[Speaker 3] (8:33 - 11:09)
Thanks everyone. Welcome to the November 30th FOSCA Select Board meeting. Before we get started, if you'll all join me in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you. Before we get started, I'm going to open up for public comment. As a reminder, public comment is an opportunity for members of the public to express their opinions on items both on and not on the official agenda.

Public comment is not intended to be a discussion, debate, or dialogue between or among the Select Board and residents. Additionally, before sharing substantive comments, residents should please state their names, addresses, and if known, their voting precinct. Each speaker will be limited to speaking for a maximum of three minutes.

Residents may raise new issues, identify community problems, and comment on past, present, or future board agendas. Absent extraordinary circumstances, the board will not respond or react to the issues raised and they should not be discussed or debated at that time. We request residents speak respectfully and refrain from criticizing or disparaging individual committee members, town staff, or other resident groups or individuals.

We also request that you refrain from making comments that contain political statements or include commentary, criticisms, or other statements about any town staff. Individuals may speak at the discretion of the chair. Folks who are in the audience live, if they have public comment, can raise their hand.

If there are people on, attendees on Zoom who have a public comment, they can raise their hand or people can submit public comment to my email address, which is nduffy, D-U-F-F-Y, at swampscotma.gov. Do we have any public comment? Okay. Not seeing any on Zoom or otherwise.

Let's move on to the agenda. So, first up on our agenda, we have some visitors from Swampscot Unites, Respects and Embraces Diversity, SURE, to tell us about a really exciting project that they're launching. So welcome.

Yeah. If you want to sit down, you can. I can give you another microphone, if that's easier.

It's up to you.

[Speaker 12] (11:10 - 11:24)
I'm Sue Burgess. And Martha Curry is with me tonight. As you know, Ralph Edwards was the first person to be elected to the board.

He was very involved in this project, and he's the one that contacted me, and unfortunately, he had to go out.

[Speaker 11] (11:29 - 12:09)
Diversity started in 2016. It's a volunteer community. And as Neil said, Swampscot Unites, Respects, Embraces, all kinds of diversity, which includes age, gender, abilities, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, and more.

We really just aim to promote the understanding of diversity, provide fun and educational opportunities to experience diversity, and engender a welcoming, nurturing, respectful, and inclusive Swampscot community, and be allies to anyone in our community who is facing issues at any time.

[Speaker 12] (12:10 - 12:35)
So we're coming for you tonight for a couple of reasons. We'd like you to promote the project. And secondly, we'll give you a form with a couple of examples of stories, and we'd like you to choose an ancestor and tell their story about coming to America.

So I will later give you the forms with the examples on that. So you can have a little homework.

[Speaker 11] (12:37 - 13:35)
We didn't name our little activity, which is tell us your story. Again, your coming to America story. And how we came up with this project is we have done a few diversity festivals.

And from the first one, we had an activity with a map where we pointed out to people that with the exception of indigenous people and people who are the descendants of enslaved people, we're all immigrants. So we suggested people take a push pin, put where their ancestors came from, and that just fostered great conversation with friends and neighbors, young and old. And then in 2019, we took it a step further and collaborated with the Swampscott Reporter and solicited and published about a dozen stories, including mine, which you'll get to read later.

[Speaker 12] (13:36 - 14:29)
Okay. So we've already talked to Jonathan Nichols, the director of the library, and Sarah Giannino, who's a reference librarian, and we talked about the project. They're very excited to collaborate.

They told us they have some community money that will help. So they're going to display some of the stories. They're going to archive the stories, which you can imagine if we get a lot of stories and archive, it'll be interesting forever and ever.

And then Sarah has experience with making podcasts. So they would get in touch with people to decide who should be, what they would talk about on a podcast. So I've looked at some of the library podcasts.

They're very interesting. So that's what we dream about. Actually, I'm going to do a little tangent here.

[Speaker 11] (14:29 - 15:18)
Last night I was hearing about the report back from the library, and they talked about indexing, because they want to be able to index. And I was like, oh, that's librarians for you. We hadn't even thought that way.

They'll have it tracked. But anyways, our next step is to spread the word, to participate. We hope to have displays at the library, at town hall, and at senior center.

And again, Tell Us Your Story inspires family research, conversation, and highlights the shared community. And before I wrap up, I noticed that there was a tree speaking to me as I came in. And the tree said, the strength in our community is our diversity.

So we hope to encourage people to celebrate it, learn about it, treasure it, and tell stories.

[Speaker 12] (15:19 - 15:42)
And then we're going to go to town meeting Monday night, and we'll make a brief presentation with PowerPoint, and we'll show some photos. And we'll also have a table outside with a little bit of a display and some of the forms. So we hope to get the word out.

It's going to take us a few weeks, right, a few months? But I think in the end, everybody will enjoy the stories. So thank you.

[Speaker 1] (15:43 - 15:45)
Wonderful. Thank you for coming.

[Speaker 8] (15:48 - 16:39)
Yes, Sue and Martha, thank you for bringing this to our attention. I was lucky enough to meet with Ralph at the Senior Center maybe a month, month and a half ago. And he was able to convey this project to me.

He said, would you be willing to participate? I said, absolutely. And it really facilitated some interesting conversations with my family.

And I was able to talk to an aunt that I hadn't talked to in quite a number of years. And we had a great conversation about her favorite topic, which is genealogy. So I just think to tell us your story, concept, and idea is something that's going to be incredible.

And I think you're going to get a lot of really interesting stories from residents of Swampscot. So anything that I can do to help, I certainly will.

[Speaker 3] (16:39 - 17:14)
So thank you. Yes, I echo David's comments. I think it's a great way for people to connect with themselves and with each other.

One of my favorite shows to watch is Finding Your Roots. It's always riveting to hear about where people come from and to learn those stories. So thanks for doing it.

I think the community will be better for it and closer. And I appreciate all you guys do to help us all make these types of connections.

[Speaker 11] (17:14 - 17:29)
We do have a website, shorediversity.org. And there might not be a welcome page, and we encourage it.

[Speaker 14] (17:29 - 17:29)
Okay.

[Speaker 3] (17:29 - 17:46)
Yeah, I'll repeat it, just that your website, shorediversity.org, and this form for the Tell Us Your Story project should be up there soon, and information about it and other information about SHORE. So thanks again.

[Speaker 1] (17:46 - 18:51)
To me, it really is so incredible in terms of building community. These types of efforts break down those silos of isolation, and somehow this sense that we're all lonely or individuals, the sense that we have this greater community of connection through the generations. It's wonderful to kind of see all the names, see their journeys, appreciate those journeys.

I would imagine it would enrich so many lives, just as David has mentioned. To understand our lives through the lens of our ancestors, to understand the journey to come to America, to celebrate that, to see that as really a cornerstone of what this country really is all about, is wonderful. Most important in this time of depression and loneliness and folks that are really ever more in need of community.

So thank you.

[Speaker 3] (18:54 - 19:44)
Anything else? Thanks so much. All right.

We are going to take things a little bit out of order. I want to move on, if it's okay with everyone, to the committee appointments, because we have some folks here who are the appointees. So I'd like to help them out with their evening, if that's okay.

So we have two committee appointments tonight, or for two committees. The first is for the Tree Committee. I'm not sure if Robert Levy is here.

Oh, you are here. Okay, hi. Nice to see you.

So one is for the Tree Committee, and Robert is being recommended by the town administrator for a three-year term.

[Speaker 1] (19:46 - 20:35)
Robert? Absolutely. I would recommend for a ten-year if I could, but certainly, you know, I have all of these extraordinary citizens that come, and, you know, I'd like to appoint them to the National Board of Health or some congressional committee, but, you know, certainly I think, you know, the Tree Committee would be well served.

It seems like Robert has a wonderful passion for, you know, helping us really make broader investments in sustainability, and certainly would welcome you, Robert, to share a few thoughts about your interest in the committee. I found it very inspiring to hear you present. I can bring a microphone to you if you want to.

You don't feel obligated to.

[Speaker 11] (20:39 - 20:54)
I'm really interested in the natural environment of the town. I think the trees are an important part of that, and I went to one meeting of the Tree Committee last month. It seems like a good group of people, something I'd like to be part of.

So I'm looking forward to it.

[Speaker 3] (20:54 - 21:01)
That's great. If there's a motion to appoint Robert Levy to the Tree Committee?

[Speaker 8] (21:01 - 21:02)
So moved. Second.

[Speaker 3] (21:04 - 21:05)
All those in favor?

[Speaker 10] (21:05 - 21:06)
Aye.

[Speaker 3] (21:06 - 21:45)
Aye. Awesome. Thank you.

Congratulations. Thanks for volunteering. The next committee appointment is for the War Memorial Scholarship Fund Committee.

There are, I believe, three people up for appointment. There's Martha Brine and Douglas and Duncan Malin. I think the Malins are here with us.

I'm not sure if Martha is not here, and I don't see her on Zoom. So, again, for three-year appointments, we welcome you both. If you want to speak, you shouldn't feel obligated, but also you're welcome to comment if you'd like.

[Speaker 13] (21:47 - 22:41)
This is a wonderful committee. Historically, it was started by Ernie Manchin, and he used to conduct his business in the Jenny M. McVeigh Memorial Library, which was the former high school.

And after he passed on, Joseph J. Balsama became head, and that's the time that I became very, very active on this committee. And then after Joe Balsama passed away, Chris Ratley, who was here this evening, became the chair.

And it's very unusual because Chris Ratley received this scholarship when he was a senior at Swamps Good High School. That's correct. How many years ago?

[Speaker 14] (22:43 - 22:45)
Well, this is you.

[Speaker 13] (22:47 - 22:57)
And, again, I enjoy working on the committee. It's right down my alley where I was a faculty member at Swamps Good High School.

[Speaker 3] (23:00 - 23:08)
Excellent. Well, thank you both for volunteering and for everything you've done for the town. We love Swamps Good.

[Speaker 13] (23:08 - 23:44)
We were born in Stop and Shop Glen, if anybody knows what I'm trying to say. And we grew up in Swamps Good, graduated from Swamps Good High School, as did our father. And that was the building on the hill with the magnificent ocean view that we never, never will forget.

But thank you for appointing us. We appreciate it. Hopefully.

[Speaker 1] (23:45 - 24:23)
After a vigorous debate. Well, listen, I have come to know both of you for your advocacy and support for Kings Beach, but also your involvement in Swamps Good. You have a legendary history of service.

And, really, that's what this scholarship reflects. And I certainly think you come with a wealth of knowledge and history. I love it when you share that and certainly encourage the board to think carefully about their appointment here.

Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (24:24 - 24:36)
Any questions? Or, if not, a motion to appoint Douglas and Duncan Maitland and Martha Brine to three-year appointments to the More Memorial Scholarship Fund Committee?

[Speaker 9] (24:36 - 24:37)
Second.

[Speaker 3] (24:37 - 24:43)
Further discussion? All those in favor? Aye.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 10] (24:43 - 24:44)
Thank you very much.

[Speaker 3] (24:46 - 25:40)
All right. Thank you. Next, we have a discussion on the Fire Department Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Chief Archer is here with us tonight. Sean and the Chief have been negotiating for months with the fire union on this contract. We've met in executive session about it.

We have not voted on this contract yet. I appreciate all the work that Chief Archer and Sean and the union have done. I know there have been a lot of tough conversations and meetings and a lot of work to get to this point.

And I think I'll turn it over to you, Sean, to provide some details on the contract.

[Speaker 1] (25:40 - 37:37)
Sure. This contract really does reflect an over-a-year-long effort to really come to terms with a multi-year, multi-million dollar contractual obligation for the town. These efforts are among the most important and the most serious responsibilities we have.

We certainly respect and appreciate the work that our firefighters bring to public service. But, you know, there are elements of the contract that are costly, and certainly it's important for us to really study and understand the cost of the contract. The first item, really, that we came to terms with settling was the cost of living.

This is generally the most significant structural cost of a contract. Last year, you know, the fire department was the only union on the town side that failed to reach a memorandum of understanding, where we were able to advance the contract at the annual town meeting. Right after the annual town meeting, we sat down and we started negotiating the financial terms of the contract.

This contract memorandum of understanding calls for a 2.75% increase in FY23, 2.25% for FY24, and 2.5% for FY25. Those annual cost of living increases are reasonable. When we think about the environment in which we are negotiating right now, we've seen a significant increase in consumer price indexes.

We have seen inflation for a number of items. And this contract comes in at a reasonable cost of living. It's not a low cost of living.

You know, we have a financial policy that says that our budget should grow no more than 2% plus new growth, so it certainly will add structural pressure to the town budget, but it certainly recognizes that, you know, we have a time where we're seeing increased costs. The next item, you know, we have an item where we negotiated a departmental clerk, a stipend in position that handled payroll, and we had discussed the challenges associated with having a part-time clerk manage the multimillion dollar responsibility of payroll for a very busy fire department. Both Chief Archer and I thought it would be prudent and helpful for us to negotiate a way that responsibility is part of a union stipend and turn that over to a civilian non-union administrative assistant.

Our fire department is busy, and over the last few years, I've discussed both with our prior fire chief and Chief Archer the need for an administrative assistant that really can help with a lot of the administrative duties of the fire department. We were also able to negotiate change in the hiring and promotional policies. We've recently left civil service, and there was a little bit of a disagreement of opinion, both from the union and the town, in terms of what the age cap should be.

We've been able to find a common ground at the age of 35. Frankly, I have felt as though we could even go higher, but I think this reflects a compromise. We know that many people, including women and minorities, generally don't look to immediately take the civil service exam or don't immediately see that there's an opportunity to work in this field until later on in their life, and we thought it was important for us to kind of recognize that having a barrier to employment would certainly hurt our ability to be more inclusive as we move forward.

We also added an additional consideration for veteran status. We also added additional consideration for individuals that had a spouse that was a professional firefighter or police officer that was killed in the line of duty. Next, we negotiated the withdrawal of pending staffing and hiring grievances and unfair labor practice charges that we have been addressing over the last year.

These grievances have resulted in a significant amount of time and effort, and while certainly I'm not going to get into the specifics of the grievances, the town was prepared to move forward and address these grievances through a very costly and lengthy process, and it would seem prudent for us to resolve those as part of a comprehensive negotiation. The chief and I talked long and hard about our responsibilities as budget managers and fiduciaries for the town to protect the town's interests, but ultimately I believe that advancing our negotiations and our responsibilities in fighting these grievances would ultimately be not in the town's best interest. With that, we were able to negotiate some language that bolsters the town's ability to support staffing that really makes sense financially and operationally based on the judgment of the fire chief.

In the prior contract, we talked about language in the fire department contract that required a minimum manning staffing level for winter time period from December to March that required us to staff at a higher level than we ordinarily would staff. This places extraordinary financial pressure on the town budget, and adding language that ensures the chief will provide a 14-day notice with a quantitative analysis on the financial challenges facing the fire department or the town helps us ensure that we have due process for ensuring that the chief can manage the staffing level as opposed to a collective bargaining contract that historically has managed the staffing levels.

And in consideration for some extraordinary work and service during the pandemic where our firefighters and their families had to face additional risks associated with responding to residents at the beginning of the pandemic and throughout the pandemic, and in recognition that the grievances ultimately, you know, for grievance regarding a lost economic opportunity where we actually did shift schedules and did not fill overtime schedules and union members filed grievances, and the unfair labor practice charge associated with concerns that the union made about hiring individuals that were slightly over the age of 32, we've agreed to offer a one-time payment of $4,500 in recognition for their services to the citizens of Swampskate and for the settlement of the overtime staffing cases and the unfair labor practice complaints that were filed.

Fire department staff also served as deputy health agents during the pandemic. They did go out and they did pass out masks. They did walk the beaches.

They did help us address some of those challenges during the pandemic. And in consideration for those efforts, we've agreed to offer them a one-time $500 stipend. We also agreed to include in the collective bargaining contract an ongoing stipend of a hazardous material stipend for $1,000 effective January 2024.

This stipend will be increased to $1,500. So this is an ongoing annual stipend. It recognizes that firefighters do respond rapidly to fires.

We know that a lot of our materials now have what's called forever chemicals or fire retardant chemicals that potentially expose our firefighters to hazardous materials. We have had a number of firefighters pass away from cancer. We certainly want to keep them safe, but we also want to recognize that these are serious health concerns that this occupation faces.

And adding language that recognizes that our firefighters do have to expose themselves to hazards, especially when materials burn, whether it's car fires or other materials. Even their uniforms have fire retardant chemicals on them, and that has been a point of concern. And this stipend recognizes that.

And lastly, effective July 1, 2022, Juneteenth will be recognized as a paid holiday for all bargaining union members. Those are the tenants of the cost items for the contract. I mentioned the $4,500 payment for the recognition of their service during the pandemic and the settlement of the grievances.

Those are one-time payments, and we've recommended that we pay those grievances, that one-time payment, through ARPA funds. It gives us the ability to use one-time revenue to pay for one-time expenses and helps us put to rest rather challenging contract negotiations. I wanted to give Chief Archer a chance to provide some context as well.

I'm happy to answer any additional questions the board may have.

[Speaker 7] (37:39 - 38:52)
Thanks, Sean. As Sean said, this was a long-discussed contract negotiation. We spent a lot of time going with Local 1459, the Firefighters Union, hearing their concerns and their positions.

There was a lot of back and forth. All told, I think we've reached a pretty balanced deal, recognizing the work that they've done throughout the pandemic, since the expiration of the previous one-year deal that brought us through last June. After taking all things into consideration, I think we have reached something that is about as balanced as we could hope to get.

There were always issues, articles, that if you had everything that you wanted on your side of the ledger, you might change it in one way or another. In the end, the union flexed on some issues that they initially didn't want to, and the town flexed on some issues. I think we've arrived at a reasonable compromise.

[Speaker 8] (38:56 - 39:01)
Sean, do we have a detail as to what the cost is, year one, year two, year three?

[Speaker 4] (39:02 - 39:06)
We do. Sean, I already have it up if you want it.

[Speaker 1] (39:06 - 39:10)
Yeah, Amy, if you could just report on some of the costs.

[Speaker 4] (39:11 - 39:40)
Yeah, so year one, the cost of the COLA and other items that affect it is $92,712. The one-time payments for pandemic and grievances is $171,000. The one-time health agent payment is $19,000.

And the first-year hazardous stipend is $33,000, making the total year one cost $315,712.

[Speaker 6] (39:42 - 39:47)
Can you just say the last line item on there? You went $171,019. And what was the last one?

[Speaker 4] (39:48 - 40:00)
You should have $92,712, $171,000, $19,000, and $33,000. Totaling in $315,712.

[Speaker 6] (40:00 - 40:02)
And that $33,000 was for what again?

[Speaker 4] (40:02 - 40:05)
That is the $1,000 hazardous stipend.

[Speaker 6] (40:09 - 40:13)
On the stipends they increased, do they continually increase $500 every single year?

[Speaker 1] (40:14 - 40:29)
No, that's a cap. Subsequent contracts can help that go up or go down. I've negotiated stipends down.

And I've negotiated some.

[Speaker 6] (40:29 - 40:38)
My only concern is that, is that really clear? Is that clear here? Is there any chance somebody's going to think that?

No.

[Speaker 1] (40:38 - 40:46)
There's no language that says this will increase at an amount of X per year. It just is static.

[Speaker 14] (40:46 - 40:46)
Okay.

[Speaker 6] (40:50 - 41:00)
On the first year, on the $92,000, was that increase in pay already baked into the budget, forecasted into the budget?

[Speaker 4] (41:00 - 41:00)
No.

[Speaker 6] (41:01 - 41:13)
It wasn't. But we knew that we were going to be negotiating a contract. The contract was going to be going up.

The cost of living was going to be going up, but that wasn't. Would that have been included in the salary reserves?

[Speaker 4] (41:13 - 41:24)
We have about $32,000. I forgot the actual number. We have $32,747 in the salary reserve.

[Speaker 3] (41:32 - 41:35)
So the rest of the COLA would come from free cash?

[Speaker 4] (41:35 - 41:35)
Yes.

[Speaker 3] (41:35 - 41:36)
Potentially.

[Speaker 4] (41:37 - 41:41)
Yes. So it would end up being a request of $59,965 from free cash.

[Speaker 8] (41:49 - 41:56)
Any other questions? Amy, can you highlight those year 2 and year 3 costs as well, please? Yes.

[Speaker 4] (41:56 - 42:23)
So year 2 cost would be $89,328.44. And then year 3 would be $73,296.26. And how much ARPA is contemplated being used? $223,000.

[Speaker 8] (42:24 - 42:24)
In total?

[Speaker 4] (42:24 - 42:25)
Mm-hmm.

[Speaker 8] (42:25 - 42:29)
And what would that leave us from the ARPA coffers?

[Speaker 4] (42:29 - 42:36)
It would put us just under the $4 million. As you know, we haven't appropriated the majority of our ARPA funds. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (42:40 - 42:53)
Are we being asked tonight to vote on the use of ARPA funds, or is that coming at a later date? I know the Finance Committee I don't think has even met, but I'm just asking.

[Speaker 1] (42:54 - 43:22)
Really, the only thing I'm asking the Board to vote on tonight is the MOU. We can discuss how to pay for it at a later point. I think this is essentially trying to get it to a special town meeting.

There's a Warren article in the warrant that speaks to funding for So I think we'd have to discuss that potentially at a meeting right before the special town meeting on Monday.

[Speaker 6] (43:28 - 43:35)
Well, if we don't vote on it, so we're saying not to vote on it? We're not going to be voting on the source of funding until a later date?

[Speaker 4] (43:35 - 43:49)
You can vote on it tonight, but you could also delay until Monday. But it would have to be decided in time for town meeting because funding the first year of the contract is part of that warrant article.

[Speaker 2] (43:51 - 44:04)
The free cash portion of the first year is part of the warrant article. So that warrant article currently presupposes the idea that we're going to use $223,000 of ARPA funds.

[Speaker 4] (44:05 - 44:08)
It's not written that way. It just says a sum of money, so you can…

[Speaker 2] (44:08 - 44:12)
No, no, right. But conceptually, that's what's currently planned by the financial team.

[Speaker 4] (44:12 - 44:12)
Yes.

[Speaker 3] (44:19 - 46:54)
So I said it when we started. I appreciate all the work that's been done. I think that we've done a lot of contracts in my two years.

I'm never necessarily comfortable with any contract, but I always remind myself, in many ways, defer to the negotiating team that's in the room and try to respect all the work that's been done to get us to this point. I think that this is the most uncomfortable I've been with any contract that I've had to consider. It's certainly going to put a strain on the town, I think, in the town budget.

I think that I support it. I will support it tonight, but I think that mainly because I think that there is no alternative that will cost less, both in real money but also in time. I think we've talked about this a little bit.

I think that it will help the town and the fire department move on, hopefully. I don't think that it's not a kumbaya moment, for sure. I'm not naive enough to think that it means there will be no problems going forward, but I think it will be helpful to have as fresh of a start as possible and to move on with this.

That's not the main reason, though. The main reason is I think that if we don't come to an agreement here, then my understanding is the contract and some of these issues eventually, ultimately, likely would be decided by other people in labor boards or arbitrators. I think that it's highly likely that the cost would be, at best case, would be the same, but that would be unlikely.

That's how I feel about it currently.

[Speaker 6] (46:56 - 46:59)
I just want to ask a quick question on the contract, if you don't mind, David.

[Speaker 3] (46:59 - 46:59)
Go ahead.

[Speaker 6] (47:00 - 47:12)
I just need to get a better explanation on the age and how the union actually. I just don't understand. Why does a union have to approve the age limit?

[Speaker 1] (47:14 - 48:09)
It's a wonderful question. I'm actually glad somebody else raised that. I don't get why a union would have to approve an age limit, either.

But, lo and behold, the town when they many, I think, 10 years ago. Maybe, Chief, you've got a better history with this. The town actually has hired firefighters up to the age of 42.

About 10 years ago, a little around 10 years ago, the town adopted a standard that capped the age at 32. This became a barrier to a number of candidates that we were looking to hire. Frankly, I was very surprised to hear that this created some umbrage.

But we've been able to work through it.

[Speaker 6] (48:12 - 48:13)
What is the reason 32?

[Speaker 7] (48:14 - 48:18)
Are you asking the reason why it's 32 or the reason why the union?

[Speaker 6] (48:18 - 48:45)
I'm just wondering why is it. One concern that I have is you have females, specifically, who are possibly having children or getting a little bit further down into their careers, and all of a sudden they decide to go on to the fire department, and they are 39 years old in an incredible physical condition and ready to go. They have longevity.

[Speaker 7] (48:46 - 53:21)
I couldn't say it any better myself. That's the reason why the town's position was to lift the maximum age. I think the union's position was sort of built on an inertia from when we were under civil service and the age cap was 32.

When I was hired a long, long time ago, it was 32. There was a period of time. The age cap, even under civil service, is a local option.

Some communities don't have one. Lynn doesn't have an age cap at all. Salem doesn't have an age cap at all, police or fire.

Most communities have around either a 31 or a 32, depending how it's worded. And Swampscott has sort of gone back and forth. When I was hired a long time ago, we had a 32-year-old age cap.

For a period of time, we waived it, and we hired a lot of outstanding firefighters and police officers outside of that age cap that were above that. I believe the highest at the fire department was 46 years old, and that firefighter retired as a lieutenant with a stellar career. When we began negotiating the policies and procedures for hiring on our own outside of civil service, the parameters around hiring were a part of the conversation.

Whether they had to be, I'm not sure, but they were. We did negotiate them, and we came to agreements. And before we signed those agreements, we thought it through further.

Administrator Fitzgerald and I discussed it, and we weren't comfortable with a 32-year-old just sort of automatically keeping a 32-year-old age cap. As you specified, as you pointed out, it has a disparate impact. It has a disparate impact on female candidates, and to a lesser extent, it has a disparate impact on minority candidates.

It just does. You know, even under civil service, there are a lot of issues. This whole process has been really illuminating for a lot of us.

You know, a lot of the argument when we got to hash history, when we were discussing leaving civil service, the argument always was, you know, that I've heard for 34 years in the fire department, was it's fair just as it is. Anyone can take the test. Anyone can pass the test.

Well, it's not fair just as it is. We're talking about the difference between equality and true equity. The civil service process was true as equal.

Everyone could sign up for the test. If you had the, when I took it, $20, but recently $150, you could take the test. But it's not equal if your dad and your brother and your cousin and your friends are all firefighters as opposed to if you don't know anything about it and you don't know the exam's coming up and you know nothing about it.

Coming into this profession, you know, as I did at age 21, wasn't unusual in that, you know, young men coming into this profession are ready to do it. They have lots of role models and examples that make them comfortable doing it. So for the reasons that you stated, for further life reasons, it has a disparate impact on female candidates.

And at the front end, there are just many structural reasons why. There aren't quite so many 21 and 22 and 23-year-old females that are running out to take the fire exam. That's why we're doing the outreach.

That's why my firefighters and I have been, and the administrators and the child administrator, have been racking our brains to think of better and more effective outreach methods to reach candidates who don't necessarily think it's a career path for them. If the impact wasn't so disparate, we wouldn't have to do that. We have to do that in order to make it equitable.

You can always say it's fair as it is because anyone can take the test. Anyone can. They just don't know they can take the test and they don't believe they can take the test.

And even if they believe that they can, there are other, as you pointed out, other life events that might sidetrack a person's career, and people shouldn't be penalized for that. So, sorry, that was a long-winded answer to your question. Why do we have to negotiate it?

I can't really answer that, but we did. We negotiated it. And when we wanted to change, there was resistance to it.

I would have eliminated it entirely, as do our neighboring communities, and as our police department, I believe, has done when leaving civil service.

[Speaker 1] (53:23 - 55:17)
In fairness, I do want to just share that I did hear at the bargaining table that there was a concern that hiring over the age of 32 would ultimately make it more risky for the town to hire somebody that was older, that may not have the same kind of longevity, that may have more challenges in terms of injury prong. I was surprised to hear these arguments, but they were part of the arguments that were presented that somehow they were more concerned about the longevity of the individuals as opposed to the fitness in terms of the goals that we had established, to be more inclusive and to be more focused on removing barriers to build a department. With that, settling at 35, that's a problem for Chief Archer and I.

We actually had to settle and come to terms with something that, frankly, we didn't feel great about. But that's part of compromise, and it's part of collective bargaining, and it's hard at times to just recognize that we've got to make incremental progress because I do believe that there are 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, maybe even 50-year-olds that are as able to do that job and protect us as any 21-year-old or 25-year-old, but we still face barriers, and we still have to address these contractually in good faith.

[Speaker 2] (55:19 - 55:29)
Can I ask a follow-up question? This is something to me. How many of the existing firefighters were hired above the age of 32?

Do we have any?

[Speaker 7] (55:30 - 55:42)
I don't have it in front of me. During my career, I believe we've hired between 12 and 14 that were hired above the age of 42. When we had that period where we waived that age cap, it was either 12 or 14.

[Speaker 2] (55:42 - 55:44)
And several of them are still on staff tonight?

[Speaker 7] (55:44 - 55:45)
Several of them are still on staff.

[Speaker 2] (55:45 - 55:49)
Okay. So I think that speaks and says everything that I need to say about it. Thank you, Mary Ellen, for raising it.

[Speaker 6] (55:50 - 55:51)
You're welcome, Peter.

[Speaker 3] (55:58 - 55:59)
Any other comments or questions?

[Speaker 14] (56:00 - 56:01)
Yeah.

[Speaker 8] (56:01 - 57:44)
Just briefly, the contract makes me uncomfortable when, honestly, it's expensive. There's considerable use of ARPA funds, considerable use of ARPA dollars. These dollars are not recurring.

These are things that we can use for incredible projects in and around Swampscot. We can invest with these ARPA dollars. We could potentially invest in infrastructure, in water sewer projects.

We could invest in affordable housing. I mean, these are all desperate needs of the town, not just wants, needs. So it pains me, makes me uncomfortable to use this large sum of ARPA funds to settle grievances essentially at dollar for dollar.

I mean, that's what we're doing, right, Sean? I mean, these are settlements essentially at face. Yes, David.

That makes me uncomfortable. That said, I didn't sit in the bargaining room. You did.

Chief Archer did. So I have incredible confidence in the two of you. And I think that you're bringing this to us because it's the best deal that you were able to secure.

And while I'm uncomfortable, I'm going to support it because I do think it's in the best interest of the town of Swampscot. So I just wanted to share that. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (57:45 - 58:48)
I will just say that, you know, I've worked with Chief Archer and I do have confidence that, you know, the language that we've been able to secure in this contract that, you know, will help us manage the budgetary challenges will be utilized and will help us ensure that, you know, we are going to, you know, find ways to be careful and diligent when it comes to managing to budget. The chief understands the fiduciary responsibilities that we have. And I think it's important that, you know, everybody understands that we've added language to the collective bargaining agreement that says that we are going to be able to make changes to staffing levels based on budgetary shortfalls and budgetary reasons based on the chief's judgment.

[Speaker 6] (58:49 - 1:00:51)
Just a little concern here that that is really, really clear. I mean, we're not involved in negotiations when we're really, you know, to be honest with you, I feel like we looked at things last minute. There really wasn't a whole lot of time to think about it.

You know, that was your role in negotiating. Like, you negotiate the contract and then we're supposed to just say yes or no. And if you've already negotiated the contract, you knew your parameters, it's hard for me to say, okay, go back and say no.

That's uncomfortable for me. I almost feel like it's just not a fair way to negotiate. So I don't negotiate collective bargaining agreements.

That's not what I do for a living. So, you know, I'm coming from a naive side. However, when I look at the contract and I ask, what was the process?

How did this happen? How did we end up where we are? And, you know, I agree with David that when you look at this amount of ARPA money being used, it really is disturbing to me.

But if I put myself in the shoes of the fire department, if I'm sitting at the fire department and I'm reading about how multiple people at Town Hall are receiving bonuses of $5,000 who were not actually out and in someone's home that had COVID, I would probably say, hey, why aren't I entitled to this? So I see things back and forth. But the number one concern that I have here is the amount of grievances that we have.

And to eliminate these grievances and to get very clear on what this manning actually means, do you feel like the fire department, the people that you work with, really understand that if you say, look, this is the amount of people that we're putting on this truck, that's the amount? Or are we looking at another whole round of grievances? I mean, are we going to be paying for this again?

[Speaker 7] (1:00:52 - 1:01:37)
Fair question. There's no denying that there could be crafted more concrete language that just says. The fire chief will set the staffing level at all times of year and under no circumstances can the union file agreements.

You could write language that said that it wouldn't. We wouldn't be sitting here. The union would not accept that.

Their attorney would not accept that. You're 100 percent right. I feel the same frustration.

We're seeing language. The language in the contract that town council, town administrator and myself felt gave the chief the authority to have flexibility on that staffing was in the contract for the last 20 years.

[Speaker 6] (1:01:38 - 1:01:40)
You feel it was in the contract?

[Speaker 7] (1:01:40 - 1:03:44)
I feel it was in the contract and so does town council. But they felt it wasn't in the contract. It's in legalese.

It allows a certain amount of interpretation. I guess in the one-year extension that we signed as we left civil service, that has expired just this past June, and in this current one in front of you now, we've been drilling and further into that language and sort of, I guess, sort of cutting off avenues of argument about it. But you're right.

It still doesn't say that under no circumstances can agreements be filed. And they could. What it says is I'll give a quantitative analysis of the budget standpoint and whether a budget shortfall exists or is likely to exist.

I suppose if I gave them back that analysis and it said we were flush with cash and there's no way that we're going to run short, that they could say, well, you can't short us then. In their term, it would be short us then because according to this analysis, you're going to get the end of the year with $300,000 left over. So it isn't as absolute as in a perfect world.

As an administrator, I'd love to just be able to say, you can't question me. This is what I'm going to do because I think it's the right thing to do, and that's the end of the story. I have to engage with the union.

And I'm OK with that. They have to be engaged with. I can't tell you that they will never file another grievance based on their winter staffing.

I can't say that they won't. I didn't think they had a strong case on the last one that they filed. But I can tell you that based on the language that we've crafted with KP Law, we're in the strongest position we've ever been.

And I think we started from a strong position. So I hope that answers your question.

[Speaker 14] (1:03:46 - 1:03:46)
Thank you.

[Speaker 7] (1:03:47 - 1:04:25)
As far as the timeline, I agree it would be great if we had more time to do it. It was the same on both sides. As their negotiating team presented it to their membership, they had 48 hours to chew it over and vote on it.

Going forward, it would be great if we could move those timelines back. But people's minds are focused when they're finally up against a deadline. And that's when the back and forth sort of stopped, when it was like, all right, are we going to ink a deal?

So I apologize that I would have liked to have had more time to look at it and more time for us to engage and talk about it and chew it over. That would be better, I agree.

[Speaker 14] (1:04:27 - 1:04:28)
Thank you.

[Speaker 10] (1:04:31 - 1:05:52)
I just want to echo what Neil said originally, which is it is uncomfortable to think about you all negotiating these contracts and then to contemplate the provisions of them. My day job does involve some negotiations. So obviously I think I would have done it this way or I would have liked to have done it that way.

But I have to agree with what David said, which is that you two are in the room, that you had the information available to you, and that the way that you're giving the information back to us is the most reasonable contract for which we could obtain at this time in this climate under these financial constraints and with these grievances looming over our heads. It's by far not perfect. I think we can all agree to that.

But hopefully I will take one step further in naivete than Neil, and I will say that hopefully this will produce an open line of communication that we did not have prior to this contract. I'm sure there are other members of this board who don't feel that way. I want to say that I am hopeful that is the case, and I hope that that is what happens.

[Speaker 1] (1:05:56 - 1:08:01)
Thank you, Katie. I do think, you know, look, we've got some relationships to mend. The transition out of civil service has been more complex and more difficult than I think any of us had hoped.

We knew it would be tough, but, you know, there are some real opportunities here for us to find a detente. I do think, you know, the contract, you know, there are some contentious pieces. There are pieces of this that, frankly, I think would make us all feel a little uncomfortable.

But ultimately, you know, it does give us a chance to put the complexity of the conflict around a contract behind us. And that is a big relief. I really think about the extraordinary leadership and the extraordinary work that Chief Archer has done over the last two years through the pandemic and the complexity of just transitioning the department out of civil service into a professional, you know, hiring system that really has helped the department build a much more inclusive workforce.

It's been some of the most impressive work I've seen in my public career. It really has been a wonderful success for the fire department. And the chief has worked with every member of the department to help accomplish quite a bit.

And I want to make sure the fire department does get recognized for doing some of that good work. And it is my hope that, frankly, this contract will put to bed some of those annoying grievances and frustrations that are wrapped up in this agreement.

[Speaker 2] (1:08:08 - 1:16:58)
I appreciate what Sean and Chief Archer have said. And I agree that I wasn't in the room either. And it's very difficult.

And I don't envy you having that responsibility to sit in the room. And I know enough about me to know that I would lack the patience and the focus to stay in the room through some of these conversations. And to me, some of the things that have come out of the conversations make perfect sense and some are inexplicable to me.

I applaud that we're seeing COLAs, not as a weapon, but as a recognition of the fact that we live in an inflationary environment. And I hope that, regardless of a union's bargaining strength, the fairness of COLAs starts replicating across unions. The cost of living for a fireman is no different than the cost of living for a librarian or an administrative assistant.

And it's time for us to recognize that and stop using what I think at times is an excuse that, well, the contracts are more complicated. A COLA is a COLA is a COLA. And we should stay true to it and recognize that.

And so I appreciate that this contract includes that. I also appreciate the hazardous materials stipend. Chief Archer has spoken numerous times about the forever chemicals, about even the turnout gear that they are forced to wear presents harm to them.

And I think as though as time has progressed and we become more aware of these things, I think there are hazards. I appreciate what they did as deputy health agents during COVID. But that being said, from my standpoint, this is the most generous contract in my eight years that we're being asked to vote on.

I'm not sure that the town can afford this contract or the precedent that it sets. I'm not saying that these are reasons not to support it. But I have reasons that lead me to not support this contract.

The primary reason I don't support the contract is the contract includes significant payment to the union to settle several grievances that they have filed against the town in the last several years. Typically, the public would not hear about grievances, as it's a longstanding accepted understanding to not publicly discuss grievances, instead allowing them to go through the formal process that is well established. Here, residents, many of them, know about the grievances.

And that's because union leadership decided months ago to publicize them in local media, to publicize them on social media. And now that those grievances are part of a public contract, they now also know because the grievances are mentioned in a public contract. Both the town administrator and fire chief, when I've asked, have expressed optimism that the town would prevail in all of these grievances.

So I asked myself, why then is Swampscott taxpayers being asked to pay money to settle grievances that we would win? When I asked this of the town administrator and Chief Archer, their response wasn't to paraphrase. Harmony, labor harmony, to turn the page and get a fresh start.

I get that, to a point. Having sat on the board for the last two years during this tumultuous time and having insight on many of the issues, I understand why Chief Archer and Sean Fitzgerald would want to achieve harmony. But you did not need to sit on this board to understand that.

All you had to do was read the lin item or take a look at social media, because that's where most of the disharmony was being aired and inflamed by union leadership. One of the grievances that taxpayers are being asked to pay for is a claim by the fire union for wages for overtime shifts not actually worked during the height of COVID. In the face of 18 of 34 firefighters being unavailable due to vacancies, COVID related or other reasons, and the remaining fire department members having already worked significant overtime to cover for their colleagues, Chief Archer used his managerial prerogatives to not fill certain positions on certain shifts during this unprecedented period.

Even though no one worked these overtime shifts, the union grievance sought approximately $100,000 in wages to be paid to firefighters for shifts that no one ever worked. I do not believe taxpayers should pay for shifts no one ever worked. To resolve this dispute, this contract essentially agrees to pay for a significant, if not the entirety of this amount for on work shifts.

The fire union separately detailed in the lin item grievance that they had with Chief Archer about a private text Chief Archer sent to the head of the fire union, a 30-year colleague following Swampscott's Pride event in 2021. Again, this isn't something that you and I would not know about, but we do because the lin union interviewed members of the union leadership and they discussed this grievance. As the fire union leadership shared in the lin item, Chief Archer's text expressed disappointment with fire department members over their lack of participation in the Pride event.

Instead of hearing this concern, or at least trying to better understand the concern, the head of the union instead shared this private text with members of the fire and police union, both of which ultimately went to town hall to file a grievance against the fire chief for sending the text. I was one of the people that was with Chief Archer at the 2021 Pride event, and I saw what he saw. I said nothing, and I'm sorry that I said nothing.

Chief Archer said something, and I'm proud of Chief Archer for saying something. Because the fire union leadership shared it with the lin item, and it only published a select portion of it, I want to share all of what Chief Archer said in that then-private-now-public text message. Once again, the members of 1459 can bask in the sunshine of an appreciative town.

T.A. Fitzgerald yesterday publicly praised both the firefighters and the Swamp Cup Police Department for supporting an open, welcoming, and inclusive community. We'll just keep it between ourselves that every single off-duty member refused, in overtime, to attend this event until one member checked back in on the morning of the event and agreed to drop by. No need to let anyone know that in order to have a fire department presence, the on-duty shift had to be directed to attend, or that they then shuffled over as though they were walking to the gallows.

Let's just hope that none of the people in attendance noticed how all of the public safety professionals there stayed 20 yards away from any citizens as if gayness was contagious. Chief Archer, you are a true leader, and you said something that many of us would not say, and I did not say, because of fear of retribution or other not-good reasons. Since your appointment as chief, and your support for the removal of the fire department from civil service, I believe you have had to concur some of the most difficult and, I believe, unfair challenges to your leadership and your character.

Please do not change, and do not stop effectuating positive change where you see the need. Chief Archer and Sean Fitzgerald, I am grateful to you for your continued efforts to bring about that change. But I cannot support the payments to the fire union members to settle grievances and disagreements that I believe they clearly sought to exploit.

I will be voting no on this contract.

[Speaker 3] (1:17:02 - 1:17:59)
Thanks, Peter. Any other comments, questions? If there are none, I have a motion to approve the contract.

Is there a second? Any further discussion? All those in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Opposed.

Okay. The contract is approved. Thank you again.

Thanks, everyone, for your comments. Thanks, Chief, for all the work. And Sean, and thanks to the union for their work on the contract negotiations as well.

[Speaker 1] (1:18:00 - 1:18:32)
I really appreciate the board's comments and positions. I think it's important for us to just recognize that we all can have a different perspective on this, and we can all still respect each other and understand each other and support each other, because there's room for a lot of conversation around this contract. I appreciate every point that was made.

[Speaker 3] (1:18:34 - 1:18:58)
Thanks, Sean. Next on the agenda is, well, we have an update on the tax classification, which I think both that and the special town meeting warrant sort of blend into one another, but I think we'll start with the tax classification, which has to do with Article, I believe.

[Speaker 2] (1:18:59 - 1:19:26)
Neil, can I ask about that? Just to understand what our goals are for this evening. Is our goal this evening just to hear it, knowing that FinCom is meeting tomorrow night and we don't have their recommendation?

Is our goal to express some opinions about use of free cash and reserves? What is your hope from tonight's conversation, understanding that perhaps a final vote may not be in the offering tonight just because we're meeting a day ahead of the finance committee?

[Speaker 3] (1:19:26 - 1:19:49)
Yeah, well, that was something I wanted to discuss. Good question, one I was asking myself. So I think that if that makes sense to everyone, the way Peter described, that we wait for FinCom and then we'll have our final votes on the Monday before a special town meeting, we can certainly discuss and share our opinions.

Does that make sense?

[Speaker 2] (1:19:49 - 1:19:54)
What time are we scheduled currently to meet? That's something I wanted to talk about tonight.

[Speaker 3] (1:19:55 - 1:19:57)
You're asking all the right questions.

[Speaker 2] (1:19:57 - 1:19:57)
Keep going.

[Speaker 3] (1:19:57 - 1:20:04)
See if you can lead me down the path of more good questions. The funny thing is I don't have an answer. These are questions I wanted to ask.

I was thinking 6.

[Speaker 2] (1:20:06 - 1:20:10)
Can I just suggest that perhaps we meet a little earlier just because I think we're going to need some conversations.

[Speaker 3] (1:20:11 - 1:20:29)
I think we can do that. 5.30? Is that okay with everybody?

Is that going to be challenging or have a break? It's tough commuting.

[Speaker 10] (1:20:30 - 1:20:34)
I can work from home that day. I hope my boss isn't watching.

[Speaker 3] (1:20:39 - 1:21:20)
You missed a lot. The questions were what's the goal tonight, especially with Article 2 and with the tax classification. I think the goal is to have a discussion and share thoughts but likely not vote because the Finance Committee is meeting tomorrow so we can wait for them on that.

The other question was just about because of that, when are we meeting on Monday? I suggested that we meet a little bit earlier. If people can do 5, we can try to do that and then take a break before our town meeting or else we can do 5.30. I think that would give us plenty of time.

[Speaker 2] (1:21:21 - 1:21:55)
I'm sorry, I'm going to jump back in. I think 5 is good because I think there are caucuses. I just think as though us doing this and having the conversation and then taking a break and being able to see people when they check in is probably better.

This is an unusual amount of substantive stuff that we will not have voted on. We'll be voting on moments before town meeting. Not knowing where FinCom recommends or where things could go, I think it's just prudent to notice an earlier meeting just to give us the time and space to have conversations.

That's just my suggestion but I'm open to whatever you all think.

[Speaker 3] (1:21:56 - 1:21:57)
Can people do that?

[Speaker 4] (1:21:59 - 1:22:06)
FinCom booked their meeting for 6 on Monday so hopefully they get through everything tomorrow.

[Speaker 3] (1:22:08 - 1:22:26)
I suppose the other possibility, I'd rather do it in person before the meeting but the other possibility if people are challenged logistically is we could have a Zoom meeting earlier than that. That may not be better for anyone.

[Speaker 10] (1:22:28 - 1:22:28)
I'm good.

[Speaker 3] (1:22:28 - 1:23:39)
If that works for everybody, I'm glad you brought it up because I was planning on asking about that later. With that, why don't we jump into the tax classification conversation which is Article 2 and the town meeting warrants. We're essentially taking two of our three remaining agenda items now.

We'll start with Article 2 and with the tax classification. There's a presentation that was sent out recently that a lot of it had to do with the fact that we just received our just for people who are listening at home, a lot of the last minute reasoning behind this is that we just got our free cash certification yesterday afternoon so there have been a lot of unknowns in a lot of these articles. Most of these articles have to do with free cash so we're happily given notice from DOR.

Who's taking this?

[Speaker 1] (1:23:39 - 1:24:24)
Richard is going to start and he's going to recap some of the changes in valuations. He does have an update on new growth. We did not have that information two weeks ago when we reviewed classification.

Then I'm going to talk a little bit about the budget and tax setting forms. Patrick will give an update on that and then Amy will provide some information on new growth and some of the analysis around the use of stabilization or free cash to offset the levy. With that, Richard, can you kick it off?

Diane, could you bring up the presentation?

[Speaker 2] (1:24:29 - 1:24:31)
The last assessor did an interpretive dance.

[Speaker 5] (1:24:32 - 1:25:00)
I'm not this one. Thank you very much. Although if you saw the show on Love Actually last night, they were doing interpretive dances.

I don't think you want to see me doing an interpretive dance.

[Speaker 2] (1:25:02 - 1:25:03)
Maybe once.

[Speaker 5] (1:25:13 - 1:28:01)
Perfect. We all set? Yes, we are.

I'll let you know when I'm changing slides. This is a continuation of the preliminary review of the tax classification that we had a couple of weeks ago. A lot of the slides are going to be repetitive.

I'll try to go over those as quickly as possible as briefly as possible. This has already been covered, so I won't go over that again. The process we're involved with is the Board of Assessors determines the assessed values.

The assessing department is also responsible for determining new growth. Sorry, am I blowing it already? Yes, I am.

I apologize. New growth and budget all play into determining the levy. Assessed values allocate taxes over the individual taxable properties in Swansgate.

The Board of Selectmen, at their discretion, can allocate a portion of the levy off of residential properties onto commercial, industrial, and personal properties. The Select Board can also allocate taxes within the residential levy and the commercial levy through the residential exemption and small commercial exemption. We'll get into that next Wednesday.

New growth was approved yesterday about the same time as free cash was. New growth is up this year primarily, particularly in residential properties, primarily because of the development of White Court. Thank you.

We had about 19 units developed in that development, and they sold subsequently for between $2 and $3 million. We weren't going from zero value to those values. We had land value involved with that and building value involved that needed to be taken out to really arrive at the true new growth, but a substantial amount.

The new growth that occurred is primarily through that development on residential properties. There was some new growth in commercial and none really in industrial, primarily valuation changes. This shows the trend from 2018 to 2023, and currently this year we have a total of $43,936,308 in new growth for all classes of properties.

[Speaker 6] (1:28:02 - 1:28:18)
I just have a quick question. So from 21 to 22, new growth went down to 513, and right now in 23 we're at a growth. Is that a forecasted end of year, 634, or is that an actual where we are now?

[Speaker 5] (1:28:18 - 1:28:24)
That's certified. It's actually certified through the OR. It improved and fixed.

It ain't going to change.

[Speaker 14] (1:28:25 - 1:28:25)
Okay.

[Speaker 5] (1:28:29 - 1:30:20)
Just briefly, the valuation changes that occurred this year, primarily residentially properties went up about 12%. Valuation change for residential, for single families is around 16%, and for condominiums is 20.9%, but again, a large portion of that is new growth through White Court. Since 2018, commercially we have seen, commercially, industrial and personal property has seen a change in value of about 50%, and over the same period, next slide, the breakdown in valuation has, residential properties have increased about 53%, and that's purely a function of the market.

It's the change in value to the association or the interaction of buyer and seller, and of supply and demand, and so there's nothing we can do about that. It's just it is what it is. As a result, the breakdown in values, if you look at the pie chart in this slide, we have 93% of the values in Swampskate are residential values, single family homes, condominiums, multifamily homes, and apartment buildings, and also, conversely, 5% are commercial properties, 1% is industrial properties, and 1% are personal properties, so it's a very small portion, and so when we're shifting the levy off of residential properties onto commercial, there's not much of a change that can occur, because so much is taken up by residential.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:22 - 1:31:04)
We've really seen a huge shift from commercial to residential, and frankly, we've discussed this over the last few years, that this continues to put additional pressure on the residential real estate portion of the tax levy, and so it is a challenge, and we have to really start thinking about how do we drive commercial development? Where is a greater opportunity for Swampskate to think about commercial development? It will help make Swampskate more affordable.

It will help make Swampskate's efforts to be more affordable that much more sustainable.

[Speaker 2] (1:31:05 - 1:31:52)
But Sean, that's not really, I mean, I get what you're saying, but the real pressure of why it's going on residential over commercial is appreciation in residential is happening at a greater clip than appreciation in commercial. That's where the stress is being put. The other stuff, the new growth, right, which is the conversions, which is the White Court, makes a bigger pie for which that increased residential amount is being split among.

So it's not, so I just. It's not all bad news, but. No, no, but I just, I think we should be thinking of commercial not for tax base as much as we should actually be thinking about commercial quality of life.

We have services and amenities that people in this town want to have, frankly, because that is, that is, I will trade one good restaurant for three banks, and I, by the way, the restaurant's coming, the banks are leaving.

[Speaker 10] (1:31:52 - 1:31:53)
Let's see, you want it the other way.

[Speaker 2] (1:31:53 - 1:32:05)
The other way around, whatever it is. Thank you. He negotiates contracts.

He's just going to help me with this. But I just think about that. I just want to be careful that we don't get blind to it just because not all commercial is equal for a town in terms of quality of life.

[Speaker 5] (1:32:05 - 1:33:52)
And Peter's right. This is not unusual to Swampskate. I've worked in four communities in Massachusetts as an assessor.

Every community has the same problem. Some decide to split their rate and shift the levy off of residential properties on the commercial, and some tend to stay the course. It is a local decision, and it's up to you as to what you want to do.

And it's put in your lap. Initially when we did classification, the assessors classified the rate, and then somebody in their wisdom decided, the legislature in their wisdom decided to shift it down to the Board of Selectmen, or the Board of Selectboards, as it's currently called. But it's your choice now.

Thank you. So anyways, moving right along. Next slide.

This just shows a change in assessment on a median basis. The next is on the average, and average allows the outliers to control. Median takes away the outliers.

And that's the only reason why you're seeing these big disparities. With respect to the rate, Swampskate has been very good and very effective about going against the tide. These are all the average residential tax bills for Essex County.

And if you notice, there's one line, a red line, that is going down slowly, but going down as the others consistently go up. And that's the result of Selectboard and the Town Administrator and FinCom actively trying to control the budget.

[Speaker 6] (1:33:53 - 1:34:05)
I just have a quick question. On some of these communities that are going up, is there any chance that some of these communities are going up because they're also building new schools ahead of what we're doing? Oh, absolutely.

[Speaker 5] (1:34:05 - 1:34:33)
And the school departments are very good about trying to get as much money as they can to support those efforts. And so I know in Linfield, where I lived for 60 years, we recently built a new middle school about five or six years ago. And we are constantly updating the elementary schools.

So it's a constant battle. You want to stay current. You want to provide your students with the best education possible.

It comes to the cost.

[Speaker 1] (1:34:33 - 1:35:12)
But I just want to highlight, we can go back and we can parays out the new schools, but most of these communities are taxing the same way Swampskate taxed, but for five years ago. And that was tax it all. Go right up to your two and a half levy capacity and just keep taxing.

And that's probably more of the signature of how each of these communities are managing their finances than somehow seeing a new school hit your tax levy every five or ten years. It's just increasing two and a half percent every year and figuring out how to spend it.

[Speaker 6] (1:35:12 - 1:35:14)
Got it. Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (1:35:15 - 1:38:00)
The next slide just continues on this line. This is the average single family tax bill in Essex County and compared to the town of Swampskate. The tax bill for Swampskate has increased at a more gradual rate or actually declined since 2017 while the average tax bill in the Essex County has increased.

Next slide shows the value of single family homes. And again, function of the market, residential properties increase at a fairly rapid rate. And just this next chart shows the average tax bill for Swampskate as opposed to Essex County and the disparity between the two.

Last year, 2022, the average bill for Swampskate was $9,128 and it was $690 above the average tax bill for Exes County, which again is commendable. The other thing we looked at was Peer Group. Initially we had nine towns in here.

I added three. I added Winfield because I know it well. I'm from there.

Manchester-by-the-Sea because it's another wealthy, very wealthy North Shore community. And Marblehead because it's next door. And so these towns are basically fairly similar.

Not exactly the same. Nothing is like Swampskate. And all of these towns are individually different too.

This Peer Group, as far as assessed values, values for both went up. Next slide. The average single family tax bill, again, similar to what had happened with Essex County.

In comparison, Swampskate's tax bill went up more gradually than the other towns in the Peer Group and in comparison fell when you looked at disparities. So the Peer Group increased by 39% from 2013 to 2022 and Swampskate increased by 7%. Again, I just made this chart to compare Marblehead, your competitor to Swampskate, and also the Peer Group.

And again, pardon? Next slide.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:00 - 1:38:03)
Go two behind, go two back.

[Speaker 5] (1:38:03 - 1:38:11)
One forward. Other way forward.

[Speaker 12] (1:38:13 - 1:38:14)
Keep going.

[Speaker 10] (1:38:16 - 1:38:26)
The other way. You're going the wrong way, Diane. There you go.

[Speaker 5] (1:38:27 - 1:40:39)
Again, I apologize, Diane. Diane is doing a great job. I'm trying to screw it up as best I possibly can.

The tax bill, average tax bill for Swampskate went down gradually again since 2017 and for Marblehead and Essex County it's gone up consistently, or the Peer Group has gone up consistently. And then we're looking at commercial properties from 2013 to 2022. Again, values go up.

Commercial properties, values don't go up as quickly, primarily because there's more supply, less demand for commercial properties. Everybody assumes commercial properties go up faster than residential. That isn't the case, purely.

Since World War II, residential properties have increased dramatically, commercial properties not so much. I haven't been appraising since World War II, but I definitely didn't appraise since 1981 when I started in this profession. And I've seen this over time.

And then I think we're getting to the end here. The average commercial tax bill for Essex County and Swampskate, again, the average tax bill has gone up for commercial properties more gradually than it has for other Essex County towns. Let me just go on to the next slide.

Nope. I think I just worked. No, I worked.

I ran out of slides. So you can see in this slide here that the variance between Essex County and Swampskate starts off at $17,498 a year and is now at $17,609, not much of a change. And that's the end of my speedy presentation.

Any questions? And I hope I haven't been too speedy. Yeah, no, thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:40:40 - 1:41:00)
So at this point, Patrick is going to kind of take us through some of the tax rate setting documents that we have to fill out for DOR, and Amy will wrap it up with some analysis on use of town reserves as we discuss, you know, what would be.

[Speaker 9] (1:41:02 - 1:43:23)
Thanks, Sean. Diane, next slide, if you don't mind. I'm going to recap some of the forms that we file with DOR each year to get the tax rate set.

This is going to be largely the same as what was presented to you before, so I'll go through it quickly. There's five components of tax policy that the board and the finance committee have at their disposal to influence the tax rate each year. That's setting the town budget, estimating local receipts, considering local options for small business and residential exemption, applying free cash or reserves to further reduce the tax rate, and also splitting the tax rate, which is what the town has done for the past several years.

Next slide. So when we start to calculate the tax rate each year, we need to identify all of the items that town meeting has appropriated and other items that the town is responsible for funding in the fiscal year. So that's town meeting votes, state assessments.

Next slide, Diane. We have the state assessments here. That's a variable.

That's a function of the state budget. Assessments are up $345,000 for fiscal 23 compared to last year. Education charges drive that.

Next slide. We also have to raise amounts for abatements and exemptions. That's the overlay account, and that's a function of averages of what we've needed for those expenditures in the past few years.

Next slide. Start to look at the receipts for the town for the year. State aid is given to us.

It's a cherry sheet, as it's referred to. Our net state aid is up $93,000 for fiscal 23 compared to fiscal 22, and that's unrestricted aid, chapter 70 education aid, and charter school reimbursements. Next slide.

We also have local receipts. Those are fees and charges that the town imposes through all of its departmental functions. So those are estimated each year conservatively based on averages from the past and what we were able to collect in fiscal 22.

They're conservative. You don't want to be in a position where your estimates are too high and you're unable to collect. Next slide.

[Speaker 1] (1:43:23 - 1:43:29)
Pat, before you advance, how about interest rates? Any update on interest rates?

[Speaker 9] (1:43:29 - 1:43:50)
Yeah, I get into that a little bit later. I'll circle back. But interest rates are up.

So one line item is investment income for local receipts. So there's an opportunity there in an environment where interest rates rise to have a windfall from the town's deposits. So we'll see increased investment income.

[Speaker 1] (1:43:51 - 1:43:53)
So last year we were at less than a percent?

[Speaker 9] (1:43:54 - 1:44:05)
Yes, and currently we're at 4% from MMDT, which is where a lot of our operating funds are held. So that's great news, and we'll see windfall in local receipts from that.

[Speaker 6] (1:44:05 - 1:44:14)
And what happens with the money that we pulled for the school? So we bonded our school. We pulled in that, what did we do, 90?

No, we did 60. How much did we do on that?

[Speaker 9] (1:44:14 - 1:44:14)
60.

[Speaker 6] (1:44:14 - 1:44:22)
60 million. And then don't we have to pay the state back? Are we charged the interest and have to reimburse the state?

[Speaker 9] (1:44:23 - 1:44:36)
So the town keeps the interest earned on that deposit. After five years from the issue in state, we have to calculate arbitrage, which will be a marginal amount. But we do get to keep those proceeds.

There will be some rebate.

[Speaker 6] (1:44:37 - 1:44:38)
The arbitrage will be minimal then?

[Speaker 9] (1:44:39 - 1:44:42)
It'll be marginal. It'll have to be calculated at that time.

[Speaker 6] (1:44:42 - 1:44:43)
And what is it calculated at?

[Speaker 9] (1:44:45 - 1:44:57)
The bond yield is calculated. I have to file a whole report with the IRS, and then that's compared over time with the yield on our deposits. So there will be some amount of rebate that we need to handle in five years, most likely.

[Speaker 6] (1:44:58 - 1:44:59)
We don't have to give it all back?

[Speaker 9] (1:44:59 - 1:45:05)
Nope. You're allowed to keep up to the amount that you're paying, essentially, in interest on the bond.

[Speaker 6] (1:45:07 - 1:45:09)
Okay, so a lot of savings there.

[Speaker 9] (1:45:09 - 1:45:10)
Yes, exactly.

[Speaker 4] (1:45:11 - 1:45:14)
Five years from the presentation. A little victory.

[Speaker 9] (1:45:17 - 1:45:38)
And once we identify local receipts and state aid, everything gets summarized on this page here. Nets out from the amounts we have to raise to get the gross levy amount, which is $55.5 million approximately this year. Amy, do you want to go over the free cash slide?

[Speaker 4] (1:45:42 - 1:46:42)
Okay. Can you switch to the next slide? So as you all should have received an email on, our free cash was certified last night at $3,630,509.

The free cash is a result of revenues in excess of our estimates, as well as expenditures below the appropriations that were made at town meetings. Our financial policy has a guideline target of 3-5% of our operating budget, putting the 3% at $2,040,308 and the 5% at $3.4 million. Our free cash has been declining since FY22 as our operational budget continues to contract based off our tight financial guidelines.

Last year, if you remember, we did have a decrease in our free cash due to FEMA seawall reimbursement that we were waiting on. That was rectified this year and is reflective in that number.

[Speaker 6] (1:46:44 - 1:46:48)
It's reflective in this number here? Yes. What was that dollar amount?

[Speaker 4] (1:46:48 - 1:49:50)
It was $550,000. If anyone really wants some fun calculations, I can tell you the whole calculation. Next slide.

Our other financial reserves is our general stabilization and capital stabilization that we've been building up over the last eight years. Our financial policy has a target of these of 9-10% for our general stabilization and 2-4% for capital stabilization. Between the two of them, we're at 2.9% of the annual operating budget. As you can see from this bar chart, we've really been ramping this up. At this point, we have almost $10 million combined between the two stabilization funds compared with the $2.5 million we had in 2016. Next slide.

This was courtesy of the presentation Patrick gave when we were modeling the debt for the new school. This was the proposal option that was chosen assuming the $64 million debt and mitigating this to use stabilization and free cash to try to keep the offset of the median taxpayer at $300 per year. Next slide.

Our current median single family home value is $685,900, which is a 32% increase over last year. Our residential growth is outpacing the other sectors and we do have sufficient reserves to offset this impact. As you remember, our bonding was accelerated in March 2023 in anticipation of the rising interest rates.

We had modeled this debt at 2.5% and ended up with a 2.847712%, which we were actually lucky to get and act as quickly as we did. Way to go, Patrick. As of right now, current interest rates are close to 4%, so accelerating this debt did save the town about $10 million over the length of the bond.

Next slide. This is just to highlight the tax impact. At the top, you can see this is purely the gross tax impact of the new school debt, which is about $453.

Utilizing slightly over $1 million in stabilization or free cash does get us that $300 net tax impact of the new school debt. Next slide. Can you go back to that last slide for a second?

[Speaker 3] (1:49:50 - 1:50:01)
Was that, I don't know, when you modeled it in 21, if the amounts from stabilization were a part of that or was it just like a...

[Speaker 4] (1:50:01 - 1:50:04)
No, this was a calculation that we did recently.

[Speaker 3] (1:50:04 - 1:50:09)
Right, so it's not like we at the time forecasted we would use a certain amount.

[Speaker 4] (1:50:10 - 1:50:22)
We did have forecasts in there because we projected out to make that table that you saw, but we didn't have the exact amount, so this is adjusted based off the actual levy numbers.

[Speaker 3] (1:50:23 - 1:50:24)
Is this from capital stabilization?

[Speaker 4] (1:50:25 - 1:50:27)
This is from general stabilization.

[Speaker 2] (1:50:27 - 1:51:16)
Can I go back to slide 30, which is the new school debt? That projection, which was the 35, was predicated, I think, of a total use of stabilization of $5.93 million. If we're using $1 million hypothetically this year, there's a lot of years left to 35.

Is that $5.93 million number, relatively speaking, holding? I know that wasn't based on actual interest rates, but if we equalized it, we never saw exactly how that stabilization money would be funded. Is it a lot in the first years and then it burns down such that if I take $1 million this year and I know I have nine years left, I get nervous that we're going to blow out $5.93 million or the equivalent to get to that 300?

[Speaker 4] (1:51:16 - 1:51:22)
Yes, it was a decreasing amount over the years of it with roughly $1 million being used in that first year.

[Speaker 1] (1:51:23 - 1:52:23)
It's important for us to just talk about what's in the pipeline that gives us a little sense of confidence that we're going to be replenishing investments. Right now we know that we have a number of residential developments that will bring in new growth just based on permit fees. We have Elm.

We have the Glover, both at estimated over half a million dollars. We have permit fees from aggregate in this year already at over $300,000. We know that at least for next year, we have a financial position that says we're going to be replenishing and building up stabilization.

We are going to have to constantly come back and check the market, check the financial position of the town and do our best to try to keep that stabilization fund healthy enough to support a reduction in this debt service.

[Speaker 2] (1:52:23 - 1:54:01)
I would just ask that, going back to Richard's presentation, when we talk new growth, for years we talked about breaking down new growth so we understood what was driving. What is baseline new growth? Good year, bad year, new growth, no matter for single family permits or whatever it is, for additions, for stuff like that is X amount of percent of new growth if we study it for 10 years.

I don't think it ever has been really appropriately studied so that we understand how sensitive that is because we only use new growth of 425 in our financial projection. I think that's in part, and I think it's going to be conservative, even though the first year actually puts over what the actual was, but the more we understand what drives new growth, the more we understand the flow through that Sean just talked about. The more we know in a bad time, without a white court, without a You're not going to have many white courts.

Right, but in those times, what that really means, and then when we are saying, he's saying, well, we're going to have new growth. He's saying we have this this year, so we know this. That only works if it happens and then it flows through such that our free cash is heavy enough or robust enough that we then can allocate to stabilization.

Each bucket has to get billed to go to the next thing. You're probably entirely right about next year, but we still don't have a great predictor tool to understand that going forward, and it's going to be math. It's going to be science and art always, but I think that you have the science, which would really be great to give to us to at least have that plug to understand that.

[Speaker 5] (1:54:01 - 1:54:08)
I don't mind doing an analysis like that. It may be going past my time here, but I'd definitely be happy to work.

[Speaker 2] (1:54:08 - 1:54:13)
Well, we're extending your time. The next vote is to extend your time.

[Speaker 10] (1:54:16 - 1:54:33)
It's just so you know. Back to Peter's comment about the use of stabilization with the new school. Can you explain the step down that you're talking about?

The million this year, but how it's meant to decrease?

[Speaker 4] (1:54:33 - 1:54:42)
Yeah, the drop down was just due to other existing debt that we have, so that was a combination of all the debt with the new school added into it.

[Speaker 8] (1:54:46 - 1:54:54)
So Amy, is the model or Amy and Patrick, is the model that's shown on page 30?

[Speaker 3] (1:54:56 - 1:54:58)
If you go back like two slides.

[Speaker 8] (1:54:58 - 1:55:23)
Yeah, two slides on page 30 of the presentation. We ended up bonding sooner than we thought. We ended up bonding in fiscal 22 versus what we thought was going to be a fiscal 23 event, correct?

Yes. So there was some additional cost in 22. This is kind of off by a year right now.

[Speaker 4] (1:55:23 - 1:55:29)
Yeah, we were giving the same image that you voted on to pick which option.

[Speaker 6] (1:55:29 - 1:55:45)
Even though when we bonded, wasn't that number higher than what the prediction actually was? I mean, we bonded at a time that saved us money, but even at the savings, was that percentage higher?

[Speaker 9] (1:55:45 - 1:56:36)
She's teeing you up beautifully for this, Patrick. Take it. So the debt service that we arrived at after we issued the bonds, you're correct, was above the model and the estimate.

The net interest cost was about 2.84%. The model assumed a 2.5%, but it assumed an issuance in September. So if we hadn't pulled the plug and done this in March and we waited until September, we would have completely blown the projection with the rising interest rates and the environment, and we would have had a much larger debt service on our hands. So we'd saved a lot, a lot of money over the life of these bonds doing that.

But you are correct that it was slightly above the original estimate for the yearly debt service.

[Speaker 6] (1:56:36 - 1:56:38)
Was it that much above? I mean, is it really?

[Speaker 9] (1:56:38 - 1:56:46)
It was under $100,000, and the annual debt service on the project this year is $3,015,218.

[Speaker 6] (1:56:48 - 1:56:50)
Are you showing off here?

[Speaker 9] (1:56:50 - 1:56:54)
No. I've looked at that number a lot, so that's in my head.

[Speaker 6] (1:56:54 - 1:56:57)
Okay, so it's really not that bad.

[Speaker 9] (1:56:57 - 1:57:00)
Right, quite good.

[Speaker 4] (1:57:06 - 1:57:07)
Do we have any more questions?

[Speaker 3] (1:57:08 - 1:57:10)
Sorry, please continue.

[Speaker 4] (1:57:10 - 1:57:45)
Alright, so slide 33. As you know, we have two shift options here. We have the 150% shift and the 170%.

Historically, we have gone with the 170% shift. So I'm actually just going to go to the next slide, which focuses purely on the 170. The columns that you have with the green header of free cash allocation and the orange with stabilization allocated are the columns that I'm going to be referencing.

So in the first row, there is...

[Speaker 2] (1:57:45 - 1:57:49)
Mary Ellen, I would look at the next page, because it's the same chart, but they actually have more information and it's more legible.

[Speaker 4] (1:57:51 - 1:58:18)
And it's slightly more zoomed in. So in the first row, you'll see there's zero use of free cash and zero stabilization, which would increase the median single-family tax bill by $784. That's if we do nothing to mitigate this.

With the actual levy to balance the budget, the debt service for the new school is $453.89 of that $784.

[Speaker 3] (1:58:21 - 1:58:26)
Can you say that again? Sorry, I didn't... Oh, I see it in the notes there.

Sorry. Go ahead.

[Speaker 4] (1:58:29 - 2:00:18)
So this is just modeling varied uses of free cash and stabilization. I am going to jump down to the line that has a million of free cash and a million of stabilization for a total of $2 million of funds. That brings the median single-family increase to $484.

Utilizing that $2 million offsets the debt service of the new school down to the $300 that was discussed, along with the increase in capital and budget growth. So that would be, I believe, the absolute floor of what should be looked at for use of free cash and stabilization, because anything less than utilizing that $2 million would not fulfill the promise of the $300. Utilizing $1.25 of free cash and a million of stabilization would actually put us at the low end of our target for free cash and stabilization. That $2.25 million offsets the new school debt the same as it does to bring it down to $300, as well as alleviates additional burden from the capital debt and budget growth. That would bring the median single-family tax increase to $446, and the Town Administrator's recommendation is to use $1.25 each of free cash and stabilization. It would bring us slightly below the target for stabilization reserves, but only modestly, only down to 8.7%. But it would give relief to those taxpayers at the tune of $409.

[Speaker 2] (2:00:19 - 2:00:24)
Can I ask, though, you're grouping stabilization to one category. We have capital and we have general.

[Speaker 4] (2:00:24 - 2:00:25)
This is all general.

[Speaker 2] (2:00:25 - 2:00:58)
Right. Some of this money is being used, though, to offset capital debt. So if we were to take, let's just use that last example, $1.25 of stabilization, if we were to allocate some of that to capital stabilization, does that keep both stabilizations then roughly within where they need to be per our guidelines?

Because right now we're applying it all to general, and that may be what's taking general below the guidelines, the 9 to 10%. Is there a way to blend those two that keeps both of them in the same range, in the range for our guidelines?

[Speaker 4] (2:00:59 - 2:01:15)
Yeah. So if we had used a million of general stabilization to put it at 9.02%, and 250,000 of capital stabilization, that would put it at 2.17%, which there ranges 2 to 4%. So that would keep all within there.

[Speaker 2] (2:01:15 - 2:01:29)
So is there a reason, if we wanted to be true to the guidelines, is there a reason that we wouldn't use capital stabilization and use all entire general stabilization? Is there something I may not be thinking about to be able to do that?

[Speaker 1] (2:01:29 - 2:01:32)
I just, you know, frankly, when we sat down and- No, I know that you grouped it.

[Speaker 2] (2:01:32 - 2:01:48)
I'm totally fine with that. I think the answer supports your recommendation. It's what it does, right?

As opposed to these notes over here, it says stabilization drops. The no column just misinforms because it does in a totality, but it doesn't individually.

[Speaker 1] (2:01:49 - 2:04:03)
So candidly, we had a robust conversation about how much to use, and there was, frankly, a good back and forth. It's my position that, frankly, we have worked hard to build up these funds over the last five years, six years, through a lot of really difficult actions. These are taxpayer funds.

We're in an inflationary economy. Every resident in this town is facing the same kind of inflationary impacts that, frankly, our projects are facing, and I think it would be prudent for us to recognize that, look, in the first year of this major capital project with the school and with the acquisition of open space, that we are as mindful about the impact and try to be as careful about mitigating this first year as we can. I do think we have projects in the queue next year that would help us continue to think carefully about the budget.

We still have budget items that are higher than they need to be, and as much as I hear, frankly, from my staff that perhaps we should tax a little bit more to ensure that we have more money, I think this budget should face more pressure. I think we have items that, frankly, are out of whack with peer groups. I think contracts have items that are out of whack with peer groups, and adding more pressure to the budget and making the town continue to struggle to balance a tight budget is a responsibility that we have.

That said, you know, I do think this is the select board's prerogative, and you need to think about, you know, where are you comfortable with, you know, using your reserves? Most communities, and Richard, maybe you can back me up on this, don't even have a tenth of the reserves to think about using to offset their levy. We're in a position because we've worked hard as a community to really, at this moment, apply reserves for the first year of this debt service.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:03 - 2:04:47)
So I really think, first of all, this is awesome analysis, right? I mean, really good analysis. I would ask, though, that for FinCom tomorrow night and then for us on Monday night, we typically are able to see.

You don't have to do all the options, but we're typically able to see the median condo, median multifamily, et cetera, and then the commercial so that we're not just making decisions looking at the residential one. You know, like the one family or the single family residential median because it matters. I think when we're looking at real dollars, we need to see all classifications just to acknowledge if there's an outlier.

Maybe not a lot we can do for an outlier, but that may cause us to say we should do more to bring everybody further down because one group is excessively high.

[Speaker 1] (2:04:47 - 2:04:48)
Yeah, condos went up by 20%.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:48 - 2:05:46)
Yeah, so if we can just see that. And the other thing I'm going to suggest is we find a way the high-end condominiums and the high-end homes in our town, as Richard properly stated, skew our average and highlight the outliers. The same thing is going to happen now, especially with condos more and more, because we have such high-end condominiums that are skewing that data.

So I know DOR doesn't have a separate category, but frankly, we should have condos above a certain value, condos below a certain value because when we're looking at impact on condos, it's going to feel really, really, really draconian. It still may be draconian regardless, but it's going to feel more because the high-end condos coming on are skewing. Those 19 condos at $3-plus million apiece are going to skew that data incredibly.

And I think it's important for us to know because I may be, for example, less sympathetic to the higher-end condos' taxes than I would be the true median condo value.

[Speaker 5] (2:05:46 - 2:05:54)
So I just ask us to… So you'd like the stratification of all condos, all single families? Yes.

[Speaker 14] (2:05:55 - 2:05:55)
Okay.

[Speaker 5] (2:05:56 - 2:05:58)
And as long as you provide median. By Monday?

[Speaker 2] (2:05:58 - 2:06:03)
No, well, FinCon, well, I'm not saying anything. You don't work for me.

[Speaker 5] (2:06:05 - 2:06:06)
You want to come over to my house and help me?

[Speaker 1] (2:06:07 - 2:06:12)
I think we can take the updated values and just drop them into the model that we have.

[Speaker 2] (2:06:12 - 2:06:22)
Yeah, I think the model exists, so I think it's just really… I just think, again, if we can for FinCon tomorrow night, I think that's just helpful because that's what we're all used to seeing at this point.

[Speaker 8] (2:06:27 - 2:06:39)
Sean, has there been a discussion about the free cash and stabilization range and whether or not we should actually go, you know, we should modify that or go below?

[Speaker 1] (2:06:40 - 2:09:02)
Yeah, I actually think it's important for us not to be academic at this point. I think the policy helps us set the guideposts, but right now we're talking about, you know, one of our most important responsibilities in terms of assessing a levy on the taxpayers and swamps. And I would ask everybody to kind of go back and say, all right, the policy got us here.

We can always get back to, you know, the guideposts, but look, I want to make sure that we're as careful stewards of the responsibilities that we have and we're mindful of what is happening, you know, in the economy, what's happening, you know, in Swampskate. You know, we have a lot of folks, you know, Swampskate's, you know, we're a town that has the largest percentage of seniors that are on a fixed income than any other city or town in Essex County. And so, you know, we should really think about, you know, are we using enough of our reserves right now when we're in such an inflationary period to help our residents, you know, absorb other impacts in the economy.

You know, to me, this is a real policy. I would not want to be stymied by, you know, an academic, you know, a really good policy that helps us, you know, have these guideposts that we always come back to when it comes to, you know, the contracts that we negotiate, the financial, you know, picture that we're always moving towards. But don't use that as your litmus right now.

Use your values and your judgment, you know, for how we impact every taxpayer in this town because I think that's most important. And you're in a great position right now. You have a really, really healthy fund balance and stabilization.

Yes, you could blow it in a couple years, and yes, you could always. I know. You know, you have to be mindful that you can't always, you know, turn to this.

But, you know, it should remind you, focus on budget, focus on economic development, focus on, you know, the things that really are going to help you keep your financial stability. But right now you're in a good place.

[Speaker 8] (2:09:03 - 2:09:10)
So, Sean, is your recommendation 2.5, so 1.25 from free cash, 1.25 from stabilization, from general stabilization? It is.

[Speaker 1] (2:09:11 - 2:09:11)
It is.

[Speaker 8] (2:09:11 - 2:09:15)
Was that a compromise, or do you have a—is there another number?

[Speaker 1] (2:09:17 - 2:10:08)
It is a compromise. No, I think that is what I believe is a prudent use of the town's financial reserves, and I think that keeps us in a position so that we can pivot to next year and continue to solve, you know, the challenges of sustainability. It won't all be solved by cutting this budget, and so we're going to have to have some hard conversations about land-use board summits and about really where we focus on commercial growth.

I do think, you know, I think we should be careful and just find a really good balance with how we use these funds.

[Speaker 2] (2:10:08 - 2:10:39)
Can I just add, there's another piece that's not here that I'm just trying to tee up. I think FinCom's hope is to hear something from us tonight, not a vote, but to maybe give a sense a little bit just so they understand that. But what's not here is an analysis of the shift to 1.75, right?

Because a few years ago, three years ago, we went down to 1.7. Going back to 1.75 is another tool, which on the residential side— and again, I don't even know what we're capped at. Are we—is D.O.R. capping us below 1.75 now, or can we go to the full 1.75?

[Speaker 5] (2:10:39 - 2:10:41)
I'll have to defer. I don't have that information.

[Speaker 2] (2:10:41 - 2:11:38)
I don't believe— Okay, I think last year we were actually—it was problematic. I think last year we didn't—I don't think last year we could go to 1.75. We didn't. We stayed at 1.7 anyways, but we couldn't have gone to 1.75 if we wanted to. It was close. It was like 1.74 or something. But that's another way in which to reallocate to the benefit of the residential.

I'm not saying for a second that I think it's a good idea. I'm just saying that that's another tool in the box for us to be using here, to be able to say, okay, we don't want to use more stabilization. The shift, but we want to help residential more, going back to 1.75, what does that mean in that—impacts?

In previous years, you've had that analysis in here. So I think if you can just reinsert it, maybe share it to FinCom as well. Now that I've raised it, I will say I don't personally support going back to 1.75. Right now, but just because. But I think everybody needs to look at it and come to their own conclusions on it.

[Speaker 3] (2:11:38 - 2:12:29)
Yeah, no, I understand. I mean, so I appreciate everything you said, Sean, about not being imprisoned by the guidelines necessarily. I do think it's just being mindful of the contract we just approved.

Looking ahead, I think we had a similar conversation last year in terms of the use of free cash, of not being too aggressive in one year to rob from the next potentially. And so I think about that. I think that it seems to me—so it looks like we have roughly 1.6 million in free cash to stay above the floor, right?

[Speaker 4] (2:12:29 - 2:12:37)
So the percentages I gave on that slide are already net of the other two free cash articles.

[Speaker 2] (2:12:39 - 2:12:39)
Got it.

[Speaker 4] (2:12:39 - 2:12:49)
So it's 1.4. So it already takes into account the article for compensated absence reserve fund and the recommendation for the collective bargaining agreement.

[Speaker 3] (2:12:49 - 2:13:02)
So we would be—okay, so we use this. So what's our range then? Sorry.

Two million to 3.4. Yes?

[Speaker 4] (2:13:02 - 2:13:12)
Yeah, so if you use the 1.25 of free cash, and then the other two articles that I discussed, we would have a balance of $2,070,544.

[Speaker 3] (2:13:13 - 2:13:25)
Right, so we'd be right at it. Right, okay. And so I think the other—well, I don't even know.

[Speaker 6] (2:13:26 - 2:13:28)
The only other thing— Are we at our low range or the low end?

[Speaker 3] (2:13:28 - 2:13:29)
That's at the end.

[Speaker 2] (2:13:30 - 2:13:31)
But in the range.

[Speaker 3] (2:13:31 - 2:13:33)
Yeah, we'd be in the range, but we'd be sort of at the bottom.

[Speaker 2] (2:13:34 - 2:13:43)
And also for stabilization, if we broke stabilization out to be a million of general stabilization and $2.50 of capital stabilization, we'd be at the low end.

[Speaker 3] (2:13:43 - 2:14:11)
Right. And then the only other—I think I had talked to you and Sean about this, Amy. It's just the—again, just in terms of other free cash articles, it's just the consideration of the reserve fund, you know, potentially funding that reserve fund for less and maybe shifting that to this or not at all if we wanted to.

But, you know, so I don't know.

[Speaker 4] (2:14:12 - 2:14:25)
We had discussed that we could drop it to $1.50 and still have it serve its purpose instead of the $250,000 for the reserve fund. You're talking about the— The compensated— Retirement.

[Speaker 3] (2:14:26 - 2:14:38)
Yeah. But would we—I mean, would we just be essentially teeing ourselves up to then need to fund it again in the spring for our—like put $100 more in the spring? Is that what you're forecasting?

[Speaker 4] (2:14:38 - 2:14:48)
We wouldn't necessarily have to do it this spring, but the funding of it through the general fund would have to be at a more accelerated pace than it would have been if it was funded at $250,000.

[Speaker 14] (2:14:49 - 2:14:49)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (2:14:49 - 2:14:55)
Well, based on actual projections or based on a goal of achieving a certain amount in the reserve fund?

[Speaker 1] (2:14:55 - 2:15:36)
Both. So, you know, again, this gets back to, you know, if we want to incentivize early retirements, this is a wonderful tool because we've structured contracts to have, you know, high outs and, you know, attractive lower ends. You know, the tiered benefits in several of the contracts help us kind of, you know, establish a more sustainable cost when it comes to, you know, some of these, you know, employment issues.

So, to me, it's an attractive tool.

[Speaker 3] (2:15:43 - 2:15:50)
I mean, I'm glad we're having the conversation we're having considering we didn't know what the free cash was yesterday.

[Speaker 12] (2:15:51 - 2:15:54)
Considering that it didn't come in at the low end of the— Yeah, that's right.

[Speaker 3] (2:15:55 - 2:15:59)
And that's what you're modeling those hypothetical scenarios for.

[Speaker 2] (2:15:59 - 2:16:07)
I believe we've lived that last year, didn't we, Mr. Fitzgerald? Literally on town meeting floor, we lived that.

[Speaker 1] (2:16:08 - 2:16:45)
I think it's important, too, that—look, this is a lot to consider. Finance committee meets tomorrow night. You know, ultimately, you know, we'll be meeting again before town meeting.

Ultimately, town meeting has to deliberate and make an appropriation or disposition. And then, again, the board will meet on December 5th, and you will set your classification. That's when we will ultimately make the decision.

So we do have some time to think about— So on December 7th, right? I'm sorry, December 7th.

[Speaker 3] (2:16:45 - 2:16:51)
Right. But essentially that decision's made with Article 2, right?

[Speaker 2] (2:16:52 - 2:17:04)
Well, it's made because we've sized free cash and stabilization on a certain assumption of the split, the commercial residency split, and all the exemptions that we get a vote as well, right? So we're making those assumptions for that.

[Speaker 3] (2:17:04 - 2:17:10)
So our meeting Wednesday is more of— It's going to be perfunctory, more of a perfunctory vote.

[Speaker 2] (2:17:10 - 2:17:49)
We're already channeling to everybody this is what we're going to recommend to do it. Right. So can I just help this conversation go forward?

Amy had suggested the floor at the million and a million for two million. Can I just suggest a floor at Sean's recommendation if Sean's recommendation keeps us within the guideline? How do people respond to that?

We're not taking a vote. I'm just trying to—FinCom is going to hear some of this and so that they at least hear where the consensus of this board is. Let me start.

I'm comfortable with that being the floor, and I'm actually open to more. But I'm comfortable with that being the floor.

[Speaker 1] (2:17:49 - 2:17:52)
Great. I'm actually— No, your vote doesn't matter. All right.

[Speaker 14] (2:17:53 - 2:17:54)
You've already voted.

[Speaker 1] (2:17:54 - 2:17:54)
Thank you.

[Speaker 14] (2:17:54 - 2:17:56)
Well, you've already voted. No, I'm not.

[Speaker 1] (2:17:56 - 2:17:57)
You can't screw it.

[Speaker 3] (2:17:58 - 2:18:10)
I sort of underlined it as, like, you know, I didn't scratch out everything above it yet, but that's kind of how I'm looking at that table. So I agree with that. That's how I'm looking at it right now.

[Speaker 8] (2:18:11 - 2:18:33)
I'm comfortable with the town administrator's recommendation of utilization of free cash of $1.25 million and stabilization of $1.25 million. So $2.5 million of one-time funds applied, I think, makes a lot of sense, given where we are in the tax burden and the funds that have already been collected.

[Speaker 3] (2:18:34 - 2:18:50)
So this just helps cushion the blow. Can I ask, too? Sorry, Amy.

Can you remind me, like, what do we anticipate the use of free cash in the annual town meeting? I can't remember.

[Speaker 4] (2:18:50 - 2:18:58)
The only use that I'm aware of right now is bills of a prior year, which are not usually substantial.

[Speaker 3] (2:19:00 - 2:19:01)
Okay. Is there anything else?

[Speaker 4] (2:19:02 - 2:19:02)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (2:19:02 - 2:19:51)
You know, I think there might be a few electric vehicles, some things that frankly might make more sense right now to buy, as opposed to go out and bond in a market that has significant interest rates. And so I don't want to just foreclose on a really strategic use of our financial position to avoid, you know, the market. I don't think there's a significant amount of projects, but there are a few, frankly, nice-to-do projects that I was considering.

And frankly, I don't think they're a significant order of magnitude, but it could be $100,000, it could be $150,000.

[Speaker 2] (2:19:51 - 2:20:30)
But, Neil, while fiscal year 24 free cash won't be certified by the annual town meeting, next year, we will be two months by the time we're actually on town meeting floor, we'll be two months removed, not even less than two months from the end of the fiscal year, such that the financial team by that point will be able to start doing some financial forecasting to say where's revenue and where's expenses, at least, and how's that tracking to give us confidence at town meeting floor that if we decide to go below the guideline at the annual town meeting, we do so with a, let's say, better degree of certainty or not, right, based on where cash flow projections actually are.

[Speaker 1] (2:20:31 - 2:21:00)
It's a great point, Peter, because, again, last year we did freeze the budget early, and we ended the year with $700,000 in tailings. And so we've employed strategic management decisions to, frankly, help support conservative budgeting practices that ultimately help us with some of the broader fiduciary responsibilities we have.

[Speaker 6] (2:21:00 - 2:21:10)
That $700,000, Amy, would be probably the lowest that we've had in five years?

[Speaker 4] (2:21:10 - 2:21:12)
Yeah, it was $1.2 or $1.3 the previous year.

[Speaker 6] (2:21:13 - 2:21:17)
Before that it was like $1.3, yeah. So it's going down.

[Speaker 1] (2:21:18 - 2:21:38)
Yeah, that's because every year we budget more and more carefully because we're at 2% plus new growth, and it, in a very healthy way, constrains appropriations and really forces a really hard justification for line items in the budget.

[Speaker 6] (2:21:39 - 2:21:45)
Well, we're spending the budget. That's what we're doing. We're spending the budget.

[Speaker 1] (2:21:45 - 2:21:47)
We're getting closer and closer. Well, we're budgeting the actual.

[Speaker 6] (2:21:48 - 2:21:49)
Yeah, budgeting the actual.

[Speaker 1] (2:21:49 - 2:22:28)
Zero-based budgeting. It's starting to become part of the fabric of how we justify expenditures. Again, we do this too tightly, and we start cutting into the bone of certain core services.

But I will tell you, and as the board has no doubt heard many times, there are areas of this budget that are way outside of peer group comparisons, and we've got work to do to try to better manage some of those cost items. They're not just on the town ledger either, the town government side of the ledger. Katie.

[Speaker 10] (2:22:30 - 2:22:48)
I'm just going to say that I agree with what Peter had started the conversation with, which is the floor supposition, and also I am leading with my heart, as the town administrator says, to looking at more than that, just as Peter said.

[Speaker 3] (2:22:56 - 2:22:58)
Anything? Mary Ellen, any more thoughts?

[Speaker 6] (2:23:00 - 2:23:25)
No, not really. I generally, when it comes to taxes and using free cash, I generally am in line with what Sean says. My only worry is, you know, I'm really focused on the next, you know, not just.

I'm looking at this, and that's what this is for right now, but I'm also focused on what's going to happen over the next few years.

[Speaker 14] (2:23:25 - 2:23:25)
Yep.

[Speaker 6] (2:23:25 - 2:23:36)
And I also think it's very important that we do everything to stay within that $300 commitment for the average tax bill, and that's what people voted on.

[Speaker 1] (2:23:37 - 2:24:16)
Yeah, I agree. It's interesting. I like, frankly, I like the idea.

You know, we use that $300 number a lot when we talked about, you know, mitigating the debt service, you know, to $300. Be kind of, we had, I had talked about keeping this tax increase below $400, but if the board is considering something even more balanced, I think that might make some sense.

[Speaker 14] (2:24:20 - 2:24:21)
All right.

[Speaker 3] (2:24:21 - 2:24:30)
Okay, so I think I would definitely, yeah, some more analysis to do. Great job, guys, in pulling that all together.

[Speaker 2] (2:24:30 - 2:24:33)
This gets better and better and better every year, the analysis, and that's you guys.

[Speaker 3] (2:24:33 - 2:24:34)
Yeah, it's awesome.

[Speaker 2] (2:24:34 - 2:24:36)
Dick, I'm so glad that you signed that.

[Speaker 12] (2:24:36 - 2:24:36)
Dick has done a great job.

[Speaker 2] (2:24:36 - 2:24:44)
I'm glad you signed that 10-year contract. We look forward to nine more years of incredible assessment.

[Speaker 3] (2:24:44 - 2:24:56)
I definitely suggest everybody, if they can, watch the Finance Committee meeting, you know, or a recording of it before we meet on Monday. It's always helpful for me to hear their conversation about it.

[Speaker 4] (2:24:57 - 2:25:00)
Just know Finance Committee is meeting at 6 tomorrow, not their normal 7.

[Speaker 2] (2:25:00 - 2:25:05)
Meeting at 6, not their normal 7. It is recorded.

[Speaker 3] (2:25:05 - 2:25:09)
Yeah, it's recorded, so weekend viewing.

[Speaker 1] (2:25:09 - 2:25:12)
Dick, thank you. Really appreciate the professionalism and, you know.

[Speaker 3] (2:25:13 - 2:25:33)
So let's talk about the rest of the warrant, which may be brief. That was Article 2. Article 1, we've already recommended favorable action on.

Yep. Transfer of free cash for the collective bargaining agreements. I mean, do we want to just wait for?

[Speaker 2] (2:25:33 - 2:25:38)
I think all this free cash stuff, my guess is there's nothing for us really to vote on tonight. I think we have to do it all on Monday.

[Speaker 3] (2:25:38 - 2:25:39)
Sure. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (2:25:39 - 2:25:44)
Just because our typically deference here with the Finance Committee. Thanks.

[Speaker 3] (2:25:44 - 2:26:23)
That works for me. So that's 3, 4. Article 3, Article 4, which are the collective bargaining agreement and then that compensated absences reserve fund, and then we already recommended favorable action on the revolving fund.

I do want to, at their last meeting, FinCom discussed and voted on Article 6 on the, you know, there are two scenarios, right, where Article 5 passes, where the limit gets raised, and FinCom at their meeting then voted that in that scenario they would recommend removing the sailboats and the stand-up paddle boards from the capital.

[Speaker 6] (2:26:24 - 2:26:31)
Well, they're recommending changing the funding source, not taking it out of capital. It's just the funding source out of capital.

[Speaker 3] (2:26:31 - 2:26:43)
Well, right. So, yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Sorry. So the funding source being the Recreation Revolving Fund.

And so I think we could, and I think it's important for us to move on.

[Speaker 4] (2:26:43 - 2:26:45)
But the reason being is?

[Speaker 3] (2:26:45 - 2:26:52)
Yeah, the reason is that the revolving fund has, I think Amy said it has like 280.

[Speaker 4] (2:26:53 - 2:26:54)
288,000 in pooled cash.

[Speaker 8] (2:26:55 - 2:27:03)
So how were those numbers so different from what was presented previously and what we're hearing? It was about half amount last meeting.

[Speaker 4] (2:27:03 - 2:27:33)
Yeah. So when I originally said the 140, that's what the rec revolving balance, like herring balance normally is. And when we actually went and checked it the next morning was when we saw that it was actually significantly higher.

So we spoke, the town administrator and I spoke with the recreation director, and she was also surprised because she was like, my balance has never been that high. And she was in agreement that it made sense to use the revolving fund for this.

[Speaker 2] (2:27:36 - 2:27:59)
I do want to say though that I think there are recreation purchases for this town that aren't going to fit within the revolving account. And I don't think it's reasonable to expect one department in our town, only one department in our town to pay as it goes for everything. Because I think there's a lot of other municipal uses that are used by a finite group of people that pay nothing.

[Speaker 6] (2:27:59 - 2:28:44)
So maybe all of those things should be looked at and evaluated because at the last meeting, one thing that you had commented on was that recreation revolving account is the most transparent account, most transparent. And I don't share that feeling with you. And I think that what we should do is just put a little bit more work into really looking at the accounts and then setting policies or goals long term, what is to be achieved.

So everybody wants recreation, and some people want recreation more than other people. But what is it we can actually do and what are we going to do? Because we have a department that's this big, and then what's the forecast out for the next 12 months of how you want to use that recreation department?

[Speaker 14] (2:28:45 - 2:28:47)
I think that's a good idea.

[Speaker 2] (2:28:47 - 2:29:01)
I think focusing on recreation, but I think then we have to be open to the fact that there are other things in our town that are overused by a finite group of people for which 100% of the taxpayers in Swanscot pay for.

[Speaker 6] (2:29:01 - 2:29:03)
I would totally agree with you.

[Speaker 2] (2:29:03 - 2:29:47)
And I just say this again, and I used last time the wharf, right? We get nominal money for a yacht club. The yacht club runs the launch from a public wharf.

I mean, there's just a whole bunch of things. And I'm not advocating, to be perfectly clear, I'm not advocating for the yacht club or any group to change that at the moment. I'm just saying if we're going to change it for REC, then I believe we have to because I believe REC to be a core service.

Yes, isn't it nice that we have a revenue source? But it is a core service. It is an essential service, period, of every city and town in Massachusetts.

It's an essential service. And so I just want to be careful that we're not hyper-focusing there because we're like, oh, well, they can just raise their own money. They can't.

The reality is at the end of the day, they can't afford all the equipment on the road.

[Speaker 1] (2:29:47 - 2:29:48)
It should be one of our core values.

[Speaker 3] (2:29:48 - 2:29:58)
Yeah, I don't look at this decision as this is a set rule now that REC has to pay for everything.

[Speaker 2] (2:29:58 - 2:30:05)
No, but I think Mary Ellen is making sense for us to be able to say, hey, lookit, if they do have extra money, like when do we talk about it and when do we do that? I think those are fair conversations.

[Speaker 6] (2:30:05 - 2:30:25)
The other part of the conversation is, you know, where do we want the reserve to be for RECreation? Where do we want that dollar number to really be because is there a possibility we're having programs that don't need to be as expensive as they are? What's the adjustment?

I'm just saying to just look at a real solid financial view on it.

[Speaker 4] (2:30:25 - 2:30:58)
I would encourage the RECreation Director to have a similar conversation where we went through all the programming that they offered to see what other programs they could offer that they could potentially subsidize more because they have this balance right now. So that's something that the RECreation Director and her assistant director are looking at to see, you know, can they increase the level of scholarships that are being offered to the program and what other programs can they subsidize and offer because they have this amount.

[Speaker 8] (2:30:59 - 2:31:55)
But yeah, but right now, I mean, right now, I think it's great that we're paying that we're that we're spending time talking about RECreation and talking about the RECreation Department. That's fantastic. But right now, the structure that, you know, that the RECrevolving account has is there has to be some upcharge right now for the programming that's happening in town.

Right now, the RECreation Director is being paid out of the RECrevolving account. That should be a line item in the budget, and we should do that, you know, effective immediately. We should do that, you know, within the next fiscal year.

That should be a line item. You know, the support staff and the operating expenses should run out of that RECrevolving account. So if you were to remove the RECreation Director from being paid out of the RECrevolving account, structurally, you would see the cost of programming.

I think that's a good line. So I think I think we should be paying more attention to this.

[Speaker 2] (2:31:55 - 2:32:00)
That's a great observation that it's a core service, but it's the only one for which we charge our residents directly for.

[Speaker 1] (2:32:00 - 2:32:39)
Yeah. Makes a lot of sense to me, David. You know, I've actually, you know, fought for, you know, the challenges of trying to balance all the other fiduciary responsibilities.

You know, I've left it there, but if RECreation is a core value for the town of Swampskin, it should be funded in the general fund, and we should continue to support it and grow it and expand it because there are so many segments of the citizens of Swampskin that are not being served by RECreation. And it really needs to be broader.

[Speaker 8] (2:32:39 - 2:33:03)
Yeah, and this isn't just our young people. This is all ages. So I think, and also, too, the structure that we're under now isn't a best practice within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

So I think that should be rectified, you know, within the next fiscal year, certainly. So whether that needs to, whether that needs to, whether you can do that or whether that needs a town meeting vote, I think that should be.

[Speaker 1] (2:33:03 - 2:33:23)
Well, I can certainly present a budget that gets to the floor of town meeting, but ultimately I think that's a responsibility that we share as an executive function of a town government. You know, if that's what this board wants to see, I'm certainly happy to.

[Speaker 6] (2:33:23 - 2:33:31)
Just so we're really clear, I don't support eating the entire RECreation budget into the operational, into our operational account.

[Speaker 2] (2:33:31 - 2:33:33)
I don't think that's what David's saying.

[Speaker 8] (2:33:34 - 2:33:38)
No, no, no. I'm saying the REC Director, the REC Director should be a line item.

[Speaker 6] (2:33:38 - 2:33:45)
Right, and I don't agree with that. I would say that a percentage of it should be into the regular budget.

[Speaker 4] (2:33:45 - 2:33:45)
Right.

[Speaker 6] (2:33:45 - 2:33:48)
I think that we should have a conversation about it, but.

[Speaker 4] (2:33:48 - 2:34:01)
Mary Ellen, there are towns that do like a 50-50 split where their directors pay half out of the general fund and half out of the RECreation. So we can look at other communities to get examples and bring them forward to you guys.

[Speaker 6] (2:34:01 - 2:34:05)
I think an overall evaluation and breakdown and looking at how to do it better is a good idea.

[Speaker 2] (2:34:05 - 2:34:07)
I would just ask this, not just look, I'm sorry, go ahead.

[Speaker 10] (2:34:07 - 2:34:48)
I was going to say, in this vein, I actually was going to bring this up in my select board time, but since we're talking about this, I would like more communication about how the scholarships work in the REC Department, because I know that there's a ton of programming being put out there. There's not a lot of information for people who can't quite afford it or need help or subsidy to it. And that's not just kids, but adults, too.

Like, if a senior wanted to participate in the Wreath Workshop on the 1st, how would they go about getting that subsidized if they couldn't afford to do that? And maybe the information exists in town hall, but I haven't seen anything recently communicating that. So that would be great if we could do that better.

[Speaker 1] (2:34:48 - 2:35:11)
Great issue. I think, frankly, we can do a better job with hardships, and we can do a better job trying to ensure that residents, if they do have a financial hardship, can find a way to get some type of support. There's got to be a way for us to really bridge some of these gaps.

[Speaker 3] (2:35:12 - 2:35:39)
All right, so back to Article VI. I feel – I mean, I agree with the way FinCom looks at it for this particular item, whereas if the spending limit is increased in Article V, I support the idea that this $40,641 comes out of the revolving account. You're telling us that the REC Director agreed with that?

[Speaker 4] (2:35:39 - 2:35:40)
Yes.

[Speaker 3] (2:35:40 - 2:35:40)
All right.

[Speaker 4] (2:35:41 - 2:35:42)
And she confirmed that earlier today as well.

[Speaker 2] (2:35:43 - 2:35:49)
So I'd make a motion to make that change, just to change the source of funding to REC revolving account for the boat purchase.

[Speaker 14] (2:35:50 - 2:35:52)
Assuming Article V passes.

[Speaker 8] (2:35:52 - 2:35:54)
Assuming Article V passes. Second.

[Speaker 3] (2:35:55 - 2:35:59)
All right. Any further discussion on that? All those in favor?

[Speaker 14] (2:35:59 - 2:35:59)
Aye.

[Speaker 3] (2:36:00 - 2:36:00)
All right, great.

[Speaker 14] (2:36:01 - 2:36:01)
Thanks.

[Speaker 2] (2:36:03 - 2:36:14)
Can we also, as we're doing these things – I just circled – none of these are things for the select board to present on or really talk on yet. We haven't gotten to any of those. Just as we're going through, let's just maybe just check those out.

But none of them so far.

[Speaker 1] (2:36:15 - 2:36:15)
Right, none of them so far.

[Speaker 2] (2:36:15 - 2:36:17)
Everything's FinCom-directed at the moment here.

[Speaker 3] (2:36:18 - 2:36:18)
Yep.

[Speaker 2] (2:36:18 - 2:36:23)
And maybe there's answers and questions – or questions and answers. So I think seven may be the first time we've gotten to that.

[Speaker 3] (2:36:24 - 2:36:27)
And Peter, would you like to speak to that?

[Speaker 2] (2:36:27 - 2:36:53)
No. Well, I think – I guess it is sponsored by the select board, but the FinCom is going to make the motion. And so Suzanne Wright, the chair of the school building committee, sent out through the moderator today a pretty detailed letter, which I thought was great and helpful.

So I think what I would like to do is talk with her to see how she – what her suggestion is, how she wants to present it. And she may want to present or not because she's done the letter. And then I'll circle back to you and let you know.

[Speaker 3] (2:36:53 - 2:36:53)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (2:36:54 - 2:36:59)
But I want to defer to her to let her do it if she would like to do it. Okay. I don't think they need both us and her.

[Speaker 3] (2:36:59 - 2:37:00)
I agree with that.

[Speaker 4] (2:37:01 - 2:37:04)
I believe Eric Schneider from FinCom was going to make the motion.

[Speaker 3] (2:37:04 - 2:37:16)
Great. Okay. Supreme Court.

Is that something that we – No, it's the planning board. Planning board. Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (2:37:17 - 2:38:24)
So I would just ask that we please be prepared to explain how normal acceptance of public ways are. What's not normal is that we do it centuries later, if you will. I mean, so Swansky has just never gotten this down.

And so I think as a result, the town meeting continues to be an anomaly. Right? And it shouldn't be because the Subdivision Control Act and everything about it actually assumes acceptance by public ways, which is why you have to build to a town acceptance standard.

So if we can just make sure that we don't – I think a disservice has been that we haven't had the right person prepared to speak with great authority as to this is why towns do this. Good news, we don't have a lot of subdivision roads coming our way, but there are many streets still in our town that were intended to be accepted that haven't been accepted still. And there was a big clearing up in 1997 of this, of dozens of streets, and there still are some that were never accepted, so they still show as private ways.

Some are actually private ways, even though people think they're public ways.

[Speaker 1] (2:38:24 - 2:38:45)
So we can just explain it because it's really not – I've talked to Mr. Cain and his background as a community development director, and as a town administrator, I think can help provide surgical clarity to the due process of accepting a public right of way.

[Speaker 14] (2:38:45 - 2:38:45)
Thank you.

[Speaker 6] (2:38:45 - 2:38:47)
Did you say surgical clarity? I did. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:38:49 - 2:38:50)
It's going to be an explosion.

[Speaker 3] (2:38:50 - 2:39:25)
It's getting late. So is Pete – so in that vein – No select board members need – I think it's what I just heard. I was just saying when you said, can we make sure we can explain this, I didn't – We being someone besides us.

I just wanted to make sure that was the case. Okay. The donated land, I think that's us, right?

That one's pretty straightforward. Yep. It could be the same person for both of these.

[Speaker 6] (2:39:25 - 2:39:26)
That's the orange, right?

[Speaker 3] (2:39:28 - 2:39:28)
Yes.

[Speaker 2] (2:39:29 - 2:39:37)
Yeah, and you talked earlier, so unless you decide to change your mind, I'm happy to do it. Okay. If you want to do it, Neil, I'm happy to have you do it.

[Speaker 14] (2:39:37 - 2:39:37)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (2:39:37 - 2:39:40)
I guess eight and nine – sorry, nine and ten.

[Speaker 3] (2:39:41 - 2:39:44)
So that will be – Peter or I will do both of those.

[Speaker 2] (2:39:45 - 2:39:53)
Is that okay with everybody? We may do it together. Yeah, it'll be a duo.

Kind of like opening an envelope. I'll do the lead-in. I'll actually read what the envelope says.

[Speaker 3] (2:39:53 - 2:39:58)
I definitely could use a teleprompter if one is available.

[Speaker 2] (2:39:59 - 2:40:00)
The joke writer?

[Speaker 3] (2:40:00 - 2:41:01)
Most likely to donate land is a category near and dear to my heart. Okay, so I think that's all we need to discuss for now on the warrant, correct? I think so, until Monday night.

Right, where we discuss everything. Okay, so the last thing is our potential vote in discussion on the application for the debt exclusion for whatever that article is for the school contingency. We had asked Patrick at our last meeting to accelerate that process as fast as he could, and so he's done that.

And so they've shared the application with us tonight, and we have to – if we were to do it, we would need to accept the report from the OPM as well as vote on, approve the application, and sign it. That's the process.

[Speaker 2] (2:41:01 - 2:41:35)
So I went through and just double-checked Patrick's numbers with the 3011 and the Option 1A stuff to just verify that stuff. And I think the OPM accurately described the situation in the report to reflect what the School Building Committee had recommended to us and what we, and I think ultimately the Finance Committee, unanimously voted to support. So with that, I would make a motion to accept the OPM's report and to authorize the signature of whatever we've got to sign, the filing of the DE2 application.

[Speaker 3] (2:41:35 - 2:41:39)
Second. Any further discussion on that?

[Speaker 10] (2:41:40 - 2:41:41)
So I do have one question.

[Speaker 14] (2:41:41 - 2:41:41)
Yeah.

[Speaker 10] (2:41:41 - 2:41:43)
Can you just hold the application until town meeting?

[Speaker 9] (2:41:44 - 2:41:56)
I can actually file it ahead of time. Okay. And we could – it's unlikely we would get a decision before town meeting, but at least it's a possible participation in the event that the article passes.

[Speaker 10] (2:41:56 - 2:41:58)
Great. Now I remember you said that last time.

[Speaker 3] (2:42:02 - 2:42:06)
Any other questions? All those in favor? Aye.

Aye.

[Speaker 14] (2:42:06 - 2:42:06)
Aye.

[Speaker 3] (2:42:07 - 2:42:13)
Awesome. That leaves us with a consent agenda.

[Speaker 6] (2:42:15 - 2:42:20)
You know, we lucked out with that, being able to file that application to jump on.

[Speaker 3] (2:42:23 - 2:42:24)
We lucked out? Why did we luck out?

[Speaker 6] (2:42:24 - 2:42:27)
Well, because, you know, we don't have to turn around and have a new vote.

[Speaker 3] (2:42:27 - 2:42:29)
Oh, yeah, yeah. Having that exemption. It's right in there.

[Speaker 6] (2:42:29 - 2:42:29)
Yeah, I know.

[Speaker 2] (2:42:29 - 2:42:30)
It's great. Yes.

[Speaker 6] (2:42:30 - 2:42:31)
Just make it easy.

[Speaker 2] (2:42:31 - 2:42:38)
I would move to approve the minutes from November 16th, 22, which is the only item on the agenda.

[Speaker 3] (2:42:40 - 2:42:41)
Is there a second?

[Speaker 10] (2:42:41 - 2:42:41)
Second.

[Speaker 3] (2:42:42 - 2:42:51)
Other discussion? All those in favor? Aye.

Aye. All right. Sean, your report.

[Speaker 1] (2:42:51 - 2:44:37)
Just brief. You know, we've been busy, focused on classification, tax setting. The building department is busy.

You know, they have issued 1,373 permits since January of 2022 and collected over $881,000 over the calendar year. We track permits over a calendar year as opposed to fiscal year, but certainly it's been a busy year. I did meet with Heidi.

We are our director of the senior center, all ages department last week, and we talked about the community cares department and an initiative that we're advancing. Really eager to see that move forward. We know that we have residents in need in Swampskate, and having somebody that really can pull together data from our tax collector's office and our police department and fire department and our senior center to really find residents that need help is going to be a critical enhancement to a number of residents' quality of life.

The senior center also has launched a new website, activeagingswampskate.com, so please check that out. And if you have, you know, some gloves, knits or hats or baby blankets, you can certainly bring those to the senior center. Recreation is busy.

You know, we had a wonderful town-wide turkey hunt and, you know, wonderful Swampskate family that won that annual major award. It was certainly a major, major award.

[Speaker 3] (2:44:37 - 2:44:38)
Are you the only ones who participated?

[Speaker 10] (2:44:38 - 2:44:45)
No, there were 16 signed-up families, Neal, and 14 of them participated this year, including a few in family.

[Speaker 1] (2:44:45 - 2:44:50)
If you watch any of the holiday shows, this is a major award. I want to know how many.

[Speaker 14] (2:44:51 - 2:44:52)
This is great.

[Speaker 1] (2:44:52 - 2:44:53)
This is like, wait, wait, don't tell me.

[Speaker 2] (2:44:53 - 2:44:54)
We all have something to say about this.

[Speaker 6] (2:44:54 - 2:44:59)
How many speeding tickets and motor vehicle violations were handed out?

[Speaker 10] (2:44:59 - 2:45:01)
To my knowledge, none were handed out.

[Speaker 2] (2:45:01 - 2:45:04)
I would like to announce the results of next week's wheat competition.

[Speaker 12] (2:45:05 - 2:45:07)
The failing family will also be winning next week's wheat competition.

[Speaker 10] (2:45:08 - 2:45:13)
We have put our vote. We have put our raffle tickets in for that, so don't jinx us, because if we win, someone's going to be mad.

[Speaker 1] (2:45:13 - 2:45:28)
It's been a few years since a select board member has made a gingerbread. Oh, God, you guys. It would be nice if the board members got together and actually made a gingerbread house for that.

Well, I'm not participating.

[Speaker 6] (2:45:28 - 2:45:38)
But Sean, I just have to add, a donor has donated the trophies for that trophy.

[Speaker 1] (2:45:38 - 2:45:53)
Yes, I did. Diane has everything. I did see the trophies.

I was thinking something a little bit more like a turkey. This is a major award, and I think we should make it really look like a major award.

[Speaker 10] (2:45:53 - 2:45:58)
I just want to let you know, we have our trophy from last year. It is on our piano. The kids walk around with it daily.

[Speaker 1] (2:45:58 - 2:46:06)
We are going to come up with a much, much appreciated major award.

[Speaker 4] (2:46:06 - 2:46:10)
If needed, my daughter drew a beautiful turkey that can be added to the trophy.

[Speaker 1] (2:46:10 - 2:47:18)
If you haven't had a chance to come to Town Hall, come by and see the extraordinary wreaths that have been placed on all the doors at Town Hall. It really is a very festive presentation. You have a chance to win one of those because we're raffling them off, so you can buy some tickets and help support a wonderful rec department.

This past week, our veterans agent and his wife Sarah Sweeney, Mike Sweeney and Sarah Sweeney, passed out some holiday meals for Swampskate Inland Veterans. We are putting some wreaths on our veterans' graves, so you can contact Mike Sweeney at 781-586-6911 if you want to help join Mike and a number of our veterans placing wreaths on our veterans' memorials. We do have a Gold Star Memorial event for Jared Raymond this Sunday, December 4th at 1130 at the cemetery.

No, not at the cemetery. It's right on the corner of the cemetery.

[Speaker 2] (2:47:19 - 2:47:24)
Yeah, but I don't want people to go to the entrance. It's in the corner of Danvers and Essex.

[Speaker 1] (2:47:24 - 2:48:33)
That's right, Danvers and Essex. It might be easier if you park in the cemetery, but this is certainly a wonderful way for us to recognize the ultimate sacrifice that Jared Raymond made, but a wonderful family that continues to be a hallmark of everything that is absolutely extraordinary about Swampskate. We are really busy with our Department of Public Works department.

We have three new team members, Ryan Squire, Brian Martin, Kevin McDonald. They have been all busy working and helping us continue to make investments. We have added a new stockade down at the fish house, and we've completed a comprehensive survey of the town's water system in conjunction with Liston Utilities, and we found several leaks with a significant loss of 200,000 gallons per day, and we've been able to repair a few of those leaks.

That's my report. Any questions for Sean?

[Speaker 6] (2:48:34 - 2:48:36)
Are those leaks, those are just like water leaks?

[Speaker 1] (2:48:37 - 2:48:59)
They are. We have hundreds of miles of pipes, and every year we have water leaks. This is part of an ongoing assessment of leak and preventative maintenance.

It's important to do this before the winter freeze, because ultimately this could lead to more catastrophic issues.

[Speaker 3] (2:49:00 - 2:49:08)
Is this significant? I don't know, like the context of it seems like a large leak.

[Speaker 1] (2:49:08 - 2:49:30)
I wouldn't say it's significant. I would say it's routine maintenance. I wouldn't say it's insignificant, but it's important to monitor these types of leak detection activities, and I think it's helpful to update the public on some of the work to conserve water and to maintain this important system.

[Speaker 6] (2:49:31 - 2:49:33)
Can you just comment on what happens with gas leaks?

[Speaker 1] (2:49:36 - 2:50:30)
Serious accidents. So if there's a gas leak and people- I think we all received an e-mail. It's pretty complicated.

Yes, I immediately sent out- Who handles it? Yes, we have- What's the procedure? Typically, the utility company handles it, but if a resident complains that there's a gas leak, typically we'll send down a DPW employee or director or a building official after we contact the utility company, because it's the utility company's responsibility to repair any type of gas leak.

Residents should contact the utility company, the gas utility company, National Grid, if they smell a gas leak. The town has no staff that can repair a gas leak.

[Speaker 6] (2:50:31 - 2:50:35)
Does the town have any leverage to get a gas company in here?

[Speaker 1] (2:50:35 - 2:50:42)
We can make phone calls, but frankly, they'll be as effective as a resident if they call the gas company.

[Speaker 3] (2:50:43 - 2:51:16)
MAPC, I can share it with you, Mary Ellen. MAPC did a white paper on gas leaks with HEAT. I don't know if you've heard of HEAT.

They're an organization in Massachusetts that is focused on climate change but really focused on gas leaks. They did an audit and some case studies on the whole process of how gas leaks are handled. Actually, I think Swanscot was one of the case studies.

They were? It's an interesting read just to give you a sense of what the process is and some of the complications on both sides.

[Speaker 6] (2:51:16 - 2:51:30)
I'm happy to try to dig that up and share it with you if it's- Well, my concern is the letter that we received from a resident saying that they have a serious problem that's been going on for a long time. So I just want to know, like, how do they get help?

[Speaker 1] (2:51:31 - 2:51:39)
Yeah, it's- Yeah, they contacted me, and we got involved, and we're trying to help. Yeah, it doesn't, yeah.

[Speaker 14] (2:51:40 - 2:51:40)
Okay.

[Speaker 3] (2:51:41 - 2:51:41)
It's complicated.

[Speaker 2] (2:51:44 - 2:52:13)
Generally, though- I'm just going to say one more sentence. It's not complicated in the sense of who is responsible. National Grid is responsible, period, hard stop.

It's complicated to get them to prioritize on a moment's notice when you call for a gas leak because in their world, what to you and I, if we smelt, would be like, oh, my God, there's a gas leak. To them, they come, they check it, and like, yeah, well, it's fine. We'll come back in a couple weeks and fix it, or we'll come back in a couple months because they handle it differently.

I mean, to me, that's the complicated part of it.

[Speaker 3] (2:52:13 - 2:53:02)
Well, the other complication is, like, if we're standing here and we smell gas, it's like there's a gas leak. That gas leak may not be here. Yes.

And so it's not necessarily, like, you know where the gas is coming from because it migrates underground. And so if you audit, like, there are audits done of gas leaks. Like, they will inventory their gas leaks in our town.

And then if I did an audit of all the gas leaks in town next week and said, National Grid, give me a list of all the gas leaks, I could go, and this happens. This happened in the study. You go, and it's like, wait a minute, you missed all of these gas leaks that are more severe.

It's not that they missed them. It's that the gas was coming up from somewhere else. And so it's hard for them to actually locate where the gas is coming from.

But it's still clear responsibility.

[Speaker 2] (2:53:02 - 2:53:09)
It's their responsibility. I agree. Public utility.

It's just getting them to do everything.

[Speaker 3] (2:53:09 - 2:53:27)
Yeah. And it takes a long time. I mean, we've had gas leaks in our neighborhood where there have been multiple visits from National Grid crews over years to identify it.

So, yeah. But, yeah, it's tricky. So, all right, select bar time.

[Speaker 8] (2:53:30 - 2:54:26)
I have two things. First, there's going to be a blood drive that's going to be held on Friday, December 9th at the Italian Club. At 40 Burpee Terrace from 1 to 6, hosted by the VFW Post 1240 Auxiliary.

Every donor that brings a friend will automatically be entered to win a pair of Celtics tickets. So come between 1 and 6 to the Italian Club on Friday, December 9th, and donate blood. And also, I want to just give a special shout out to the Swampscott Public Library.

There have been some incredible programming happening over there. There have been escape rooms. There have been themed events.

There have been murder mysteries, movie nights, and more. And I just can't say enough about the new director, Jonathan Nichols. And I'm looking forward to participating in future events with the family.

[Speaker 1] (2:54:27 - 2:54:29)
Great to hear it, David. I'll pass that along to Jonathan.

[Speaker 6] (2:54:31 - 2:54:47)
I just have, actually, a quick question on where, two weeks ago, we left off with aggregate, with the complaints. Has that been, do you have a process of where those complaints are going and how it's being communicated?

[Speaker 1] (2:54:48 - 2:55:53)
I did convey a group of town department heads to look at the C-Click fix system. They have made some recommendations for some changes, and we'll be updating the menu options for, you know, complaints for blasting. I also met with Chief Archer, and he's met with his staff to ensure that if a resident comes in and complains about blasting, that they are not sent to the City of Salem's fire department.

We actually fill out the complaint form for them. We're going to, you know, get information out in our newsletter, you know, at least once a month, to ensure that residents know that they can file complaints with C-Click fix and know that they can go down and file a complaint in Swampskate for blasts that occur in Salem if they're impacted.

[Speaker 6] (2:55:53 - 2:56:22)
So the process is going to be, the process is, you can either contact the fire department, or you can go on the C-Click thing. And then both of those complaints, you know, those access points will be calculated into the numbers that ERAP puts together. And it's going to be in the newsletter.

Is there going to be a direct mail sent out? Like, how do people know that live out in that area how to complain?

[Speaker 1] (2:56:23 - 2:57:32)
You know, we've talked about dropping the neighborhood and dropping a flyer, so we'll look at some of these strategies to ensure that folks that live within a radius of the quarry will know that they can go online and complain using our software that, you know, tracks complaints for every other department. And we'll be sure to help them, you know, sign up for a newsletter and get frequent updates on how to, you know, address their complaints. We've changed a button on our homepage to ensure that folks know that, you know, it's not, they don't have to search for quarry.

They can search for blasting complaints and things that really would make more sense for residents when they come to our homepage and search for how to complain about the impact of a blast. So we're making a few of those changes. I'll get more of an update to the board once we finalize all of these changes over the next two weeks.

[Speaker 14] (2:57:33 - 2:57:34)
Thank you.

[Speaker 10] (2:57:35 - 2:58:24)
So I know we joked about it, but I, and we've talked about it a lot tonight. The rec department and the programming that they are facilitating for the community, both young and old. I just want to commend them.

We have such a wonderful time on the turkey hunt. It's not because we won two years in a row. It's because it is extremely fun.

My kids love it and it makes them feel super special. They're creating these memories that they'll never forget here. And that is in large part because of the rec department.

So I do want to say thank you on behalf of my children. And hopefully we can facilitate some additional information so that all families in Swampscot feel like they can participate no matter what the constraints might be. So that more people are participating in these very wonderful events.

[Speaker 1] (2:58:25 - 2:58:46)
Absolutely. Katie, let's follow up offline and really talk about ways that you think we can be more inclusive. It would really sadden me to know that somebody in Swampscot was not able to participate in an event because of a financial issue.

Because I think there are any number of ways that we can help solve that problem.

[Speaker 10] (2:58:47 - 2:59:06)
I think the number one thing is people aren't going to ask. They want to know that there's a way that is out there and available to them without having to come forward and asking for it. So if we could just be communicating that way better, that would probably alleviate some of the issue.

[Speaker 1] (2:59:14 - 2:59:26)
I hear what you're saying. I think we have to be discreet about some of these things. And I think there's a way for us to find a way to support some type of need-based support.

[Speaker 3] (2:59:28 - 2:59:35)
Anything else? Great. Motion to adjourn?

[Speaker 14] (2:59:36 - 2:59:36)
So moved.

[Speaker 3] (2:59:37 - 2:59:37)
Second?

[Speaker 14] (2:59:38 - 2:59:38)
Second.

[Speaker 3] (2:59:39 - 2:59:41)
All those in favor? Aye. Aye.

[Speaker 6] (2:59:41 - 2:59:58)
Wait. No. I just want to say thank you to our producer, Ethan Runstadler, and Joey Petroni, and our production assistant, Nathan Kent, and Jamie DeFelipe.

Thanks, guys. Way to go.

[Speaker 1] (2:59:58 - 2:59:58)
Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (2:59:59 - 3:00:06)
Patrick and Amy, thank you. Thanks, Diane. Thanks, Sean.