but clearly I didn't make that 2021 so that continued into 2022 and May 1st when they voted for a five percent raise for for myself in the fire department I was already five months into the whole 2022 pay scale so I didn't get a five percent raise January first right so that that's where those numbers are apparently I made 70 000 938 last year and it doesn't existence

different so he is based in an office 73.5 because in theory that that's what I'm at so if you add a five percent to that that's weird the 77 one right I I haven't made that yes yes that explanation makes sense but it's not it's not the same when we look under these other positions the same math doesn't seem to be working thank you sorry

going in with a five percent increase and you're back basically waiting until April 1st to get that approval is it retroactive no okay so that that makes a big difference that affects that too right but that's uh calculating that for every position and when it's going to happen I I don't know when the magic number is of when it is gonna take effect right these raises might take effect on the anniversary day of when they got hired so it's not it's not effective April 1st once the town meeting is gone I

employee handbook actually says on their anniversary date I'm not saying that that's the way it should be but I think that if benefits go off the anniversary days wage increase is not necessarily is that what it typically when they when you accrue the accrue benefits on there okay

you know April 1st for wages the new rate would take effect at like the start of the next day period after a town meeting right go ahead Joshua okay I have one more comment go ahead no I've been waiting patiently through several that's okay go ahead no I'm all set go ahead um no you're fine I'm just I'm just yeah now I'm just being Jill sorry um don't change so just because you are new and nobody has given you the heads up this isn't the first time you're gonna hear this level of emotion about this

um because as Kevin did point out people literally do look at the line and go fire department Chiefs get an extra five percent now if they're friends with somebody's house you burnt down they're going to be all for it if their house hasn't burned down who knows which way they're going to be um but it's gonna get a little bit murkier and muddier when they're looking at the increased decrease and they're seeing you know 41 or they're seeing 38 percent so it might be helpful to have like a

breakdown to be like you know employee C was making 18.50 from January until April and then was making you know got a five percent raise and was making this amount but because the budget is based on here that's why the percentage looks so high now like it might be helpful to have a very basic explanation

I would say that the town manager should be prepared to answer a question like that if it comes up but let's keep in mind we we are not doing a line by line analysis at town meeting we are approving an article but you know that no let me finish please even if the town uh if people get up on the floor and say no I don't think this person should get a raise um if and even if the article were reduced by a certain amount that doesn't mean that the person's not getting a raise it just means that there's that much less total money to spend and that's um that the money might have to come from somewhere else ultimately that's the town manager's call on how to do that yes but I think my comment is getting lost what I am saying is some people may try and reduce that bottom line because they're going under the assumption that somebody is getting a 40 raise and if you we can clarify that

misunderstanding then there may be less deductions recommended at town meeting one way we can take care of this is just have a wages line and not have everybody listed that's your typical fundamental budget you have wages regular overtime well you have that with Public Works you have that with the fire department but you don't have it with exactly administrative that's how Trio is set up right now that I think that's an example one of the things he wants to fix for next year so that next year I suspect you're not going to see the line item for meeting secretary Town clerks Deputy tax collector you're not you're not going to see the line items and for and to do the budget this one creates a lot of math whereas if you have a wage line I can just like do like a couple computations and I've got fight care workman's comp I got to go down add up everybody's this is a very very um convoluted yeah convoluted yeah it's

just not a professional budget you know because I think we kind of all accept that yeah yeah I mean it's that's a known yeah go ahead so I just want to say that I think I don't think Jill was necessarily I I I saw that met with some defensiveness and I don't think that that was what her attention was I'm not I'm just saying the way that things used to work is that what we are seeing is what was in the annual report and I remember people literally getting up at the microphone and and they would highlight every single percentage that was over what they deemed acceptable and would scrutinize that and so while they're not seeing this in the annual report anymore you know there are people who will do that kind of research and I think that that was more of heeding a warning because what is typical in Durham is that if the voters are educated and understand where the numbers are coming from they're more inclined to vote for it

than if there's any confusion around the issue people will just vote no and so I I think she was trying to help right versus hinder what's here I apologize if I came off to defensive this has just been a very difficult way to budget and it's it's my head hurts my brain is bleeding

so that that's one thing that I you know one way we can take care of that they we have a wages line whatever we decide we're going to do for wages you just do that percentage here's another thing that I would like to do next year is have this discussion before we do the budget before I get into the budget we we come together and we specifically talk about well is there anything that we want to fund this year that we're having fun and what do we want to give for raises so I can when I build the budget we all know that it's in there and I'm not going back and forth and doing this and doing that because it will be loaded into I will load it into Trio I won't push that button but I don't want to keep going back because it the more you do that the more likely you make mistakes right so that's one way we can kind of take because right now I and Joe you're absolutely right I mean you're setting up the town manager to

fumble all over himself because he can't I really can't explain it I mean I know what there I know that I'm comparing the 23 budget to the 22. 2 but when the 22 budget was developed things changed and now this is their actuals their hourly rates change and that's what I'm basing 23 on is what they're actually making now not what 22 was developed so it's very hard to it's very hard so isn't you were saying that Trio has to be inputted in the beginning of the year but without pushing the button to make it active okay so if you go in now after the town meeting and you make all these changes will we see a better budget for next year better laid out budget for next year or is that going to take a whole nother yeah and it'll look exactly like this so over the summer I'm gonna try to redo the whole thing which I gotta talk I got to talk to Trio about that because I'm going to give it different numbers

right because it's going to be a three-layed system now not a two-layage system so I got to talk to them to see how that affects the old budgets with the new so I would like to do that and he's also going to he said before that he's going to try to line it up with the auditor recommendations so that it makes it matches better with what the end that they're looking for yeah so good luck yeah thanks um so we'll move on down to the clerk and all that so I I stand behind what I said the other day where you fund The Physician and not the person okay with that said

treasure and to get a good one we're going to have to ask for more money you'll see that I did reduce the benefits for the clerk and the CEO where they don't take them I don't think they're going anywhere in the next year I know it flies in the face of what I said I get it but I don't I don't like it because I I funding the position and not the person is just fundamental budgeting I'm willing to I'm willing to work with you reduce them because I'll pretty much they're not going anywhere in the next year and I think I can roll the dice on that all day long it's it's a risk because I would never tell anyone I'm 100 sure they're going to stay because you don't know what employees are going to do from one week to the next they could leave I I don't but I'm pretty sure there's kind of like this Renewed Energy in the town office so I think they're I think they're gonna be okay although I will tell you that

there was somebody petitioned in our clerk to go to work for gray for 70 000 an hour as the head Clerk okay so that stuff happens but and maybe you maybe you feel differently but I'm just I'm just letting you know that I'm willing to work to try to keep this budget reasonable because the fire and the public works is they're pretty this set pretty good it's the administration that is really where we need help and he's he's not backing off his principle at all in terms of funding the position but when we talked after Tuesday we said yeah we want to get there but maybe we don't need to get there in one year right you know so that's I think that's I don't like it but I'll take I'll take that risk like I said I'm going to I'm willing to work with you and not only that if something happens and I gotta come back here and people say well what happened I'm going to say view the tape [Laughter] okay so and let's hope the tape is

available right so yeah so in doing that yeah for uh for Jessica now and there's one other thing that I want to tell you that one thing that I didn't understand when I first started here was we were closed on Wednesday but everybody was in the office I'm like well why aren't we open and I'm like well it's been like that well I want to move to 36 hours I want if the doors are gonna if we're going to be there the doors are going to be open we're going to provide that service so I'm moving every so we're going to be open all day once I get the positions filled let me let me get let me get my staff because it would be it would be difficult now but that's also the plan and why you're seeing some of the large increases is that I'm going to open up up Wednesday the same as Monday and Tuesday so yep when we're on the benefit Line This 24 5 or whatever that

represents the town paying 80 of that plan the 24 5 is 80 of the cost of a family plan yeah thank you and you know whoever we hire might not take it right right yep I just didn't know if that was the cost of the plan yeah

employee a spouse and children and it can be one child or 27 Childs there's like there's no I remember asking I've always asked this question because I have one child and I'm like why do I have to be spending so much money on a family plan for one child

um that is one of the reasons why it's so Costless so it's the treasures put 50 in there and I did Kevin was talking about when you go to MMA and you kind of look at comparables of what people are making for for Deputy Treasurer that's a that's a little low but I'm willing to cast The Net to see what we get for uh a Treasurer and if they don't take the family plan then I have a little wiggle room there to maybe get them up so

those with those two numbers interestingly don't take the plan they could walk away with seventy thousand who's gonna 200 and something you can actually offer them that for a salary if they didn't take the family plan even just minus out the 1200.

thing if you don't take insurance at all right if you choose that if you get this added but you can't say well if you take insurance your salaries this but if you don't take insurance your salaries technically to have that happen should that right person come along if it happens like for instance

can't guide it to happen you can't really ask like how many kids you have what's your husband do what's your wife do does he have insurance I mean that's what she was saying that you had said if you find out that the insurance amount is less then you're you're willing to take 10 grand 20 grand whatever off of

the insurance line and put it into the salary line is is what was kind of heard so we're just trying to negotiate what their starting pay was if I but you don't know what the insurance is I know you don't yes you don't and most people when applying for a job will get up front with that right sometimes again again it's a risk I mean I'm just trying I'm trying my hardest to keep this at a reasonable

so um and maybe you don't know this yet because this is all sort of new uh I'm just wondering if I you had mentioned one time about Contracting some of that out and so I'm wondering if that would somehow affect the amount of hours that position would hold and I'm not asking you to have numbers that represent that I'm just I'm I'm just trying to get an idea of what you foresee If part of that was contracted out would that reduce the hours needed for this person or would they would that still be a 36 hour a week position if I okay all right I had a conversation today with uh on the accounting firm

can contract this whole that whole job that whole position out they'll do everything payroll they work with RKO they'll do the accounts payable they will get off stopped back in order and it's going to be they're I'm thinking it's going to be 65 to 70 000 to contract that out per year if that happens I'm eliminating that position does that still cover all the counter hours you need if you do that well that that's that's that's that's that's going to be tough because both of those people you know um they need vacations they do and if boy if you want to give me another another employee that's fine but I'm doing it I listen our accounting is messed up

so I want to hire somebody to go into to contract out everything's going to be taken care of they're certified public accountants there'll be no accusations of embezzlement there'll be nothing like that well I mean that amount that you're talking about that amount that you're talking about replaces this salary and that is right but you lose the counter help so so then the other thing that I would just like you to entertain and part of that is because like I do payroll and I know how much every person makes that I pay right I own the business so I don't want other people knowing that it makes it an interesting position when the person who is doing this job knows how much the

other person working next to them is making it's all public anyway when it you though like if you're giving a raise or whatever and that person doesn't get the raise or that person register everybody at the end of the yearbook

yeah but how is it you have to go and ask though right like I can't go no it's in the book yeah it's like when Rich Jordan made yeah that's true that's true that's true to what you're saying though what you described actually happened yes it did um in the office yeah exactly when one person got a raise the other person didn't do a little bit of a connection fit and so she gave her the raise to so that definitely right well that and that's what I'm saying is that I feel like I wouldn't want one of my employees

being the person paying everybody every week and them all know you know what I'm saying I just I can understand how that would be a difficult situation and so the payroll part of it which I feel is an expense where I pay 30 a week I know I don't have nearly as many employees as the town has but I do feel like payroll being contracted out we have looked at that a couple times and what has stopped us from doing it is that at the end of the day there wasn't going to be because of the trio system there wasn't going to be um any savings because when you when a municipality hires a payroll company somebody at the Town Office still has to go enter all that data in Trio that they get from the um from the payroll company so we have looked at that a couple times and they and the payroll companies have actually told you like I'm not going to save you any money right because you're basically doing it twice so Heather I

looked at that I had the payroll company in my office talking about he said this isn't worth it because you're just going to have to you're too small you don't have enough yeah yeah yeah when you do your payroll you probably put it as a general expense right payroll you don't put each individual in every week right right right we still have to put the individual in on top of the expense so but I think I think you know it's kind of you know trying to put a bow on this a little bit so what Jerry is going to be charged with is he has to staff the counter adequately the way he wants and whether it's the person he hires or Contracting or whatever get good sound financial management in the office within this budget you know we won't know sitting here when we approve this amount exactly what the approach will end up being but what's important is that you know whatever the number is that's what he's got to work

with yeah to get an accomplished right so the the town of Monmouth and the town of Greenville uses the same company they're the only ones in Maine that do it and I'm just going to be right out in front with you if I get a good quote I am going to approach the selectman and I I don't usually beg for anything for services but I'm probably going to make an exception because I want the accounting for this town to be right I want it to be accurate I want it to be certified and they work with RKO this is going to make life a little bit simpler who's RKO they're our auditor that gave us the really nasty report okay so I think we're overselling the nastyness it wasn't the worst rating you could get yeah

meeting didn't you didn't know she did so I just have one more question what if let's say it came in around the number of those two combined lines it takes the Social Security the FICA that all that stuff out of that it does yeah and but it doesn't get you a window person right right right but you've been we've been basically working with two people out the window now and and I know I I get it I do well you're about to unsell your earlier so what do you so it's either we get three window people and keep the accounting the way it is or we hire somebody that knows what they're doing well the part of this that is intriguing to me is that if we lose some at that position we don't lose the institutional knowledge of the accounting if it's contracted out right it's the same reason we don't have an in-house I.T person because right you need a you contract that I'll be really interested to see what that quote comes

back up yeah and uh they're coming in on February 14th to talk to the board to kind of so if the board has questions and they can you know I'm interested in your opinion on this we don't talk about it tonight though would you do that in ours yeah sorry yup sorry that's okay it's good it's good discussion we don't have to move on yeah I really only have really one more uh that's that's different in that and that's Cindy opinion right now she's making 17.50

21 and go to 36 hours a week when we go to I mean I got a budget for it because that's where I'd like to go once where once we're up and running in full staff and you're taking town clerk 36 hours a week yeah she would go 32. she's okay with that yeah we have to because she wasn't oh wow I know there's some Renewed Energy okay all right you're making a comment she's okay with that then you say I budget the position I don't budget the person right

having anything to do with that well I know that they should I shouldn't have asked the question now what's I don't know let's move on be careful what you say no dude that's the next one he's the same that that's unchanged from my story

me what you're upset about 20 raise because she's making 17.50 that's why dollars and fifty cents King do the night shift because she's handling all the cash and everything that comes into that do you have a benchmark I mean what what are what does that position generally pay in the neighborhood you know that Jerry well the the two people that were doing it before again paid 23.79 thank you

so I'm still I I'd still like to clarify something or why you're upset or I'll just say it because I'm a person yeah go ahead so you had said that you fund the position not the person right and then Kevin asked if our current clerk was okay moving to 36 hours because she hasn't been in the past and you said yes that you talked about it and that bothers Alan because that means that that moving to 36 hours appears to be contingent on whether or not our current clerk would move to 36 hours I don't think that he's necessarily upset with you I think that that was more like upsetness with Kevin in that moment but I think that's an ass I think it might be a misassumption there because I don't think we're saying that oh the the town clerk decided she'd rather work 36 to 32 hours so we're going to change the position I don't think that's what we're saying I think no no I don't think that's that's not the way I took it at

all I don't know if that's the way Alan took it I think what he Alan was saying is if we're trying to construct a budget that's based on position and not the person and you want to open the town office on Wednesdays and therefore you need a clerk that's going to work 36 hours then we should be talking about that and not whether or not our current clerk is willing to work 36 hours well I I would check that it only and I think I'm right with you until the last point it's like I think he's saying that he's that he needs the position to be 36

hours a week and my question is is the current hold of that position okay with that right because she has been in the past because if she's not okay with that and that's the need then that's a different issue right right but if she's okay with that then we don't have an issue

I'm good I'm good if you're all good so if you get information on trash oh yeah let's talk oh yeah let's try trash we don't have all the information right right so we had a meeting uh with the seller uh and they're going to an automated system in a couple of years so we're gonna do a con one year extension with them so we can figure out what we want to do as a town they haven't sent it yet um they're getting out of the uh the labor market because they can't find the help to do the rear dumps anymore what is moving to an automated system oh like the arm picture yeah

impact to that it's going to be a little bit different but yeah so in the because our contract runs out on June 30th we're going to get a price for an extension for one year so we can let you all know what's going on with the trash because it's

and complicated think there's a lot of unknowns there is um in but I get their their explanation of why they're doing it made complete sense I mean we all know how tough the labor market is right now imagine how tough it is in a tough labor market to get somebody to ride around on the back of a trash truck hauling trash into the back of a truck all day they're also facing pretty high workers comp stuff because injuries rotator cuff from you know shoulders and you know it's just it's a very high cost labor force and and uh

unreliable not the people individuals but as far as having a pool of people to draw from they're usually they're going to you know day labor organizations and you know a caliber of worker that they used to get so so more to come but the short the short term is a one-year extension of the current contract um and they're going to send a proposal to the area for what the rate for that would be a current service current same same same everything so I don't have any Interruption until we get it figured out they didn't want to get into any more than that and then the bulky waste thing would be part of that but separated out yes yes

then that we're not going out forbid for solid waste this year yes we'll go out when we when we get ready to do another three-year contract that's when we'll go you know looking forward really trash I think is gonna is is going to be an issue and we're gonna it's kind of trash is already we need to talk about it because it isn't getting any it isn't getting any better out there in that regard a lot of towns are struggling with

American public works Association if you were in public works and you were dealing with trash those directors say don't get into the trash business because it is the biggest Pia um that that's in public works oh so that means everybody hiring their own company to come in and pick up someone in the um municipality that I worked before they didn't do trash pickup they um gave Augusta their landfill forty five thousand dollars for basically an impact fee and the people in Gardena brought their own garbage up there uh we'll have to be reimbursed in our taxes for that because you know no I'm just saying trash is a very it's it's it's it's difficult out there so what do people do that don't have the capacity

know like 15 16 years ago and I don't know if it's still like Topsham I don't believe they had like a service right no my parents live in Dobson my dad did reports like that right individual that would come around like it was a guy started up or you could call like a trejano or somebody of that nature and get yourself a five yard and they'd come pick it up every week or two depending on your Nissan Sabattus does not have trash yeah a lot of times it's not as common as you were thinking that's hard that that's how I grew up in Thompson was how I had one question yeah

we've heard a lot about how screwed up the town book Town's books are which leads to a lot of stuff going on in my head and I assume other people's heads can you give us a thumbnail of why they're screwed up well like first because the the people that were in there didn't really know where stuff was going Opera funds right so Opera funds was more of a grand it got put into Revenue but at the end of the year Revenue gets canceled out and you start over because you're collecting no more Revenue so the Opera funds really should have gone into the general ledger account so now we got to go in there and kind of do all this journaling to to get it back so if you don't and you we all the town went through a major transition and not enough training well right but I can't blame people not so much them but just it's not just it's not just training it's a was the person originally hired qualified for the position because

sometimes no matter how much training there is that they're not going to get there and it's also you know if you go back years and years and years it just has you know different administrators do things a little bit differently and everybody makes a little change to the chart of accounts and you know and it's just the cumulative effect of that over the years is inconsistency in the charts up accounts across departments and labels of things that you know the person that did at the time knows what it means but the next person comes in may not know what it means so that's the type of stuff Jerry's I mean we were here the other day and Mitch was looking at our payroll and there was like three or four voided checks to the same company so it's it's kind of it's kind

of knowing what what you're doing and we just we didn't have that so it was pretty it's pretty evident when don't have anyone in there that has any kind of accounting background that and so how are we going to fix that um that's what we've been talking about for the last half hour with the with the position the deputy Treasurer hiring a more skilled person there or the uh Contracting without potential well and didn't you say you hired someone to come in and reconcile the bank statements yeah so yeah and and see and that's another thing you when you when you hire on the cheap like we did before and things aren't really getting done right because there's really not a good understanding of how it does then we've got to hire someone to come in and fix it and then I got to spend my time looking at it going well this doesn't seem right exactly it's like when I printed the GL report I'm like where are

the Opera phones I had to ask well that was one of my questions I know yeah you put into revenue and that wasn't really the place for and if you don't have anybody looking at that overseeing it then people are going to be where is it so it's it's me that's kind of going in there and asking these questions what about this and what about that and why is this like this and but I'm not an accountant like I said the other day I've taken plenty of budgeting classes but I have to do no accounting to get my public management degree it's just a skill that that's why this company does it it's why Monmouth has hired some that this company it's why Greenville does and it's really hard to find an employee employees up there the label listen the labor market is really shallow it's probably why you ended up with me

nine o'clock 901 I'd like to wind down the budget committee's portion of the meeting at the select what I would like to get down going yeah budget committee if I could take a moment thanks um we have two meetings scheduled um on Thursday uh Tuesday January 31st and Thursday

February 2nd we had earlier talked about the start time of six o'clock but I know for at least one member that presents a challenge does anybody have an objection if the meetings were to start at 6 30. we're talking about Tuesday uh cheap can you hold on one second uh we're talking about Tuesday January 31st and Thursday

February 2nd with the meeting starting at 6 30. hopefully not running later than 9 30. no objections or even if you guys are willing to do 6 15. I know I can make it here by 6 15. the location will be at the Town Hall same format as what we just did with the combined I'd like to have the the like to work on the chief's Budget on Tuesday the 31st if that works for you Chief trip as opposed to a Thursday which you would definitely have a I'm pretty sure I have a meeting that night so I'm proposing that we review the chief's budget and part of the administrative budget does that work for you Jerry on Tuesday January 31st

and then on third if we don't finish the administrative budget we would finish it on Thursday what a second pardon me but why do you need to go through a review all over all over because yeah but what you do well we typically the budget committee has a discussion if the department has wishes to participate they're welcome to um okay so you're going to be you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna be discussing right correct we need draft articles um well we have draft articles in time for January 31st meeting I don't know if you'll have well you'll have uh I don't know if you'll have the actual articles you'll have the budget you'll have you'll have the number and then you make your recommendation but what do we how do we know

to the specific honestly because we're not we're not assigning Revenue to specific articles well I know we're not but we're talking about appropriation right so the so basically what you'll be what you'll be doing is you're you're only you're only concerned on the article level with the appropriation and then part of the information you'll receive in the

that's where it will show okay here's the revenues we're putting against the budget here's what the um this it'll be it'll have to be a separate article like undesignated funds to go against the budget so we'll we have based on what has been presented to us by department now that's the only articles that should be on a department basis

have one for Eureka we have one for planning yeah okay yep I'm so just so again so the the budget committee the gender I'm setting up is that we're going to review we're going to stop by reviewing the fire department Budget on Tuesday January 31st Chief trip you're welcome to attend if you'd like and we'll also we'll get into the administrative budget whatever we don't finish on Tuesday we'll finish the administrative Budget on Thursday February 2nd and then do the Public Works budget

Christopher Maybe by 6 30 I'll have time to stop at Durham get and go for dinner so I'll grab you something the budget committee this evening what what'd you say any other business to come oh for the budget committee no I I need to ask permission for the way that I need to attend I can do that after I've already talked to you about it I just need to talk to Jerry about it budget committee portion of the meeting I guess is done okay

[Music]