[Speaker 2] (8:52 - 11:16)
Okay. Good evening and welcome to the select board meeting for March 5th, 2025. Before we start, I'd just like to say thank you to Paul Varvonis, Nathan Kent, and Ethan Rundstadler for bringing us this meeting tonight on video.

And if you would please join me in the pledge. The meeting is being recorded. Before we start our meeting, I just would like to recognize that we had a passing of our old time harbormaster, Larry Bethel.

I just wanted to pass that along to everyone. Larry was quite the character. I think he would enjoy that that's how I'm talking about him tonight and we wish him well.

Before we start our meeting, we do want to have a brief presentation of award. Often you see fire department, police department, DPW, different groups. And tonight we would just like to have a special award, especially tonight because we knew we would have the school committee and the finance committee here.

We'd like to recognize a certain individual for all his patience and his goodwill whenever we're having our meetings. And I would like everyone to please recognize Al Tenney for all the time he puts together. Al, would you come on down?

This is for you, Al, thank you very much for everything you do. You're a great guy and now you're nice to us.

[Speaker 26] (11:19 - 11:22)
We're going to be going late tonight so I just wanted to give you a heads up.

[Speaker 21] (11:22 - 11:27)
I just wanted to say thank you and apologize to everybody that I offended.

[Speaker 22] (11:29 - 11:31)
Everybody that I may offend in the future.

[Speaker 2] (11:33 - 12:39)
Okay, so what we're going to do tonight is some people think we're having a public hearing. We are not having a public hearing. A public hearing has to be dated and posted a certain way.

So in order to stay compliant with open meeting laws, this is not a public hearing. It is a select board meeting with an invitation to the finance committee and to the school committee. And they also will be having a meeting tonight.

So in order to try to make it so that it is as close to possible as a public hearing, what we will do is we will have public comment on anything that has to do with non-budgetary items. And then once we're finished with the budget, if somebody wants to have a comment about the budget, then we'll have public comment again about the budget. So hopefully we can make everybody happy.

So before we start, the school committee, do you want to call your...

[Speaker 4] (12:39 - 12:47)
I will call us to order. It's 637, and I'm calling the school committee to order.

[Speaker 2] (12:48 - 12:51)
Okay, great. And do you have any friends?

[Speaker 17] (12:51 - 12:52)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (12:53 - 13:08)
All right, good. Okay, so let's start with public comment. Is there anybody here with public comment that is not about the budget?

Seeing none.

[Speaker 7] (13:08 - 13:09)
I got one.

[Speaker 2] (13:09 - 13:10)
Oh, okay.

[Speaker 26] (13:11 - 13:12)
Surprise, surprise.

[Speaker 2] (13:16 - 13:29)
Please keep in mind the select board does not comment, and feel free to... Oh, wow. Feel free to keep your mind there and just have your name and address.

[Speaker 26] (13:29 - 13:29)
We appreciate that.

[Speaker 12] (13:33 - 14:01)
Didn't think I was going to be back here tonight. Sorry, guys. Frank Smith, Archer Street.

Tonight, I'm compelled to address the ongoing deception and willfully lack of transparency among members of the select board. As this board is aware, on November 21st, 24, in an effort to encourage transparency and honesty among the select board, I formally requested communications between select board chair Mary Lynn Fletcher. Got it right this time.

Sorry.

[Speaker 26] (14:02 - 14:02)
Okay.

[Speaker 12] (14:02 - 16:53)
And members of the select board, as well as the town administrator, Sean Fitzgerald, administrator at the time. After paying 325 for this information at the direction of chair Fletcher and the town clerk, I spent the following 103 days back and forth with the town, the secretary of the Commonwealth Records Office, attempting to get the full scope of my inquiry fulfilled within the scope of the law. This was an excessive amount of time, during which the town had still yet to comply with my request.

At one point, even Frank thanked the board. I thanked the board for releasing requested files, but upon further investigation found that the records that I had requested were not fulfilled regardless of the secretary of Commonwealth's mandate to do so. You can imagine my surprise when the Tuesday, this week, Tuesday, March 4th, I received the latest reply to my records inquiry, stating that chair Fletcher claims that there were no messages between her and parties involved in the records that were requested in the period of time that I had requested.

Not only is this a complete lie, but also another attempt to evade the truth and transparency that this town deserves. In fact, I have proof of text messages between Fletcher and other board members, as well as former town administrator, along with proof that Ms. Fletcher also used her personal e-mail to conduct town business more often than the seven documents that were included in the latest records response. Mind you, even one instance of such communication is too much and equally non-transparent.

I want to be clear that Mary Ellen Fletcher is continuing to perpetuate the exact level of non-transparency and evasion of public responsibility that is required and expected of someone in her position. Isn't it interesting that the time just ahead of an election that communications with select board members, especially those records involving both incumbents seeking re-election, Ms. Fletcher and Phelan, would be withheld? One can only surmise what information such an act of collusion intends to hide.

I only hope that Swampscot residents will ask themselves this very question when they cast their votes in April. Where are the text messages? Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (16:53 - 17:10)
Thank you, Mr. Smith. Is there anyone else that would like to get up for public comment? Okay, seeing none, we will move on to the town administrator's report.

[Speaker 7] (17:13 - 22:28)
Welcome, everybody. I'm pleased to be able to offer the following report on programs and initiatives that are ongoing in the town of Swampscot. Town administrator, as most of you are aware, ongoing daily budget preparation with Amy.

Amy, as always, thank you. Tonight we're going to present a balanced budget despite there being considerable financial hurdles. The budget is lean, but with the cooperation of department heads and their staff, I believe it is manageable.

I just want to let everybody know that Clearview, the operators of the soon-to-be Harvey Hotel, will be extending their right to due diligence until April 30th of this year. They are waiting for additional numbers from their contractors. They're a little worried about tariffs and whatnot and trying to make their numbers work financially, so we've extended their due diligence period.

DPW, there's a crew out there daily patching potholes. They drive around other communities. We're in relatively good shape, but if you see potholes out there and you want to report them, feel free to call the DPW office.

And Greenees and Sons continue to make progress repairing the sewer mains, north of Fish and Beach. Cement lining of the mains and laterals will continue for the next four to six weeks. EJP, contractor for the town, installed a 10-inch insertion valve on the water main on Forest Ave. A lot of you have probably seen that plate out there for weeks. We've been trying to get it shut down, which we've been unable to do, so we had to hire a company to come in and insert a valve so we can get the water shut off. Last night, we repaired a water main at 55 Devons Road. Apologize to the people that were out of water for a few hours on Walker, Devons, Outlook, and probably re-terraced.

I was proud to say that we got that done last night and everybody was able to shower this morning. Facilities. Max is continuing the town hall restoration project.

You've probably seen the big cranes at the town hall this week. They're making repairs to the roof. Max is coordinating the SHS camera project and auditorium improvements.

He's also prepping for the Siena Center new dishwasher installation, which we've been looking forward to do for quite some time now. Finance director. Amy finalized the TA's recommended budget presentation.

She met with our insurer, Gallagher, for pre-approval discussions on property, casual, and workers' compensation insurance, and currently she's working with Patrick on projecting our water sewer rate increases. Community development. Margie continues to work with Benet Birth on their due diligence work for the Veterans Housing Project.

She's also working with the ZBA and Planning Board for bylaw updates that will be brought before town meeting in May. Margie attended a master plan update public meeting. There will be an open house meeting on March 20th in the high school cafeteria at 6.30 p.m., and then there will be a future presentation for the select board. Town clerk wanted to let everybody know that Friday, March 7th, 5 p.m., is the last day to pick up nomination papers for the upcoming election. These nomination papers must be returned by Tuesday, November 11th, 5 p.m. Police Department. Reuben was a guest panelist for SHORE's Black History Month celebration at the high school.

Did a great job. Fire Department. Congratulations to assistant, administrative assistant, Margaret Lyle Robinson, on the birth of her first child.

Finally, congratulations, Margaret. Fire Department continues to train its newest members in advance of sending them to the Massachusetts Fire Academy this spring. There's six new employees we still need to train.

Health Department. Met with the Oak Yard Settlement Fund program coordinator and the public health nurse to review program progress. Human Resources.

Expecting to present the new employee handbook to the select board for their approval in the near future. Mary Ann also completed the DEL culture and climate survey. Survey results will be released and ready set.

Our DEI consultant will be holding jam sessions at the library to discuss the survey results. Recreation Department. Danielle's working on the summer festival planning, including the Harbor and Marine Festival, the Garden Walk, Porch Fest, and our popular concert summer series.

Continues to work on the 13th annual farmer's market. Vendors can pick up applications by accessing the website. Finally, the library.

Susan Conner celebrated her 40th work anniversary working with the town of Swampsteads this week. Amazing. The library continues to work on a grant application with Friends of the Library to assist with the launching of our conversation circle for English language learners.

And finally, Jonathan is hoping to get department heads on a story time schedule this month to read books to the children. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (22:30 - 22:57)
Does anybody have any questions? Doug? I have a question on recreation.

Can we get a breakdown on the events as far as some of the concerts? Is the Bentwater event a recreation program?

[Speaker 26] (22:58 - 22:58)
Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (22:59 - 23:13)
Okay. I'm trying to get an idea of what we're bringing in for revenue on these events and what the costs are. Can we get something similar to a P&L on that?

[Speaker 7] (23:15 - 23:20)
I'll work with the email and have it by you. Maybe by the end of the week, if not next week.

[Speaker 2] (23:20 - 23:28)
Okay. That would be great. And then any projections on what's needed?

Like, for example, the 4th of July parade?

[Speaker 7] (23:29 - 23:33)
Start a conversation with you now. Up this early. We can do that for you.

[Speaker 26] (23:33 - 23:33)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (23:34 - 23:51)
All right. So if there are no more questions, we will move to the town administrator search committee update and discussion of possible votes to hire a consultant search committee. Heather, you want to come up to the mic, or do you want a mic over there?

We need a mic.

[Speaker 11] (23:55 - 27:23)
Thank you. Hi, I'm Heather Roman. I'm the chair of the town administrator selection committee.

And we have two other members here as well. So through feedback from the MMA and then doing our own research, we've learned that the majority of communities are using municipal search firms for these kind of higher level hiring positions. So this is just a short list of towns.

Tinsbury, which is only 5,000 people. So even very small towns are using them. Auburn, Northborough, Wayland, very similar in size to us.

Wakefield and Danvers, who are in the process right now, much larger than us. These are all communities that are using municipal search firms to hire these positions. So the advantage of these firms are they know all the players.

They know who's looking. They know what size town they're looking for, things like that. We also have the advantage of some candidates may prefer to go work through a recruiter rather than just because leaving a municipal job can be a sensitive subject.

So basically our committee voted unanimously to move forward with the RFP process. So the next question is cost. So unlike an executive search firm, which is usually a fee and then a percentage of salary, a municipal search firm is just a flat fee and is much less expensive.

It usually runs between $15,000 and $20,000. So that's what we're expecting to get bids in that range. So what I'd like to ask for is authorization for our committee to both post the RFP as well as financial authorization for up to $25,000, which gives us just a little bit of wiggle room in case the bids come in a little higher than we expect.

But we really expect them to be between $15,000 and $20,000. And then beyond that, I just wanted to give you a timeline update. So we're currently drafting the RFP.

Assuming we get approval to post it tonight, the goal will be to finalize it at our meeting on Friday and then post it on Monday. So that's Friday the 7th. Post it on Monday the 10th.

It will be open from Monday the 10th until Friday, March 21st. So that's 10 business days, two weeks basically. And then the RFP will be posted through the MMA's news publication, which is called The Beacon.

I guess that's the commonplace where these things are posted. And then our committee will meet again on Tuesday, March 25th, which is the first Tuesday after the RFP will close, to go over proposals. Once the firm's secured, we'll work with them to create a position statement to help find candidates that meet our community's need.

We talked at our meeting about the importance of community input. These firms are used to that. They're great at gathering data and helping us, so if we need to do surveys or things like that, to get community input.

And then our goal will be to present candidates to this board, and then you'll be the ones making the final decision. And the municipal search form can help us identify what the realistic timeline for all those things are. And then we'll keep you up to date with that timeline throughout the process.

I guess that's it. If there's any questions, let me know. Does anybody have any questions?

[Speaker 6] (27:23 - 27:34)
It sounds reasonable to me. Source of funds would be, we'd incur this up front, at the back end, when we incur the funds.

[Speaker 11] (27:34 - 27:36)
When do we actually pay?

[Speaker 6] (27:36 - 27:36)
Yeah.

[Speaker 11] (27:37 - 27:40)
That I am not 100% sure. Do you know that? That's when we get the RFP back.

Yeah.

[Speaker 14] (27:41 - 27:42)
Probably most up front.

[Speaker 11] (27:43 - 27:43)
Yeah.

[Speaker 6] (27:44 - 27:48)
Amy? Amy? Do we have it in reserve?

No?

[Speaker 1] (27:49 - 27:51)
We don't have an appropriation form right now.

[Speaker 6] (27:52 - 28:00)
Not directly for this, but is it in the finance committee reserve, or where would we have $25,000? Anywhere?

[Speaker 1] (28:00 - 28:05)
Are we using the finance committee reserve, or moving that budget over to the finance committee reserve?

[Speaker 6] (28:06 - 28:07)
Whatever you tell us to do.

[Speaker 1] (28:08 - 28:26)
I would obviously defer to the chair of finance, I don't know that this would be unfudged, unforeseen, because we made this contract for the CA to an end, but I would obviously defer on the use of that. We do have $125,000 in the finance committee reserve for RFP.

[Speaker 2] (28:29 - 28:38)
The problem is, legally, I don't know if you could say this is unforeseen, with a contract ending the same year.

[Speaker 14] (28:38 - 28:51)
Well, if I might, I feel that if we had known that we were going to replace the administrator, we would have put the search fee in the budget, so I think the fact that we need a search person is, you could argue, is unforeseen. I would defer.

[Speaker 6] (28:51 - 28:52)
Agreed.

[Speaker 2] (28:53 - 29:09)
Agreed. I think the question is, what do you think, Amy, because you're the one that would have to defend this, and God forbid we're violating any open meeting laws or any rules, I just want to make sure we're doing everything we can to stay compliant.

[Speaker 1] (29:09 - 29:23)
Yeah. I mean, I can obviously check it in the morning, but stay in request, and it's up to them to determine if it's unbudgeted, unforeseen, from the already appropriated time.

[Speaker 6] (29:28 - 29:31)
So this is the only potential source that you know of?

[Speaker 14] (29:31 - 29:35)
Yes. The finance committee has not talked about it yet, just to be clear.

[Speaker 2] (29:41 - 30:02)
So you have a timeline. The finance committee would have to have a discussion. I mean, I think the only hang-up here is, because I'm thinking people on the board are, if there was an avenue for finances, I think I'm hearing that people are in support of it, so I think the only hiccup here is, is there an avenue for finances?

[Speaker 14] (30:03 - 30:14)
So I can attempt maybe after the budget discussion to have a quick regroup with the folks on the finance committee that are on the call, and see if we can get a quick answer tonight.

[Speaker 6] (30:14 - 30:17)
Could we vote it subject to the finance committee?

[Speaker 2] (30:17 - 30:21)
So if we can have a motion subject to finance committee approval.

[Speaker 6] (30:22 - 30:22)
So moved.

[Speaker 2] (30:23 - 30:27)
Second. All in favor? Aye.

So then you can just take it from there.

[Speaker 6] (30:28 - 30:31)
That's both for the RFP and for the money, right?

[Speaker 11] (30:32 - 30:36)
Excellent. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Heather.

[Speaker 2] (30:41 - 31:41)
Okay. So next on the agenda is the presentation discussion of capital improvements. Before we start to talk about finances, I just want to make sure that everyone understands that the budget and the capital improvements, this is all a work in progress, and once we get it through the select board, then it goes to the finance committee, and the finance committee is the committee that will really start wrestling out these numbers.

It's been a tough budget season, trying to figure out all the ups and downs and how we make things work. So I just want to make sure we're all really clear. We are one community, and we all just have to work together, and it's going to take a little bit of time, and this is work in progress.

So Patrick, how about if you first? You're going to do the capital because that will be relatively quick, and then we'll give it to Amy, okay?

[Speaker 6] (31:42 - 31:53)
Mary Ellen, just one thing you said. The select board is not going to vote on anything first. We're going to do this process, then it's going to go back through capital improvement and finance committee and ultimately comes back to us.

[Speaker 2] (31:53 - 32:17)
No, it doesn't come back to us. We give it away tonight. So we will vote, but then it will go to the finance committee, and then the finance committee will look at it, and then the finance committee will make a recommendation to town meeting.

That's how it works. Patrick?

[Speaker 3] (32:26 - 37:57)
I'm going to walk us through briefly some of the updates that have been done to the capital plan and the town administrator and finance team's recommendations for the five-year plan. Next slide, please. Thank you.

So first I'll update you on the process this year. The capital improvement committee took the beginning of the fiscal year, their first few meetings, to rework their request form, which is what is shared with departments that may be submitting new requests for additions or modifications to the plan, and they made some tweaks to that this year. They incorporated tying department requests back to master plan goals, which I know we're in the process of updating our master plan, but they use the existing plan, so we would get some information on how projects tie back or how department heads perceive them to tie back.

From there, the form was circulated on November 5th, and we left a fairly quick turnaround for departments to return forms by November 21st. The capital improvement committee has met ten times this fiscal year, and a lot of that time was spent reviewing with individual department heads the requests for updates or additions that they submitted, and ultimately I met with the interim town administrator and the director of finance and administration to review the requests that were submitted and formulate what's included in the back of your budget book, which is the full five-year town administrator recommendations.

And that's a little bit out of sequence this year with the transition in leadership. We opted to bring the requests to the capital improvement committee to get the ball rolling and begin the review, and then we circled back with Gino. So a little bit different this year, and we delivered the town administrator recommendations to the capital improvement committee on the 13th.

So just to update you where they're at in their process, they have all the information. They've heard the recommendations, and we're just waiting on a final vote from them. I've been in touch with the chair, and so we're hoping that will happen early March in the next couple weeks.

Next slide. This slide just gives you kind of a census or an overview of what departments are submitting requests this year compared to last year. We definitely saw fewer requests overall for new additions to the plan this year than we did last year, and that's summarized by department there.

And some of the master plan goals that were identified by department heads that their projects would address dealt with public facilities and services was the biggest one, and then followed by sustainability energy goals, transportation goals, open space, and historical and cultural resources were some of the things we were seeing. Next slide. Ultimately, after meeting with the town administrator and the director of administration and finance, we were left with a decision.

We had to prioritize the projects that were submitted based on the information we've been given up to that point. So ultimately, we are recommending $5.6 million of funding for general fund projects in the coming fiscal year. That's about $4.3 million less than what was submitted, so obviously there are competing needs and priorities in all of these different departments. So it was a tough year given the asks and the financial capabilities that the town has to fund the projects. Some of the largest projects included in the plan this year are $1.6 million for a solar canopy at the elementary school, and we're recommending that $300,000 of free cash be appropriated to offset project costs in addition to 25% funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. And there's also $1.6 million included in the plan for replacement of the ladder truck at the fire department. The existing ladder truck is from 2004. It's definitely end of life. It's been on the plan for several years and been delayed each year.

And the chief was able to meet with the union and form an internal working group about what type of apparatus would be most effective to replace what we have, and they opted for a model that is much less expensive than an aerial platform model. The model that they selected just has a ladder. It requires a little bit more knowledge to operate and get the same use out of it, but they were comfortable with that, and that's a $500,000 savings versus what they were originally recommending.

And we also received requests this year for $2 million in funding for middle school window replacements. Obviously, that's been a big topic of discussion in the middle school and the needs that are there. Ultimately, with the request this year, we had to opt to delay that one year while we think about that for budgetary purposes.

And same thing, $1 million in funding for renovations to the high school and town hall were also delayed a year, $500,000 each for budgetary reasons primarily. On the enterprise fund side, we were able to secure $3.25 million in the intended use plan for the low-interest loan program that the state offers for sewer infrastructure improvements. So we're requesting the full amount in the capital plan here to address the needs there.

Originally, we were planning on $3.5, so the result came back $250,000 less. Next slide.

[Speaker 6] (37:57 - 38:06)
Do you want questions as we go through? So a little question. What's the $250,000 on the bottom?

Why was that different?

[Speaker 3] (38:07 - 38:19)
So what we submitted for the intended use plan was $3.5 million, and they came back and only approved us for $3.2, so we're requesting that amount to maximize that allocation.

[Speaker 16] (38:22 - 38:25)
Yep. And then...

[Speaker 6] (38:28 - 38:39)
So again, so on the capital, you're expecting to vote on this tonight? Didn't you say CAC hasn't even done a final vote on this? They have not.

[Speaker 2] (38:40 - 38:41)
We're not voting on capital tonight.

[Speaker 6] (38:41 - 38:43)
Okay, that's what I was asking.

[Speaker 2] (38:43 - 38:45)
This is just an update.

[Speaker 6] (38:48 - 38:53)
Are we giving feedback now, or are we just hearing?

[Speaker 26] (38:53 - 38:53)
Go ahead.

[Speaker 6] (38:56 - 39:10)
I'm all for the solar canopy, but it's pretty hard to stomach doing nothing about the middle school windows. That's what the committee's recommending right now, or...? I'm not speaking on behalf of the committee.

[Speaker 3] (39:10 - 39:19)
This is the town administrator and finance team recommendation. The committee will come back with their own set. So they've heard this information, and...

[Speaker 5] (39:19 - 39:21)
So, Geno, do you want to speak to that?

[Speaker 7] (39:21 - 39:35)
Sure. So it came down to, we couldn't fund it all, obviously, because we just don't have the financial right now. So it came down to whether we were going to support the canopy or the windows, and our return on investment was better with the canopy.

[Speaker 5] (39:36 - 39:46)
And do you know how many years the middle school window replacement has been pushed out? How many years we've gone into this? I'm just curious.

At least two or three.

[Speaker 3] (39:46 - 40:40)
I would say, so, on the capital improvement plan that was published last year, this project wasn't listed for this year. We had a larger middle school renovation listed at an outer year, which is still on the plan for $100 million, and I think FY20, I don't want to misspeak, but it's a couple years out. So this is the first year we're seeing the requests submitted by the school department pulled out and pulled forward, because obviously it's a pressing matter.

But ultimately it seems like delaying one year, and since we've published this recommendation, I've talked to the facilities director a little bit, and one of the recommendations that he submitted to the capital improvement committee before they finalized their vote is funding, I want to say about $180,000 in design, so that the project would be ready to be constructed the following fiscal year. So that's been brought to our attention, and we've shared that with the committee, so they'll definitely consider that.

[Speaker 5] (40:40 - 40:48)
So we're going to consider spending $180,000 in design without actually having a go date for this project.

[Speaker 26] (40:48 - 40:50)
Is that what you're telling me?

[Speaker 3] (40:50 - 41:08)
So they would consider all of that. They would consider are we funding $180,000 this year for design, and if so, I would assume next year would be the go date for the project. Otherwise, we would push both things out.

You know what I mean? So that's a conversation that still has to be had with the committee they haven't met since we delivered these recommendations.

[Speaker 26] (41:08 - 41:09)
Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (41:09 - 41:43)
To your point, Doug, I happen to think, you know, the canopy into Gino's point, yes, there's a return on investment, but I don't think it can be, I don't think we can underestimate the need for the windows of the middle school. Having worked there for 10 years, I can tell you it's in rough shape, and it has been for a number of years. So I hate to see this can continuously kick down the road, and I feel like that's what we've been doing for the past probably three years.

So that's my feedback for you, town administrator, as you're discussing this.

[Speaker 10] (41:45 - 42:38)
So I'll echo Ms. Leonard's comment. Certainly the windows absolutely positively need to be addressed. I think you will have some return on investment.

I'm interested to see how the $2 million window replacement plays into the, you know, plays into the larger term $100 million major renovation that's on for fiscal year 29 as well. So one of the questions that I have is about the solar canopy. We've talked about that for a while now.

I thought there was an alternate source of funds for the solar canopy. I thought with all of the rebates from National Grid that those funds could then be allocated for the solar canopy, therefore it wouldn't show up on our capital plan. So that's not...

[Speaker 3] (42:38 - 42:57)
I can speak to the funding sources. So what you're alluding to, I think, is the increased MSBA reimbursements on the new school and the Inflation Reduction Act credits from the federal government on the geothermal system and then also the National Grid incentives that we've received.

[Speaker 10] (42:57 - 42:57)
Correct.

[Speaker 3] (42:58 - 44:32)
So the state has come out and said that the Inflation Reduction Act credits can only be used to offset project costs. So that's going to be used to pay down short-term debt we have outstanding on the school still, which is about $4 million. And then anything beyond that would be used to amortize annually to offset the debt service payments on the school until there's a point where maybe we can call the bond and pay some of it off.

So that's where that funding is going. So that's not available to appropriate for this project, but certainly that helps to offset debt service for the larger project that we've already incurred. And the MSBA reimbursement is used, same thing, to offset project costs.

So that has been used to pay down short-term debt on the project because we don't need to borrow the money the state has given it to us. The National Grid reimbursements, we've received about $700,000 so far this fiscal year, and that is general fund receipts. So that falls to free cash.

You'll recall at the special town meeting we appropriated over $400,000 from free cash for the UU easement settlement related to the new school. So the concept is that $400,000 will flow to replenish free cash for that expenditure for the school project because it's all related. And then the $300,000 remaining from that $700,000 is applied to this project.

So that's what's available. In terms of those one-time monies that we're receiving related to the project, what's available is being applied.

[Speaker 10] (44:32 - 44:45)
Yeah, Patrick, thank you for walking us through that. Do we anticipate receiving any additional funds above and beyond the $700,000 that we've currently... that's currently falling to free cash?

[Speaker 3] (44:46 - 44:54)
There may be additional funds in next fiscal year. It's unclear to me the quantity or the timing on those funds at this point.

[Speaker 6] (44:56 - 45:26)
And just to follow up on that, if we're able to pay down the debt with the MSBA and the IRA funds, could you then not... does that open up a kind of additional source, basically? Like, I know we try to stay within the 5.6. Did you kind of say, well, we actually...

it's just moving money around. Do we actually have more room to finance projects because we got that?

[Speaker 3] (45:26 - 45:43)
You could look at it that way, yes, because ultimately the debt service will be less annually. The school bond is a 30-year bond. So it will be a little bit less, and we've done some analysis on that.

I don't have it with me tonight, but that's true.

[Speaker 26] (45:44 - 45:45)
And then...

[Speaker 3] (45:45 - 45:58)
It's all connected to the larger conversation, of course. It's all connected, and then you look at the capital plan, and there's competing priorities there, which is now our job to identify what moves forward and what gets pushed out. But yes, that's true.

[Speaker 6] (45:59 - 46:10)
So certainly on the margin, if you're going to try to add, just simply add $180,000 for design for the windows, that seems within the reasonableness of figuring out a way to do that.

[Speaker 3] (46:10 - 46:17)
Yes, yeah. Our next slide will put more color on how reasonable or not reasonable or possible that may be.

[Speaker 2] (46:17 - 46:40)
Patrick, are you saying that we really need to have the $180,000? So even if we were to approve the $2 million for the middle school windows, are you saying that we would need to do the $180,000 for the design, and we really wouldn't even be doing the windows until possibly the following year? Like, what is the possibility of actually making it happen?

[Speaker 3] (46:41 - 47:03)
Yeah, I think having the design done well in advance of the construction phase would kind of guarantee your timing and your timeline. If you have to do design and construction in a constricted time period, that is going to make it trickier to deliver, especially in an occupied building, if you have to do any work that's not in the summer months. So that's more a max kind of question.

[Speaker 2] (47:03 - 47:49)
The other concern I have is when I hear about another $100 million school, and I'm just hearing about this once in a while at different meetings, and I'm not hearing about it in big open forums. We just put $65 million on our debt service, and I think we have to have a much larger community conversation about that to see how everything is going to fit, where are things going to fall off. We have the high school falling off, I think, in six years.

We've got the police station falling off in three years. I just want to make sure that we take some time and really look and see what's going to happen here, because we have the financial burden on the taxpayer is increasing significantly, and we just have to look at it pretty wisely, okay? Absolutely.

[Speaker 5] (47:50 - 48:25)
I think to that point, too, we can't get too caught up in thinking, as you said, it was FY28 that this $100 million was placed somewhere. Yeah, longer than that. We can't get caught up in thinking that that is going to happen.

I don't have to remind everybody about the arduous process we just went through to get a new elementary school, so that makes the windows to me even more imperative, because if we just put it off thinking that, oh, we're going to build a new middle school in three or four years, that's reality-wise probably not going to happen, right? Let's be honest. We know what it took to get the new elementary school.

[Speaker 2] (48:26 - 48:41)
If there's a possibility that we could squeeze in windows during this year and float it with a ban for 12 to 24 months, is that something you can just take a peek at? Yeah, I can look into that. Definitely.

[Speaker 26] (48:44 - 48:45)
Okay.

[Speaker 7] (48:45 - 49:04)
One of the other things we also considered is the Alice Shaw Junior High was, what, 56 maybe, and then the addition was 1980, 79, 80. Could we do half? Is the newer portion in those windows in better shape?

Something to consider.

[Speaker 3] (49:05 - 49:33)
I'll just add one more comment, too, while we're talking about the windows. There's a tricky piece to it with MSBA funding, right? Because this is a large project on its own.

However, if you apply for an accelerated repair grant for this project, then they will not consider us for a grant for the larger renovation that's contemplated. I'm not saying the windows can wait that many years to be addressed, but if it's not included in that larger project, then we're funding 100% of it.

[Speaker 2] (49:33 - 49:48)
Has Max looked at any? I know we have temporary. I've been talking about these windows for a long time.

Has Max looked at anything else? Are we in the process of looking at anything else?

[Speaker 3] (49:49 - 50:02)
I think the two things that Max has brought to us as alternates is design this year for construction next year or a phased approach where you just do half of them, although that's not ideal if they all have to be done within a certain amount of time.

[Speaker 5] (50:02 - 50:13)
Maybe that's a question we need to ask Max. Do you know? Maybe that's something you can facilitate a discussion with him, a bigger conversation about the window plan.

I'm sure he has a plan.

[Speaker 17] (50:13 - 50:14)
I trust Max.

[Speaker 5] (50:18 - 50:19)
Next slide, Diane.

[Speaker 3] (50:22 - 53:03)
Obviously, as we tried to assemble this capital plan, we looked into forecasting our debt service. The town does have financial policies that were approved by the Finance Committee and the Select Board several years ago. One of those policies is that debt service has a target range of 5% to 7% of the general fund budget, not to exceed 10%.

Obviously, the town's debt and liability profile changed significantly when we made the investment to build the new elementary school, so that's put a lot of pressure on this benchmark to the point that we've exceeded it by a few basis points the last couple of years. Luckily, with FY26, which is just all existing debt service, that falls just below 10% of the town administrator proposed budget, so that is nice that there's a little bit of relief there. But as we ratchet up and continue to make these investments that are oftentimes necessary and can't be deferred, that puts more pressure on our benchmark versus the budget.

And we have some really large projects in the plan. I'll point out the DPW yard, middle school renovation, which we just talked about a little bit, demolition and reuse of the Hawthorne site, the solar canopies. We talked about the elementary school, but there's also one contemplated for here at the high school, and then also high school roof repairs and HVAC repairs, which are significant in the outer years.

So all these things necessary or beneficial in an operational way, the upfront investment is going to put a lot of pressure on this line if we don't come up with alternate funding sources or reprioritize what's in the plan. So this is just a forecast. I'm not going to say that these numbers are going to stay that way, but I just want to paint the picture of where we are, where we're headed, and how we need to prioritize as we go through the steps here.

Next slide. So just to summarize the next steps, Capital Improvement Committee has heard these recommendations. We talked about it a little bit at Finance Committee last week.

You've now had the update, and the plan is in the budget book. We're expecting Capital Improvement Committee to finalize their recommendations early this month so that Finance Committee can do what they need to do to look through this plan and hopefully post recommendations by the end of the month, and then we'll have an annual town meeting on May 19th this year. And that's it.

[Speaker 5] (53:04 - 53:23)
So capital improvements from here we'll review, and with Gino, so I would respectfully ask that you take a deeper dive into the window situation and see what you can come up with, or with Max, and see if there's any way, I mean, to work with that, because I really do think that's a critical need.

[Speaker 7] (53:24 - 53:25)
We'll do.

[Speaker 26] (53:26 - 53:27)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (53:27 - 53:52)
Thank you. Thanks, Patrick. Any other questions?

All right. Thank you, Patrick. Next, we have our budget presentation.

Amy Sorrow. And Gino Cresta.

[Speaker 7] (54:19 - 56:53)
All right. I'd like to welcome everybody here tonight. So as interim town administrator, I believe that town finances to be my number-one priority, ensuring that Swampstrip maintains a sound, balanced budget and a plan for future capital investments while delivering a level of service that residents of Swampscot expect are challenges that need to be considered.

This budget reflects ongoing efforts to balance the town's structural needs and move Swampscot forward as a united community. Over the past few years, Swampscot has continued to explore paths to balance the budget while maintaining services and minimizing the financial impacts to our taxpayers. We will continue to look at creative ways to offset expenses, both needs and wants, while negotiating contracts that are beneficial to both the town and its employees.

We look forward to a thoughtful conversation regarding the FY26 budget over the next couple of months leading up to town meeting. This budget needs to be a collaborative effort between finance director, select board, finance committee, school committee, and town meeting. A team effort is imperative to keep the town on the best financial path moving forward.

Next slide, okay. The FY26 budget continues to focus on core services that Swampscot families need and deserve. The proposed budget sustains current service levels, meets debt and contractual obligations, continues to invest in our veterans and senior citizens, maintains progress in funding long-term liabilities, supports an increase in funding of Swampscot public schools, advances efforts to address climate change, and finally acknowledges the challenging fiscal reality while continuing to address our priorities as a town. These include continuing improvements to the town's infrastructure, cleaning and maintaining our town beaches, and ongoing maintenance to both town and school buildings. And I'll turn it over to Amy.

[Speaker 1] (57:03 - 1:01:48)
So an overview of the FY26 recommended budget has a general fund recommendation of $75,280,272 and a recommended enterprise fund budget of $9,614,782. This was balanced using the best estimates for local receipts and the governor's proposal for state aid. This proposed budget ensures adequate resources were provided to maintain services.

However, we did refrain from funding new initiatives in this year. Funding is also increased due to inflationary increases, utility expenses, and maintenance agreements. And then we also have the funding of collective bargaining agreements for three of our town collective bargaining units with those wage increases as well as some non-union employees.

This is the highest level of that $84 million. So this is a combination of the general fund and the enterprise fund. This slide is the same one that we show every year.

It just gives the breakdown of those overall categories. So the general government is 6.89%. Employee benefits are 18.23%. Debt is 8.82%. Community development is just under 1%. Public safety is over 10%.

Public services are 2.52%. Human services are about 1.5%. Public education inclusive of the regional voc school is just under 40%. And the enterprise funds are 11.3%. Obviously, I'm going to start with revenue because if there's no money, we have nothing to spend. The majority of the revenues in Smallstreet come from our taxes.

That is no surprise to anyone. About 10% of these revenues come from our user charges in water and sewer as well as the Comcast and Verizon agreements for the PEG. About 9.25% come from state aid. Only 6% of it comes from local receipts. And about 1% comes from the intergovernmental transfer, which is the indirect costs in the enterprise funds returned to our general fund. I wanted to give a trend of what our revenues have looked like for the last handful of years.

So back in fiscal 20, the combination of general and enterprise funds was just under 70 million. We had a larger increase from FY 22 to 23, which is aligned with when we did the debt funding for the new school. And that continues to the recommendation today.

The topic that we've been talking about a lot through this budget process is our local receipts. I tried to highlight some of the anomalies that we've had over the last few years. So the first bracket that you'll see here is our motor vehicle excise.

That's the largest portion of our local receipts, and that thankfully has been very steady from FY 19 through now. Our departmental revenues, you see a spike in FY 20 and 21, and that was really just because the NAHANT tuition used to come to the general fund and then get transferred to the school, and now it goes straight to the school. We had some spikes in our building permits, and I called them out here for the aggregate permit and the Elm Place construction permit.

Those are not structurally continuing receipts. Our largest topic is the interest on the school borrowing. Unfortunately, that will not continue, but we had two really good years where we had a lot of investment income from having that money in the bank and earning interest.

You'll see that even though the estimate for FY 26 is low, it is still higher than it was pre-school money, so we are still anticipating that at a higher level. Our local excise taxes have been increasing as we've gotten those up to the state maximum that we can bill for those. Our rentals have been steady.

I just have these other ones here as a reference. We had the Michon lease closing in that miscellaneous not recurring, which was a spike in that year.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:52 - 1:02:16)
This is our state... Wait, Amy, can I just ask a quick question? Yes.

On the investment income, can you just get back to us at some point and let us know what the dollar amount of revenue is going to be on that investment income? For FY 26? Yeah.

$425,000. That's a serious non-recurring income, right? Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:02:20 - 1:10:55)
So state aid, we've seen a continued increase in the Chapter 70 funding for education, so the governor's proposal has an increase of just under $440,000, a slight decrease to the charter tuition reimbursement section. Our unrestricted general government increased by $35,000, and all other state aid increased another $36,000. So our education state aid has been increasing 5.8% over the last three years, and our general government state aid receipts have been increasing about 4.2% over the last three years. So as we go through the FY 26 budget, these are just some overall assumptions that we used through it. Any active contract increases are reflected in the lines for those personnel. Any expiring contracts, whether it's collective bargaining or an individual employment contract, is not reflected because they're not there yet.

Those are in salary reserve, those are budgeted flat at the FY 25 rate. Any step increase that they are going to have is reflected on that same FY 25 table. Any vacancies that we have are budgeted at the low end in the personnel line with the higher end in salary reserve.

Any non-union, non-contracted staff is budgeted with a 2% COLA, and that is reflected in their personnel line. As I stated, potential increases for expiring contracts are in the salary reserve. And then any staff reductions that have not yet been communicated to those individual employees are reflected as a reduction to salary reserve.

The lines are showing as funded, and we will transfer that at a later date after those employees have been notified. This is an overview of our FTE over the last five years. Overall, the town's produced 14.09 FTEs since FY 22, and that represents 9.9% of the town's staff. I'm going to go very fast through this slide. This slide is unchanged from last year. This is just the town moderator, the finance committee, small expense, and the finance committee reserve.

Okay, and we'll just go to the next one. The administration finance recommended budget is $3.9 million. This includes an increase of $382,000.

The majority driver of this is the salary reserve, since we do have police, fire, and library contracts up this coming June, the Town Administrator and Building Commissioner vacancies, and six individual employment contracts for non-union staff who are also expiring. We have increases to legal and insurance. The addition that we do have this year is turning our part-time assessor to a full-time assessor, and that is at the directive of the Department of Revenue.

And then we have increases to end of employment for town and school employees. We've made reductions to community programs, town hall events, the DEI coordinator, temporary help, tuition reimbursement, employee recognition, employee assistance, and non-contracted performance management. For our community and economic development, we are recommending $756,000.

This is a decrease of $53,000, mostly driven by the vacancies in the Senior Planner and the Building Commissioner. We also have reductions to the Health Department's outside services, and we've seen an increase from the beach sticker processing. It used to be processed through City Hall Systems, where you could order it online and they would mail it to you.

City Hall Systems is no longer offering that service, so we will now be doing it in-house, but it does provide us a savings of over $12,000. Public services. I'm sorry, I should have pointed this out.

This includes these departments. This is an increase of $49,000, mostly driven by the building maintenance and utility costs, and it does include the elimination of an Assistant Facilities Director stipend. Public safety, we recommend $8.6 million, an increase of $230,000. We've seen a $40,000 increase to the Linn Dispatch Contract. Recruitment and hiring costs were reclassified from Human Resources to Police and Fire, and that's about $24,000. And this also includes the reduction and elimination of the Deputy Police Chief and Part-Time Police Admin.

Human Services has an increase of $44,000. The primary driver to this is the Library Noble Network. That is an assessed fee.

And then we have small building expenses at Senior Center and Library, thankfully due to increased traffic in those areas. They have, unfortunately, seen increasing costs just for people using the facilities more, but the traffic is good. Education, it's $33.7. I will say this is inclusive of the regional schools. The Swanscot Public Schools recommended budget includes an increase of $1.09 million or 3.39% over the FY25 voted of $32,199,096. It does not include the $2,000 for free cash for utilities in FY25. That was not part of the base calculation, and it also does not reflect the same $200,000 request for FY26.

The recommended budget we are acknowledging is $660,941 below the school committee's voted budget, and our recommended budget is $33,290,071. This also reflects a decrease in the Essex Regional Assessment of $23,000. Debt, as Patrick Letty so wonderfully put together for us, is $7.4 million, and this is actually a decrease of $15,000. We've had a reduction in interest payments on the notes outstanding of about $290,000. The non-excluded debt final maturities is $255,000. The excluded debt is $270,000.

We had a recent bond issuance of $540,000, and the principal paydown on the land acquisition of $260,000. Awesome. This chart is mostly here just to show, as everyone is acutely aware, the increase in our debt when we did the new school, which was a $5.45 million increase in FY23, and approximately $4.97 million right now of the debt service is school-related, not all elementary school. And this one is the largest. So the employee benefits is $15 million. This is a recommended increase of $1.32 million. We have a small increase to unemployment due to the anticipated reductions that we have. Our workers' comp insurance, MEGA, is requesting a 7% rate increase from the state, and we are anticipating that that will be granted to them. We also have an increase in employee health insurance due to the anticipated rate increase from GIC, a little over $1 million, and I do have a slide specifically on that later in the presentation, and a $270,000 increase to the pension assessment.

State assessment, once again, is based off the governor's proposal, and it's an increase of $28,000, and it was just minor increases to the MBTA and charter school assessments. For our enterprise fund, we have $3.2 million for sewer, mostly driven by the increase in Lynn Water Sewer Estimate and an increase in the debt. The projected sewer rate increase is looking like it's going to be between 5% and 7%.

Patrick and I will be meeting with the Water Sewer Advisory Committee to discuss this as we move forward.

[Speaker 2] (1:10:56 - 1:11:06)
Amy, I have a question. If we're going to have an increase between 5% and 7%, what is that equal to on the average? I will get to that after we do the water because it's a combined increase.

[Speaker 1] (1:11:08 - 1:14:51)
For the water, we are recommending a budget of $4.5 million. The increases are mostly driven to the expenses, paving, and debt, but we did see a decrease in the MWRA assessment of $71,000 due to the continued consumption efforts in town, and we are anticipating a rate increase of between 8% and 10%. The combination of these two for the average consumption user is about $65 to $70 a year.

For Peg, who is so graciously broadcasting this for us today, the recommended budget is to earn $24,000. This includes use of $21,000 of the retained earnings for small capital. And Solid Waste Enterprise is still largely subsidized by taxpayers.

This includes a modest increase of $33,000. The tonnage for solid waste and recycling is still the largest item in this budget, and we have seen an increased bin rate for composting. The subsidy from the tax this year is anticipated to be $1.43 million. Oh, as I teased, health insurance. As of January 2025, we have 754 total plan participants between our active and Medicare plans. The non-indemnity...

So the town covers two different tiers, depending on which plan type you take. It's a 73% on all of our non-indemnity plans, and the employee pays 27% of the premium, or a 60-40 split for our non-indemnity plans. That's for the active and the retiree Medicare plans.

In December, the GIC was recommending a rate increase between 8.5% and 12.5% on those premiums, and with the current enrollment that we have in these active and Medicare plans, that proposed increase was going to be just under $1.02 million for that health insurance line. Over the years, we have seen a 7.31% annual increase on these GIC rates, with almost 11% increases in just the last two years as an average. This is something that we are very aware of and are very much trying to look into, you know, does it make sense for the town to stay with the GIC?

Does it make sense for us to go out in the market and try to get a different health insurance that can still provide adequate coverage to our staff at a lower cost and a lower cost to the town? We were hoping at the time that these rates were not going to come in at 10.5%, and then as of Thursday last week, the GIC voted rates even higher. So the only plan that had a premium rate of 10.5% is the one plan that no one in town takes. The highest increase is 17.1% on the rates. So we're looking at an average of 12.75% rate increases. Because this came in so late, this number is not reflected in the town ministry's recommended budget tonight.

8.1 would be what this is looking like if we were to have this fully funded. It's something we will have to work through in the finance committee portion of the budget. I just did want to make everyone aware because we are aware.

[Speaker 6] (1:14:53 - 1:14:56)
Sorry, maybe this editor is here. What's the delta there?

[Speaker 1] (1:14:57 - 1:14:59)
The blue bubble, the 145.

[Speaker 2] (1:15:01 - 1:15:03)
So you need to find another 145 on top of everything?

[Speaker 1] (1:15:05 - 1:15:54)
Maybe. So during open enrollment, there is a chance that some employees may, you know, look to their spouse and say, hey, your insurance coverage is better at a better cost. I'm going to leave Swamp's Coast Insurance and go on yours.

There is a chance they're going to look at the overall plan offering and say, you know, the plan that I'm on went up 17% and that's just not feasible. It's not a good cost benefit for me and my family. I'm going to go on a plan that went up 11.6%. So it's moving parts that will all happen before annual town meeting. So at this point, I am not recommending we change this budget until we actually have more solid information.

[Speaker 2] (1:15:54 - 1:15:56)
And what's the date that you're going to have all the information?

[Speaker 1] (1:15:56 - 1:16:10)
Open enrollment ends on May 1st. So we will have it before town meeting. And as soon as open enrollment closes, I'll be able to run that report and let us know where that census actually lands.

[Speaker 2] (1:16:10 - 1:16:20)
Out of these plans, what does the breakdown look like? You can go to the next slide. Oh.

Thank you for that segue.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:24 - 1:22:39)
So I did this broken down a couple ways. I'm going to go middle of the slide first. So our active and non-Medicare plans, which is the one starting with Harvard-Pilgrim Across America, we have 356 employees on those active non-Medicare plans.

What I mean by non-Medicare is it could be someone who retired, but they haven't yet hit Medicare age. So they are still eligible to be on our plans. They are not yet eligible for Medicare.

So it is our active employees and our retirees who have not yet hit Medicare age. With the 73-27 or 60-40 split that I talked about, all these ones in purple are those 73% splits. So all but five people are on the plans where the town covers 73%.

So what does that actually look like? For Harvard-Pilgrim Explorer, which is our most popular active plan, this premium increase is going to be $570 a month, of which the town is responsible for $342 of it. With our Medicare plans, the indemnity plans are the more popular.

So 366 of our 398 Medicare plans are on the 60-40 split. So with the Weld Point Medicare extension premium going up almost $32 a month, the town is responsible for $19.13 a month on that. Because it always comes up, I'll go back up to the top for the blue.

So 70% of our active plans are for school employees. Like I said, those could be active employees or recently retired, not yet Medicare eligible. And then for the Medicare plans, it's about 59% of the plans are school employees.

So the items that are still in progress, we are awaiting the final premiums on our property casualty workers' comp insurance. We still have the ongoing negotiations for police, fire, and library unions, and that will be very transparent. Those will not be settled in time for annual town meeting.

We have continued reviews of vacancies and potential staff efficiencies. We have ongoing hiring efforts for key vacancies like the town administrator and building commissioner. And like I stated, we have open enrollment for the health benefits April 2nd through May 1st.

So while the rates are already voted, those enrollment numbers may change. I will do a final projection as soon as those are done to see where that lands. And the commitment from the town administrator is that we will not be recommending to reallocate those monies.

So if this comes in under projected, we will be recommending a lower amount to lower that tax impact. Because we did present a number of scenario adjustments, this would have been, if we went with scenario three, which was $500,000 less than what is being recommended tonight. So I tried to make it fit all on the slide.

So essentially all community programming and events within the general fund budget would be reduced to zero. All professional development on the town side would be reduced to zero. There would be additional staff reductions of about 227,000.

Outside services would be reduced by 8,000. We would reduce our IT hardware essentially to zero. The facilities building maintenance would, we would defer some maintenance on that.

The employee recognition would be reduced. And just as a proportionate, since the Swanscot Public Schools is 44% of our operating budget, it was a 44% decrease. This is not the scenario that we recommended.

I just know it was discussed, so we wanted to present what that would have looked like. So here is the impact. This is the tax levy growth from FY19 to 25.

I wanted to put it in more visual terms instead of actual numbers. So the blue is what our actual tax levy was. This is what all of Swanscot was actually taxed.

And then the green is what, the maximum amount that we could have taxed without going to an override. So that is the excess levy capacity that you always hear people referring to. So in FY19, just to apply actual numbers to this, the actual levy in blue was 48 million.

There was a million of free cash used in purple. And the maximum that we could have taxed in that year was 51.8 million. For FY25, the actual levy was 58 million.

We used 850,000 of free cash in purple. And the maximum allowable was 66 million in green. To line up with that purple, this is the historical use of our one-time funds to reduce the tax rate.

I went back to FY17, where we used 300,000 up to recent times. So you can see in FY23, we had the spike to offset that first year of borrowing on the new elementary school, which was 2.57, inclusive of free cash, general stabilization, and capital stabilization. So all in over these years, we've used 9.2 million of free cash or a total of 10.92 million of all available funding sources. And these are all the available funding sources. So right now, our free cash balance is 2.5 million. Our general stabilization's at 6.7 million. Capital stabilization at 1.5. And our excess levy per DOR is 7.7 million.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:40 - 1:22:46)
Amy, where do those fall in our policies? That's the next slide. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:22:47 - 1:26:03)
So on the side with the stacked bar chart, in 2015, the sum of all of this was $5.4 million. And in FY25, the sum of all of this is $20 million. In no way is anyone recommending we deplete all of those.

So for our reserve positions within our financial policy, the recommended range for free cash is 3% to 5% of the operating budget. Right now, we are at 3.41%, so we have about $308,000 available above that lower limit. Our general stabilization should be between 9% and 10%.

And with this recommended budget, it's actually 8.99%, so $10,000 under. And then our capital stabilization should be between 2% and 4% of that recommended operating budget, and we are at 2.01%, so we have about $4,500 available on that. So I will say that this is a guideline and not a policy, so if there is reason for the select board in the future and town meeting to vote this under, it would be knowingly going below the policy, but it is not a binding policy.

We will not, in fact, get in trouble if we do that. We just have to make sure that we're looking at it holistically and how we can replenish those reserves. Yeah, this is the balance as of the last vote at fall town meeting.

So I guess the most important side is what does this do for your taxes? So this is the tax implication of the FY26 recommended budget. I do want to really emphasize that this assumption is modeled using the FY25 values.

You will not see these same exact numbers when we come back in the fall to do the tax rate setting, unless by some happenstance the values in town change absolutely zero, and I don't anticipate that happening. But based off that FY25 values in town and using that same FY25 median single-family value of $769,700, this budget with the use of $1.5 million of excess levy would be a projected increase to the median single-family of $643.54. This is prior to any uses of one-time funds at fall tax rate setting time, but we do want to be very clear as we head to annual town meeting, as we head through the finance committee review, that everyone knows the impact that this is going to have.

Knowing this, this is still what the town administrator is recommending, and I won't make you do this all on that. This is what we are recommending.

[Speaker 14] (1:26:08 - 1:26:24)
Amy, so this is the increase year-over-year. Have we looked at how much the debt service for the school costs the single-family home? Is it paid different than last year?

The 365 number that we've been hoping for the last couple of years?

[Speaker 3] (1:26:24 - 1:26:43)
No, I don't have that yet. I don't anticipate it will be materially different because the debt service this year on the new school should actually be less than last year. So unless something dramatic shifts in the composition of values in single-family homes versus commercial or condos, it will probably be a comparable measurement to last year.

[Speaker 6] (1:26:43 - 1:26:49)
Would it not possibly be even lower based on the fact that we have MSPP funds?

[Speaker 3] (1:26:49 - 1:27:08)
Not substantially lower, but we had a note outstanding last year for construction costs above and beyond what we bonded in 2022, and that was paid down with MSBA monies. So it's less, but it was a note payment, so it was interest-only. So it's not substantially less compared to the whole thing.

[Speaker 6] (1:27:09 - 1:27:17)
But the whole $5 million we have from MSBA, right, must be put towards paying down debt. We haven't used that yet, right?

[Speaker 3] (1:27:18 - 1:27:21)
That has been used to pay down the note that was outstanding.

[Speaker 1] (1:27:24 - 1:30:49)
I do also want to answer just because I'm imagining it will be part of the conversation. If we were to add the additional $661,000 in to fully fund the school's request, it would add $99.94 to that median, bringing that projected increase to $743.48. And just for reference, for anyone to apply to their own home value, the current tax rate in Swansboro is $11.47 per thousand of value of your home. This $1.5 million would bring it to $12.31 per thousand. And then if this were to go up an additional $661,000, it would bring it to $12.44 per thousand, caveat using the FY25 values. Before we go to the next slide, I do just want to say I said at the previous select board meeting, and since not everyone was in the room, I want to emphasize it right now, this is not a single-year issue. We are anticipating to be in a similar place next year as well.

So with that, this is a summary of our financial forecast. We will do a more in-depth presentation for this in the fall. But this is really small, so I'm very sorry for everyone who's actually in the room.

But at the very bottom, you can see that the green column is zero because this is a balanced budget as required by charter. But for FY27, you can see there's a shortfall of about $1.35 million. That is something that we will keep modeling, we will have to look for.

But at this point, we are anticipating this to be a similar problem next year. In FY28, we're projecting a small deficit of $325,000. I wouldn't hang too much on that because at this point, FY25 is only halfway done.

FY26 hasn't happened. As you get further up in the forecast, it's a little more. And obviously, as of right now, the pension unfunded liability is set to be fully funded in FY2031.

So FY2032, you'll see a large surplus. At that time, and that's because we'll go to normal cost at that time. So some of the assumptions that are built into this model is obviously the Hadley Hotel, the improvements in Bennett Square that were approved by the planning board.

And there is an assumption in here that we will be reshopping the health insurance and we won't be seeing the same increases that we have been seeing in here. That's an overview of...

[Speaker 14] (1:30:50 - 1:30:57)
I'm sorry. Can you go back to that one last time? So in the 26 column, it's a balanced budget, including the $1.5 million use of extra levy?

[Speaker 2] (1:30:57 - 1:30:57)
Yes.

[Speaker 14] (1:30:58 - 1:31:00)
So that just shows in the tax levy lines? Yes. Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 2] (1:31:02 - 1:31:35)
And then you have, Amy, go back one. Yeah. So you have 27, you have nothing going in.

You're not forecasting out any other levies, any other additional taxes on there? So you're looking at 27, you need an additional. 28, we'll need an additional.

I'm going to guess we're going to need it in 29. Can you just go back to your slide or can you just comment on what is the dollar amount we have budgeted in insurance right now, health insurance?

[Speaker 1] (1:31:39 - 1:32:01)
The actual line? Yeah. I apologize.

I'm prepared for that question. Right now we have $7.9 million budgeted for health insurance.

[Speaker 2] (1:32:06 - 1:32:16)
And we have $7 million on there. So in your budget, it's fair to say that's the only spot where there's going to be some wiggle room?

[Speaker 26] (1:32:16 - 1:32:17)
Mm-hmm.

[Speaker 2] (1:32:18 - 1:32:48)
And we won't know that real wiggle room until May 1? Yes. This year we came in, we're forecasting at 6.7. You're looking at a 12.5% increase, but you don't know what's going to be there, so that puts us up to 7.6 with a 12.5. And you said you budgeted how much? We budgeted 7.9. 7.9. Mm-hmm. Okay.

[Speaker 6] (1:32:48 - 1:33:03)
Go back to the debt service for a minute. The paydown is basically already factored into this? Is that?

Yes.

[Speaker 3] (1:33:03 - 1:33:05)
So the budget number is net of all those things.

[Speaker 6] (1:33:06 - 1:33:18)
That's why if we looked at FY25, we're down at 7.5 in this budget here, and we pop back up to 8.1 next year. I don't know what we're at this year.

[Speaker 3] (1:33:19 - 1:33:28)
Higher? So this year, this budget compared to the current year, we're just about $15,000 less in total debt service.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:30 - 1:33:50)
So when we do the forecast in the fall, it'll be after CIC and town meeting approve the capital plan, so we'll be able to have a better idea of what that debt's actually going to look like. And as part of the larger forecast, we'll go through debt more extensively.

[Speaker 6] (1:33:50 - 1:34:04)
Obviously having trouble capturing where this paydown benefit is materializing. $5 million, $7 million, whatever it is in total between MSBA and IRA.

[Speaker 3] (1:34:05 - 1:34:59)
So the MSBA grant reimbursements, we have issued a bond for the school project in 2022. So that's going to be paid over the next 30 years, so that's done. We have a short-term note that was issued to finance construction costs above and beyond that while we awaited periodic reimbursements from MSBA because it's a reimbursement basis.

So that note matures tomorrow, and so we've received MSBA reimbursements periodically over the construction period to date. That money is used to pay off the note, and then it's refinanced. The balance is refinanced until we continue to receive MSBA reimbursements.

IRA monies will come in over the next year, and then that gets paid down. So it's an interest payment on the note, and that materializes net in the debt service budget.

[Speaker 10] (1:35:00 - 1:35:01)
So it's just rolling the...

[Speaker 3] (1:35:01 - 1:35:07)
It's just rolling, and then you're also adding new debt for new projects, so netting out.

[Speaker 14] (1:35:08 - 1:35:20)
Or your debt service would have been higher in the future had you not got this MSBA funding. Yes. That's why you're not seeing a big drop, which is you would have seen a bigger increase, but we don't have to bond the bands.

[Speaker 6] (1:35:20 - 1:35:29)
That's what I was asking. Like, instead of the 7.5 that we have in this budget this year, it would have been more like 8, but you said no.

[Speaker 3] (1:35:30 - 1:35:38)
Oh, I misunderstood you. Yes, if we didn't receive these monies, we would eventually have to permanently bond those costs, and it would definitely add to that line.

[Speaker 6] (1:35:39 - 1:35:40)
So all these lines, basically.

[Speaker 26] (1:35:40 - 1:35:43)
Yes. All these years are kind of suppressed because of this.

[Speaker 6] (1:35:44 - 1:35:44)
Yeah.

[Speaker 10] (1:35:45 - 1:35:47)
So that's already been gobbled up, basically.

[Speaker 26] (1:35:47 - 1:35:47)
Yeah.

[Speaker 10] (1:35:48 - 1:35:51)
So I just had a question, just back to the insurance.

[Speaker 18] (1:35:52 - 1:35:52)
Yes.

[Speaker 10] (1:35:52 - 1:35:56)
Because that's such a large number.

[Speaker 26] (1:35:56 - 1:35:57)
It is.

[Speaker 10] (1:35:57 - 1:36:07)
So for the original budget, it looks like in the book we have $6.972 million. That was budgeted originally in 2025, and are we coming in above, below?

[Speaker 1] (1:36:08 - 1:36:11)
Right now we're projected to have about 200,000 entailings.

[Speaker 10] (1:36:11 - 1:36:21)
Okay. So we're better than originally forecast. However, the GIC is more.

Therefore, it's a nominal.

[Speaker 1] (1:36:22 - 1:37:31)
Yeah, and the way we do the forecast, we take the January 2025 enrollment, download it straight from the GIC, as you can see on the slide where it told you how many plans per. We pull all of that straight from the bill. It projects out those new costs, and then the only other costs that are included in that health insurance are the Medicare Part B premiums that we have to pay, cafeteria plan, advisor, and then we have a contingency for any vacancies that we'll be hiring, and we typically budget those at the second most popular family plan employer portion.

So in this case, we do it at the Mass General Brigham family plan at the 73% allocation, and that is our contingency. So on the town side, we had the senior planner vacant all of FY25. That contributes to that 200,000.

It's not solely the 200,000, but it is about 30,000 of it.

[Speaker 10] (1:37:31 - 1:37:47)
Yeah, I mean, just looking at the health insurance, I mean 14.5% is enormous, but I mean looking at the last four or five years, I mean really just going off of actual numbers, it looks like it's been 5%.

[Speaker 2] (1:37:47 - 1:37:50)
6.2. Yeah.

[Speaker 5] (1:37:50 - 1:38:22)
So if it's been an average of 5%, why are we assuming it's going to be 14%? That's the very high end it could possibly be, right? Why would we automatically go there when we've seen the historical average of roughly 5%?

Why wouldn't we continue that projection? We have a bill because we have a bill. We have to project it at who's currently on the health insurance right now.

But you have no idea what plan each person would take or change to. Yeah. That's really subjective.

[Speaker 2] (1:38:22 - 1:38:29)
Which gives us until May 1. So that's our only lifeline, really, right now. May 1 is not right now.

[Speaker 5] (1:38:30 - 1:38:31)
Can I ask a question?

[Speaker 19] (1:38:33 - 1:38:43)
If it's so subject to fluctuation, why don't you guys use a stable evasion fund similar to the way we have to use a stable evasion fund?

[Speaker 1] (1:38:46 - 1:39:05)
We looked into it and where we're looking to potentially leave the GIC, and when you establish a stable evasion fund, it needs to exist for at least three years. We're hoping that this is not going to be a continued thing if we do, in fact, leave the GIC in the future. We didn't want to establish a fund that we would then just have in perpetuity that wouldn't be getting used.

[Speaker 2] (1:39:06 - 1:39:30)
But it is something we need to look into. Yes. This year.

So building something up like that. We still need to fund it, though. Yeah.

I know that. But if we've had year after year where our increases are under 6% and we just make something, we have a stabilization in case we get hit because apparently you really never know what an individual is going to sign up for. At least that will take out a little bit of the bump.

[Speaker 5] (1:39:31 - 1:39:45)
How do we account for people that we lose through attrition or just, you know, cuts and reductions? Where are we seeing that factored in in terms of health insurance? That's the 200.

Where is that absorbed?

[Speaker 6] (1:39:46 - 1:39:48)
That's what ends up as tailings, right?

[Speaker 5] (1:39:49 - 1:40:29)
Because you've carried over money. Right. The past couple of years.

I would assume something similar to that. Right. If you look at, you know, how you.

How you budgeted for FYI, 24, 25. You end up having extra money left over. Correct.

Yep. So would we not assume that in the same scenario for FYI, 26? No.

We're I'm saying. You know, you're going from 6.9 to 7.9 million dollar increase. Right.

So where are we seeing? I just don't. It's just not making sense to me.

It just seems a little bit inflated. I don't know.

[Speaker 10] (1:40:30 - 1:40:34)
And just and to that to that effect, if you if you use the five percent.

[Speaker 5] (1:40:34 - 1:40:34)
Right.

[Speaker 10] (1:40:34 - 1:40:54)
You know, you're it's you'd see savings of six hundred and sixty thousand dollars, which is if you use half of the schools, if you use half of the increase to 7.25, 7.3, you'd save about a half a million dollars. Same same thing. And I know these are just estimates.

And I right. I understand that.

[Speaker 5] (1:40:54 - 1:40:56)
But that's what. Yeah.

[Speaker 26] (1:40:57 - 1:40:57)
Yeah.

[Speaker 5] (1:40:57 - 1:40:59)
That's that's something out to me.

[Speaker 26] (1:40:59 - 1:40:59)
I don't know.

[Speaker 2] (1:41:00 - 1:41:19)
So this is so this is what it looks like for me. These are my concerns. If we're forecasting out six point seven percent this year.

Right. And you already have the information at a at an average of twelve point seven five increase. That's not the average.

That's the high end.

[Speaker 5] (1:41:19 - 1:41:20)
No, that's not.

[Speaker 2] (1:41:20 - 1:41:22)
That's the average. The high end.

[Speaker 5] (1:41:22 - 1:41:27)
Right. But the amount that the G.I.C. could increase, did you say was between eight and twelve?

[Speaker 1] (1:41:27 - 1:41:29)
No, the G.I.C. voted the rates.

[Speaker 5] (1:41:29 - 1:41:30)
So at ten. Right.

[Speaker 1] (1:41:30 - 1:41:34)
No, no. G.I.C. voted the rates at an average of twelve seven five.

[Speaker 2] (1:41:34 - 1:41:37)
The highest rate increase being seventeen point one.

[Speaker 5] (1:41:37 - 1:41:37)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (1:41:39 - 1:42:53)
So if they voted the rate at twelve point, if we have a if we have an average, we've voted average at twelve point five and there are even some swings even higher than that. But if the voted average is twelve point seven five and if you take our forecast, it is six seven. You take the twelve point seven five.

That brings us down to seven six seven point six. Amy's Amy's forecasting right now. Seven point nine.

What it looks to me is that we have a three hundred thousand dollars possible swing, but she also added in the one hundred and whatever that wasn't added in there. And I don't think that you attributed any of people that are no longer going to be here or no longer going to be on them. Any of our staff reductions have already been reduced from that health insurance.

Your staff reductions have been reduced. So it looks to me. It just looks to me like, you know, the only swing, the only room we have here is possibly three hundred thousand and wiggle.

I do think in the past it was very clear that the budget was padded in the in in the health insurance line. So but I don't really see I see the three hundred here.

[Speaker 6] (1:42:55 - 1:42:55)
That's right.

[Speaker 2] (1:42:57 - 1:42:59)
Right. So now we're looking at one.

[Speaker 5] (1:42:59 - 1:43:06)
I'm just looking at the actual as as David was looking at what they've come in the past five years. That's what I'm going.

[Speaker 2] (1:43:06 - 1:43:07)
Yeah.

[Speaker 5] (1:43:07 - 1:43:11)
And just historically, if you look at that, to me, that's where I see the padding.

[Speaker 2] (1:43:12 - 1:43:21)
Yeah, that's what it looks like. That's what was the pattern in the past for increases. And I'm you know, I'm open to be wrong here.

I'm looking at this for the first time today.

[Speaker 5] (1:43:21 - 1:43:26)
Well, I think we need to we need to be looking at every possible dollar we can find.

[Speaker 2] (1:43:26 - 1:43:42)
Right. I think that's the goal here today. We have the G.I. The G.I.C. voted on. We have a we have already a vote from the G.I.C. at twelve point seven five. There's no guesstimates here. I get it.

But the guesstimate comes in is when you don't know which plan each person is going to take.

[Speaker 6] (1:43:42 - 1:43:42)
Right.

[Speaker 5] (1:43:42 - 1:43:43)
Who's going to jump off.

[Speaker 6] (1:43:44 - 1:43:46)
But we do know that any time before time. Correct.

[Speaker 5] (1:43:47 - 1:43:50)
We don't know right now for the purpose of what the numbers are that we're looking at.

[Speaker 14] (1:43:50 - 1:44:00)
I mean, do we know what this the chart that showed the twelve point seven five average has looked like the last few years? And you could say, yeah, you know, what's that percentage been as compared to our whatever your actual six percent?

[Speaker 26] (1:44:00 - 1:44:00)
Yeah.

[Speaker 14] (1:44:00 - 1:44:05)
We always had a three or four percent gap. I don't know if we have history of that with the rate itself.

[Speaker 26] (1:44:05 - 1:44:05)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:44:06 - 1:44:32)
It looks like we do. In FY 21, the average rate increase was five point oh one in FY 22. It was six point eight percent.

FY 23, it was six point one four percent. FY 24, it was three point nine eight percent. FY 25, it was nine point zero one percent.

And this year it's.

[Speaker 14] (1:44:33 - 1:44:42)
So are we saying nine point zero one translated to. I don't know when you guys calculated the number. About a six percent increase in our actual cost.

[Speaker 26] (1:44:42 - 1:44:42)
Yeah.

[Speaker 14] (1:44:42 - 1:44:52)
I mean, that might be a way to balance the if we have a history of running a few points lower than the G.I.C. average based on the turnover and other things, that might be the way to feel comfortable about it.

[Speaker 6] (1:44:52 - 1:44:54)
That's only one year. It looks like there might be a gap. Yeah.

[Speaker 14] (1:44:55 - 1:44:55)
We'd have to look. Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (1:44:56 - 1:44:58)
I mean, we have to look really. We'd have to really scrub that.

[Speaker 5] (1:45:04 - 1:45:13)
In savings. This year you're projecting 200 in savings.

[Speaker 4] (1:45:17 - 1:45:26)
But interestingly, even though you're saying that you're anticipating cost to be twelve seven. I think you said you're budgeting fourteen point five nine.

[Speaker 1] (1:45:27 - 1:46:11)
Because we cover more than 50 percent of the rate. So the premium itself goes up. Twelve point seven five percent on average.

So if you look at the slide with. You can go back to. This slide.

Yeah. So if you look on the left. So like Harvard Pilgrim Explorer, that's going up five hundred seventy dollars.

The town's picking up three hundred forty two. Of those five hundred seventy dollars. So the rate itself is going up twelve point seven five percent.

But the town is picking up more than twelve point seven five percent. Because we're taking seventy three percent of the twelve point seven five.

[Speaker 5] (1:46:12 - 1:46:14)
I don't get that. I don't know.

[Speaker 4] (1:46:14 - 1:46:31)
That's. Twenty seven. Yes.

Everyone. So then we're paying seventy three percent of twelve percent that it's going. Right.

So. Is that 14. Is that almost 15 percent.

Yes.

[Speaker 6] (1:46:34 - 1:46:41)
I know that these percentages I'm sure are the contracts. Seventy three and twenty seven.

[Speaker 1] (1:46:41 - 1:46:42)
Yeah. And.

[Speaker 6] (1:46:45 - 1:46:57)
Not that I want to do this. But is that standard. In the marketplace.

That breakdown. Future police fire. We know.

[Speaker 4] (1:46:57 - 1:46:57)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:46:58 - 1:47:00)
They're typically between.

[Speaker 4] (1:47:00 - 1:47:15)
Seventy and eighty percent. For the town. We also.

Aren't going to be changing that unless we're also talking at the same time of giving. Big. Raises.

Because. We're just. Yeah.

It's just robbing Peter to pay Paul.

[Speaker 6] (1:47:16 - 1:47:20)
Well. It could be. Right.

You don't have it. You don't have it.

[Speaker 1] (1:47:23 - 1:47:25)
Yeah. So that gets negotiated with the PAC agreement.

[Speaker 6] (1:47:26 - 1:47:44)
And you know you could say. Theoretically. If you shave that down to 70 percent.

Just theoretically. What does that create. In terms of.

More funding for the schools. Does everyone pay. Does everyone take a little bit of pain.

For the broader good.

[Speaker 4] (1:47:45 - 1:47:48)
Except that the. Workforce is primarily. Teachers.

Oh.

[Speaker 6] (1:47:49 - 1:47:51)
There's. Police and fire. Everyone else.

[Speaker 4] (1:47:51 - 1:47:53)
But it's. Three quarters. Teachers.

[Speaker 6] (1:47:54 - 1:47:57)
Oh. We're talking about. Putting money in the schools.

I mean. So. You know.

[Speaker 1] (1:47:58 - 1:48:09)
I will. Say to miss. O'Connor's point.

The. It's a weighted vote. And the teachers union.

Is the largest. Membership. And their vote.

Has the largest. At the PAC agreement.

[Speaker 4] (1:48:15 - 1:48:35)
Okay. And when we're giving. You know.

We have a history. Karen can speak to this. A little bit better.

But we've got a history. Of handing our teachers. Colas.

Of 1%. Over. Multiple years.

So. You know. Well.

Also. You speak to.

[Speaker 19] (1:48:35 - 1:50:06)
Yeah. I mean. I just.

I think. This is dire. Right.

It. It all sounds. Terrible.

But I just want. People. To remember.

When we're talking about. Sharing the pain. That.

The schools. Have. Sort of.

Bore the pain. More than. Maybe other departments.

And I say that. Because. You know.

We've had cuts. For the last. Handful of years.

And I mean. I heard. That you guys are looking at.

Maybe some cuts. And at the meeting. Two weeks ago.

It was. Stated that. The last time.

Someone was cut. For budget. Was 2008.

But. The schools. Have been cutting.

Every year. And if you go. All the way back.

Even to. 2016. Those.

Contract. Negotiations. I would just like.

People to know. In 2016. 17.

The teachers. Got a 1%. Pola.

2017. To 18. 1%.

2018. To 19. 1%.

2019. To 21.75. 20. To 21.

To 22. 1.75. So. I think.

You know. When salaries. Are the main driver.

Of budget growth. The impact of that. Is enormous.

And that. The district. Has taken.

Extraordinary measures. To control. Our budget growth.

So. I just feel like. I want everyone.

To understand that. When we talk about. Filling shortfalls.

And sharing the pain. The schools. Have done their share.

For the past decade. Or more.

[Speaker 4] (1:50:06 - 1:50:07)
And our employees. Have done it.

[Speaker 19] (1:50:07 - 1:50:16)
So. It's been on. You know.

Looking at the budget. I don't know. If I'm just going to keep going.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:18 - 1:50:19)
Can I just do my last slide?

[Speaker 14] (1:50:19 - 1:50:19)
And then.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:19 - 1:50:20)
Yep.

[Speaker 26] (1:50:20 - 1:50:20)
Thank you.

[Speaker 14] (1:50:24 - 1:50:27)
Can I have one question too. On the forecast. Before you do your last slide.

[Speaker 26] (1:50:27 - 1:50:28)
Yep. Okay.

[Speaker 14] (1:50:28 - 1:50:50)
Just about the levy. Yes. So.

In the current. FY26. You've added a million five levy.

Which then carries it to 27. That additional. It creates a new basis.

For next year. So. We're having.

You know. That additional million. 349.

Yes. We need to be having the same conversation next year. Just so that's clear.

It's not. You know. That's.

We've already assumed. We're spending that additional million five again. Yes.

Well.

[Speaker 2] (1:50:50 - 1:51:04)
I think. I think the conversation might be a little bit more dire. Next year.

Because. We're also. My concern is that.

We're using interest income. That looks like. There's 429.

As of one time. I'm. I'm concerned about really.

[Speaker 14] (1:51:04 - 1:51:10)
Using that as a forecast. What is that in the next year? A zero?

That interest income go away. Next year. You forecast.

[Speaker 1] (1:51:10 - 1:51:20)
The interest income. That we have forecasted this year. Is based off.

The average cash level. Prior to the new school borrowing. Coming in.

At current interest rates.

[Speaker 14] (1:51:21 - 1:51:22)
So. So it seems to go back to normal.

[Speaker 1] (1:51:23 - 1:51:24)
Yes. So we feel comfortable with this.

[Speaker 2] (1:51:25 - 1:51:35)
Structural. Estimate. For this year.

So do you feel that. So are you counting this 429 again? Yes.

We have 425. Estimated for next year as well.

[Speaker 14] (1:51:35 - 1:51:45)
But she's saying it. Because it's not because of the school. It's what we would normally.

Before we had the school debt. We would typically earn. About 400,000 of interest.

I think that's what I'm hearing.

[Speaker 2] (1:51:45 - 1:51:49)
I just want to double. I want to double. Cash balance level.

At current interest rates. Yes.

[Speaker 4] (1:51:49 - 1:51:59)
But aren't all of our. Reserve funds. Haven't they all gone up since.

Prior to. If we're reverting back to those numbers. We've got.

All we hear all the time. Is how much better.

[Speaker 14] (1:52:00 - 1:52:02)
All we've. All we've done is use. Reserve funds.

[Speaker 2] (1:52:03 - 1:52:03)
Yeah.

[Speaker 14] (1:52:03 - 1:52:04)
We haven't replenished.

[Speaker 2] (1:52:04 - 1:52:05)
Reserve funds. 23.

[Speaker 14] (1:52:06 - 1:52:07)
Part of the challenge. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (1:52:08 - 1:52:28)
So my. So my concern. My concern is.

The money that we've received. From. MSBA.

And everyone else. That. The interest that was.

Gaining off of there. That's. That was one.

Those are one time gains. And then. That.

So that's what my. My concerns are. Is the use.

Use of those one time gains. And not relying on them.

[Speaker 4] (1:52:28 - 1:52:35)
Later on. Do we use one time. Monies then.

To. For our operating budget. Because I hear all the time.

That we don't do that.

[Speaker 6] (1:52:36 - 1:52:40)
Yeah. Well we did for the. We did.

The interest. The interest. I mean.

Remember that graph. That big spike.

[Speaker 4] (1:52:41 - 1:52:41)
In the interest.

[Speaker 6] (1:52:42 - 1:52:43)
That's a big reason we're in this hole.

[Speaker 4] (1:52:44 - 1:53:01)
So was the interest that we earned on that. More than. What we were paying on the bond.

Was the interest. It was the interest that we earned. More than.

The interest that we were paying. No. We just had the money.

[Speaker 14] (1:53:02 - 1:53:04)
I think. Well I don't know. Let Patrick answer that question.

[Speaker 4] (1:53:04 - 1:53:05)
Just leave us.

[Speaker 3] (1:53:06 - 1:53:39)
So. In 2022. March of 22.

The town. Opted to issue. $60 million.

30 year bond. To. Finance.

Construction costs. With the new school. Up front.

Because there was a big. Shift in interest rates. Coming.

In 2022. That would not have been favorable. In this project at all.

So the town. Opted to do that. So we had.

That pot of money. Up front. And.

Income. On. Bond proceeds.

Goes to the general fund. That's why we saw. The spike.

In investment income.

[Speaker 4] (1:53:39 - 1:53:48)
So my question. Is. Did the.

Income. That we earned. On that money.

That was in the bank. Was that more. Than.

I think in the first.

[Speaker 3] (1:53:49 - 1:53:50)
In the first year. That would be a fair statement.

[Speaker 6] (1:53:51 - 1:53:56)
Yeah. We got in. At just the right time.

We got in. When interest rates were low. And then we had the money on hand.

As interest rates went up.

[Speaker 3] (1:53:56 - 1:53:58)
Right. Arbitrage.

[Speaker 6] (1:53:59 - 1:53:59)
Yes.

[Speaker 3] (1:53:59 - 1:54:34)
So we. There's spending requirements. For the project.

Met the spending requirements. So we are clear. From arbitrage.

So we. Keep those earnings. But obviously they're not going to recur.

So now we are in the situation. Where we're back to normal cash levels. Interest rates.

Could change favorably. Probably unfavorably. You know, in the next 12 months.

So that's another uncertainty. And that's a risk. We could see.

More. Diminishment. In.

Those. Earnings in the general fund. So I would just put that out there.

But we don't really know that.

[Speaker 1] (1:54:35 - 1:54:51)
Now. So. If we go to.

So. Even further back. Pre.

New school borrowing. Pre pandemic. When interest rates.

Went to zero. Practically. Our investment income.

Was about 200,000 a year. On average.

[Speaker 5] (1:54:56 - 1:54:58)
Amy. Do you have one more slide that we have?

[Speaker 1] (1:54:58 - 1:55:36)
Yep. Just one more. And it is just.

The rest of the process. So. After tonight.

It will go to the finance committee. For their review. For the rest of the process.

And it will be. The first meeting of March and April. And then we'll continue.

Into man. The select board will. Open the annual town meeting.

Warrant. Capital voted by CNC and Fincom. By April 23rd, the select board.

We'll need to vote on capital and other. Articles and close that town meeting warrant. May 8th.

Will be our deadline to mail those. For the main. 19th annual town meeting.

[Speaker 2] (1:55:39 - 1:55:46)
Thank you all for so patiently sitting through that presentation. Amy, you know, you did a really great job but you need to stay there.

[Speaker 17] (1:55:46 - 1:55:47)
Yeah, absolutely.

[Speaker 2] (1:55:48 - 1:56:11)
So if the Finance Committee and the School Committee don't mind, I would just like to have residents, public comment come up before. Is that okay with everybody? Okay, so if there is anybody here for public comment, if you could raise your hand, sir, and state your name.

Get your steps in there.

[Speaker 21] (1:56:17 - 1:57:57)
Hi, I'm Patrick McCarthy, live on Essex Street, Ward 1. I'm a father of a student in the elementary school with special needs and I just wanted to, you know, after listening to everything I know for the next four years, we got some tough math equations that we have to figure out. But what's not listed on the charts or in the money is, we don't have to look very far, is what happens if we don't fund those schools.

We don't have to go to another state, we don't need to game it out or figure it out in here. We can literally look next door to see what happens and how that plays out and how we have kids in the streets as opposed to in the schools, as we have parents and teachers standing together in solidarity to get something done that we know is going to have to get done. So however we do it, and there's going to be compromise, there's going to have to be.

And maybe we don't get to the 600, but I damn sure think that we should try and try a hell of a lot harder, honestly, than it took 10 seconds to get 15k to say that we can't hire a town manager on our own. We're going to outsource that. So let's get some RFPs for 15,000, but we're going to cut out a paraprofessional for it.

We can do better than that. And long-time listener, first-time talker.

[Speaker 2] (1:58:03 - 1:58:17)
Do we have anybody else? Okay, but we're going to talk to the people in the room first.

[Speaker 17] (1:58:21 - 2:00:16)
Hello, Michael Contreras, also known as Miguel, Precinct One town member, Buena Vista. I'm currently the PTO president of the middle school, so I can definitely tell you the needs of the middle school are definitely there, especially with those windows. Seeing that it was kind of cut was definitely shocking, since you can definitely hear from a lot of the students that there are definitely windows and ACs that they try not to touch.

And the heating and cooling of the building is off the charts. If you're ever in there, you will notice that certain rooms are very warm, while others are freezing. I can tell you that my son tells me that his science room is always cold, versus the other ones being really warm.

But really, the main thing is, I know our school committee has worked very hard to try to cut as much as they can without reducing any staff members. And as they pointed out, each year our teachers are only really getting a 1% increase, especially with how things are costing and how the projections of all of the new tariffs are going to cost everyone at least another extra $2,000 a year. I feel like staffing it at the percentage that they have requested would be the better thing to do.

We can definitely look at other ways to see if there's anything else that we can cut or reduce temporarily. So I would just say, listen to the people that have worked on the budget for their side, and try to see what we can do to support them, since they have been bearing the brunt of everything for the last decade, especially with COVID and everything going on as well. No longer an excuse or really anything like that, but still lingering effects that are still being felt.

So let's fully fund our schools.

[Speaker 24] (2:00:20 - 2:01:46)
My name is Daniela Spanos. I don't know my precinct or ward. I live on Atlantic Road, off of Atlantic Ave, near the Atlantic Ocean.

And I have a five-year-old daughter. She's a kindergartner at the New Swarovski Elementary School. And I first do want to recognize that the town has made an extraordinary investment in the school.

The fact that the debt service itself is a separate line item shows that as part of the overall budget, there really is a lot of support for our schools. But this beautiful building doesn't do anything without the people inside it. And I think, you know, we look at our budgets year after year, but we also need to think about the long-term costs and impact that comes with high turnover, reputational issues for not funding schools, and how that impacts the town values, and then the taxes we collect.

There's just so much that can, you know, it's like a domino effect. So I just want to stand here in support of really, and again, I was also inspired and impressed just seeing the creative thinking out loud. Okay, well we can find savings in the health insurance budget and put it to the schools.

I just want to support and encourage that because it is such an important part of our community and the fabric of our community. So that's really all I have to say. It's, I really feel great about what I'm seeing and I really hope we can get there.

[Speaker 15] (2:01:47 - 2:01:48)
Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (2:01:52 - 2:01:53)
Anyone else?

[Speaker 22] (2:02:05 - 2:03:40)
Hi, my name is Jessica Injimi and I have two students in the elementary school and I wanted to first start off, and I'm in precinct five, and I wanted to first start off by saying thank you so much for getting that new school completed, and that we all as parents are tremendously proud of the school and we appreciate that. But to quote one of my favorite educators in town, a house is not a home, and the cuts that are being proposed are going to impact our students. We have a beautiful new school, but there's a lot of challenges that we still need to overcome.

A lot of little things to work out, and I wouldn't be saying that if I'm not hearing it directly from my kids. But the school's done an amazing job, but cutting money from that budget, which I know that they've, they really need that money. Cutting that money is going to impact our students, and it's going the wrong direction, frankly.

And so again, to piggyback off what's already been said, we do need to look for that money in our budget. It's, if you look at the math, I think it's less than 1% of the overall budget. I feel like we can make it happen.

It's, we're really not that far away, and the impact to the 700 plus students there is tremendous. And it is going to be a word-of-mouth thing. People want to move to Swampscott, but if they feel the teachers aren't supported in the new building, thank you for the new building.

But the support needs to go beyond that. So I, I'm up here asking you to please continue the good work that you're doing, and find the money for our educators, and mostly for our students. Thank you.

Thank you, Jessica. Applause.

[Speaker 2] (2:03:44 - 2:03:44)
Maura.

[Speaker 13] (2:03:55 - 2:04:10)
Hi, folks. Maura Lau, Precinct 3, Town Meeting Member, Master Plan Committee. So a couple of quick things.

Thank you, Amy. You always give us so much information, and it's a lot to digest, but...

[Speaker 17] (2:04:10 - 2:04:10)
Thank you, and I'm sorry.

[Speaker 13] (2:04:10 - 2:05:12)
But it's a great honor to watch. So thank you. A couple of thoughts come to mind.

I just want to mention, the COLAs, just when we're thinking about contracts, it always irritates me that a COLA isn't the same for the library versus, you know, the fire department versus the teachers. Cost of living is, you know, equally affected by all of our employees in town. So if we can be, just be mindful of that with, with contracts, please.

I think that that's showing respect and courtesy to, you know, to all of our town employees. So, Amy, just thinking about health insurance, obviously, we don't want to touch anybody's health insurance. That's, you know, kind of really super important.

But I, I didn't think that town employees had an option to not be in the GIS, so I thought we had to be? No? So right now, we are under...

Am I allowed to respond? Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:05:12 - 2:05:47)
Right now, we're under contract with the GIC, and it's part of our PEC agreement, which is negotiated with all the employees and unions in the town. When we renegotiate that PEC agreement, we can go to them with a proposal if we have, you know, a better option that has better coverage, hopefully, cost savings, and get their support to leave the GIC and go to, you know, an employee-sponsored plan. That is an option.

At this moment, for FY26, we are committed with the GIC, and that cannot change.

[Speaker 13] (2:05:48 - 2:06:49)
Okay. So, you know, just a couple of other things came to mind, which was, I, you know, I hate to kind of give people less choice, but obviously, when you have a single, you know, then you have a better way to budget it, which I know is obvious to you. And then the other thing is, you know, I think we have, over the years, talked so many times about how do we join with other communities to save money?

You know, this is sort of well past our conversations that we should be having these things. Obviously, we need to. You know, is that an opportunity for us to join with another community nearby?

And actually, they don't even need to be nearby, because it's not like a point of service. Another sized community that we could, you know, kind of join and get savings those ways, because obviously, with health insurance, so much of it is, you know, the more people that do pay into it, the lower your, you know, your rates are, much like a bigger company versus a smaller company. So, just a thought.

[Speaker 1] (2:06:49 - 2:07:15)
Yes, absolutely. And I will say we're really fortunate to have select board members who are very knowledgeable and very involved in this. We attempted to do this last year, and then when we contacted the GIC to get our claims data to try to take that information to shop around, we were informed that we would need to notify the GIC the next week if we were going to cancel our contract.

[Speaker 13] (2:07:16 - 2:07:17)
They don't make it easy, in other words.

[Speaker 1] (2:07:17 - 2:07:28)
No. So, it is something that is very much on the forefront, and that we have a lot of support on, and is going to be happening. It's just, unfortunately, we are bound by their timelines.

[Speaker 26] (2:07:28 - 2:07:29)
Okay.

[Speaker 13] (2:07:29 - 2:07:57)
Well, thank you for good information. And obviously, I too, like others have spoken about the schools. You know, when we embrace our young people, we just, you know, we give them foundational pieces that, you know, support us later in life, you know.

So, I just can't say enough that any little dollar we can find would be, I know, appreciated by our community. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (2:07:58 - 2:08:11)
Thank you, Marla. If there's anybody that wants to say something different, if you're going to say the same thing, maybe if you want to just stand up and say the same thing, we can.

[Speaker 26] (2:08:14 - 2:08:16)
But you do have to say your name.

[Speaker 2] (2:08:23 - 2:08:31)
Thank you, Megan. In the back there. Oh, Mary.

Sorry, I didn't see you.

[Speaker 15] (2:08:42 - 2:11:05)
Mary DiChillo, Precinct 4, town meeting member as well, former school committee member for six years in 2001-2007. It's tough. You guys have a tough road to hoe here.

I appreciate the town employees who put this together. It's not easy doing your job and having to stand up and give this kind of news to people. What I do know, I think, is that this requires trust, and it requires trust across the board, and it requires trust between committees, and an open hand and open records.

And if that doesn't happen, I think that's when it gets ugly, and that's when the town goes down a road that it shouldn't go down. And the best thing that happened, in my experience, was when people were able to get on board on the same side, and the building that we're in now was because the town did that. And it was a contentious, and it was fought, but people came to at some point that, you know, we all need to give, and we all need to sort of take.

Nobody gets to win everything in this kind of thing. There should be no surprises, like there was last year at town meeting. It should be done ahead of time, and it's everybody's responsibility to be adults in the room and to recognize that there are, in fact, other departments that need to have contracts filled.

Three big contracts are coming up this year, police, fire, and the Everybody who's a town employee that serves the public deserves something, and it needs to be a good faith effort. And that's the only thing I can say. We've had some rough times recently in this town with people not being gracious, including myself.

I would put myself in that category. I think it's really time. This is hard.

So thank you very much. Thank you, Mary.

[Speaker 2] (2:11:08 - 2:11:17)
Okay. I would like to go back to questions with the finance committee and the school committee, but I don't want to leave anybody out. Is there anybody else here I don't?

[Speaker 25] (2:11:39 - 2:12:41)
Thanks. Thank you. We've taken tremendous hits at the school for years and years and years, and we are working at the bare minimum, and it's not fair to our students, and it's not fair to our teachers.

We need to work together to fully fund a budget so that we can best support our kids. We cannot take any more cuts. We can't do it.

It's not fair. People move to towns for their schools. That's the majority, and that's why we have the biggest departments.

And if we end up like Marblehead, it's going to be a problem. You're going to see teachers that are leaving, and you have teachers that have worked here for a very long time. People stay because we love this community.

You have many teachers that live here, and our students go here. We've gone here. It's generational, and I think it's really important to think about what we need and what kind of a future we want in Swamp Scott and what we want for our kids.

So thank you.

[Speaker 2] (2:12:42 - 2:12:49)
Thank you, Rebecca. Okay. Do we see anybody online, Diane?

[Speaker 26] (2:12:49 - 2:12:50)
No.

[Speaker 2] (2:12:51 - 2:12:57)
All right. So, Eric, on the Finance Committee, do you have any questions about the budget?

[Speaker 14] (2:12:58 - 2:12:59)
Not that I haven't already asked, no.

[Speaker 4] (2:12:59 - 2:14:02)
The School Committee, do you have questions on the budget? I'm hoping you can help me with some of the math. So as I was looking at your assumptions, one of the things that struck me was that with a 2.5% increase to the levy, that nets us about $1.5 million just in the levy. Of that, 1.4 million was earmarked for the municipal side, and about $80,000 was earmarked for the schools. That was between one and four. The other version was about when it boosted up a little bit more, it boosted up to about $1.5 for the town and $386 for the schools-ish. Sorry.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:03 - 2:14:05)
You're talking about the scenarios?

[Speaker 4] (2:14:05 - 2:16:20)
I'm talking about the scenarios last week, and I know that you have done work since then. But what stood out to me was the drastic difference in allocation between what the schools were getting of that versus what the town was getting of that. You know, Gino, at the beginning of this, you were talking about Swampscot maintaining services, and I think that the city has done a really good job of that in everywhere except for the schools.

And with the budget that's being proposed currently, what that's going to mean is cuts. More teachers are going to be cut, but this time it's going to be cuts to our core services. And by that, I mean we have classrooms at the high school with 30 kids in it.

We've got a fifth grade class that we really need enough kids. We need another teacher there. That's not going to happen.

We're talking not about the nice-to-haves. And I know that you were speaking off the cuff, so I don't want to hang on every word, but when you were asked two weeks ago about what you would be cutting, you said, well, it's the nice-to-haves. And I felt like crying because we've cut our nice-to-haves years and years ago.

And what we're looking at now is we're going to be cutting math teachers. We're going to be cutting elementary school teachers. This is going to impact everybody.

And it is. We're not talking about millions of dollars. We're not that far apart.

It's small numbers. So here's my math question. Going up 2.5% nets us $1.5 million more next year in revenue. You were also talking about using $1.5 million from the excess levy capacity. So I don't understand why that doesn't take us to $3 million as opposed to $1.5 million.

[Speaker 26] (2:16:25 - 2:16:25)
Yes.

[Speaker 1] (2:16:25 - 2:16:29)
So the revenue is made up of four main buckets.

[Speaker 4] (2:16:30 - 2:16:50)
Right. Just the levy. Just the levy.

I'm not talking about any of the other receipts from the town or money that you could be earning on the interest. I'm talking about just the levy that the citizens carry.

[Speaker 1] (2:16:51 - 2:17:03)
Because an increase to the levy still has to absorb the cut to the local receipts. So the local receipts being down over $1 million still reduces the impact of those taxes.

[Speaker 4] (2:17:05 - 2:17:14)
I understand that one impacts the other, but the way that you're reporting it is that the levy is only growing by $945,000.

[Speaker 1] (2:17:15 - 2:17:23)
If we did 2% plus 425, it would have only grown by like $900,000.

[Speaker 4] (2:17:24 - 2:17:35)
I don't understand why it's not growing by $1.5 because that's what 2.5% nets us. I'm not asking how it all nets out. I'm asking how the levy nets out.

[Speaker 1] (2:17:36 - 2:17:53)
We don't look at just the levy. We were talking about the overall general fund revenues. But you do.

You do break that out in your report. We do. But when we presented and said that it would result in a $900,000 increase, that was net of all revenues for the general fund.

[Speaker 6] (2:17:56 - 2:18:00)
Amy, I'm really interested in what you're trying to get at, but I'm really not following.

[Speaker 4] (2:18:01 - 2:19:19)
It's hard for me to understand that adding a 2.5% addition to our asset column doesn't stay in that asset column. Because as it was reported, I'm talking only about that. As I look at all of the different assumptions, we're looking at assumptions here that are down.

We're looking at assumptions here that are up. This is one assumption that seems to be tweaked. Because if I'm looking here at the revenue overview, we have property taxes, charges for services, state aid, local receipts, intergovernmental revenue, and one-time revenues.

And if we're only talking about that top line, you're reporting it in at 9.45 and not 1.5. And I don't have last week's presentation, so I apologize that I can't refer to it specifically. But there was a big bubble that said 9.45. Can you help me?

[Speaker 2] (2:19:20 - 2:19:37)
Is last week's presentation How is that relevant to now? It's an assumption. The assumption from last week.

Are there assumptions of what she's presenting now in question? That's a good question.

[Speaker 10] (2:19:38 - 2:19:40)
We're using number four, right?

[Speaker 2] (2:19:40 - 2:19:55)
I'm reading it in this book. This is your budget book. So yes.

But you're referring to assumption number two from two weeks ago? Or number one? I'm just confused.

[Speaker 4] (2:19:55 - 2:20:07)
We're talking about something from two weeks. And now, I'm just a little lost. Two and a half percent of a two and a half percent raise in our levy nets $1.5 million.

[Speaker 6] (2:20:07 - 2:20:10)
Can you pause on that right there? Is that true?

[Speaker 4] (2:20:11 - 2:20:12)
1.48, yep.

[Speaker 6] (2:20:12 - 2:20:15)
I just wanted to make sure we were about that far.

[Speaker 4] (2:20:16 - 2:20:46)
So it seems like we're not just sticking with that in terms of what our assumptions are. Because that's there, but then you have the state aid coming in, you have charges for services coming down, or local receipts are down significantly. That makes sense.

But the local receipts coming down doesn't impact how much money is coming in on the levy. So what you were reporting wasn't a... It was mixing apples and oranges.

[Speaker 1] (2:20:51 - 2:20:52)
I think I'm just not understanding.

[Speaker 4] (2:20:52 - 2:21:01)
Okay, well, I might have to sit down with you in the book. Because it was reported in at $945,000, and the math isn't mapping.

[Speaker 1] (2:21:01 - 2:21:06)
Okay. We can definitely sit down, because I really want to understand.

[Speaker 6] (2:21:08 - 2:21:22)
There's another piece of what Amy said that I hope that we could clarify. You're also talking about going from Scenario 1 to Scenario 4, and why did all the money that got added in go to the town side?

[Speaker 19] (2:21:23 - 2:21:24)
I'd like to talk about that more.

[Speaker 6] (2:21:25 - 2:21:30)
Okay. Because wait a minute, let's take care of Amy first. Well, it's kind of the same thing, right?

[Speaker 1] (2:21:30 - 2:21:54)
Yeah. And when Gina and I presented those, none of those scenarios were balanced. That was more we hit a rock, and when we hit the point where we were like, okay, if we keep going down this road, we're going to have to close an entire department.

We're looking at potentially losing 25 people. That was when we had the individual meetings with each of the board members.

[Speaker 6] (2:21:54 - 2:22:43)
Understood, but I think it's simpler than that in a way. Let me try this, which is that one possibility is that I think you're right. But the reason is that the schools, if I understand, I don't think I have all the detail, but from the presentation from a while ago, the school FTEs, it's not everything, but the FTEs are basically staying the same in what we presented, what you voted on, right?

1.5 was added in. That took the town side from reducing 25 positions to just reducing four or five positions.

[Speaker 4] (2:22:43 - 2:22:50)
I thought it was closer to 12, but we didn't get that money when we dropped off 40 people off our payroll over the last few years.

[Speaker 6] (2:22:51 - 2:22:56)
Okay, but there's different funding for that. I mean, there's a lot of talk about cuts, right? But there was different funding, one-time costs.

[Speaker 4] (2:22:56 - 2:22:57)
Oh, I'm not talking about ESSER funds.

[Speaker 6] (2:22:57 - 2:23:12)
Okay, but I think a lot of people are talking about cuts, right? So I'm just trying to give you—you can argue with it or disagree with it, but I think that's the rationale of like— So it went to save— 20 people.

[Speaker 4] (2:23:12 - 2:23:17)
It went to save 20 people, but we're still going to be laying off. So— Yeah.

[Speaker 6] (2:23:18 - 2:23:19)
So that's the first I'm hearing that.

[Speaker 4] (2:23:19 - 2:23:28)
I don't know that— But if we don't have a fully funded budget, that's the only place where we meet our budget is by firing people.

[Speaker 6] (2:23:29 - 2:23:31)
So— Have we received that detail?

[Speaker 26] (2:23:32 - 2:23:32)
Yeah.

[Speaker 6] (2:23:32 - 2:23:39)
We have that line item detail somewhere about what would happen if you didn't get the $600,000?

[Speaker 4] (2:23:40 - 2:23:44)
No. No. And that is not public information.

[Speaker 6] (2:23:44 - 2:24:02)
Okay, so that's—but I do feel like this is all starting to feel a little bit like last year, right? Like there's a gap, and there's certain positions, and no one knows what those positions are, and I understand that, but that's kind of like what happened at town meeting last year. People had different versions of what was going to happen, right?

And so I don't want that to happen.

[Speaker 4] (2:24:03 - 2:24:50)
So—but we can't, in good conscience—we have employees, and we have employees that are there every day with kids, and it is a game-time decision based on how many kids we have in every grade, how many kids with special needs we have, and what their needs are. As Cheryl Stella pointed out, our budget is changing so dramatically week to week in terms of where we have to put our professionals and who they're with that we can't tell you today which ones are going to be gone in September, but we can tell you that if we're talking about— 680,000, that's seven million. That's a lot more than seven, yeah.

[Speaker 26] (2:24:50 - 2:24:59)
I think that we— Sorry, this is Eric. Oh, my God. Hey, Eric.

[Speaker 16] (2:25:00 - 2:25:01)
Hi.

[Speaker 26] (2:25:02 - 2:25:06)
Come on down, brother. Go ahead.

[Speaker 16] (2:25:09 - 2:25:24)
So just, I guess, a question, I guess, on the school committee. I think what you're portraying is that all the cuts that you would make would be teachers, but is that correct, or would there also be administrators or instructional leaders?

[Speaker 4] (2:25:24 - 2:25:33)
It would be educators, and it would run the gamut from our secretaries to our teachers to our administrators to everybody. Okay.

[Speaker 5] (2:25:34 - 2:28:48)
Thanks. I'm sorry. I have to say, like, I think it's really inappropriate of us to point the finger at the schools right now and say, who are you going to cut?

Okay? I think until we have absolutely scrubbed this budget to the point of a couple of people in the room that is, you know, 660,000, however much it is, we can find it. It might potentially be in here, and I don't feel like we have done enough to find it, and I think that's what we have to focus on.

I don't think it's fair that we continuously say to the schools, who can you cut? Can you cut a librarian? Can you cut a teacher, an ESP, whatever it might be, until we have looked at every single position in this town with the same scrutiny, and I don't feel like we've done that.

I've asked that for probably the past six months or since I've been on this board. I have made it a point to say we need to do a deep dive and analysis of FTEs in this town, what we have, what we can maybe do about, what we can consider combining. I think it was Mara.

Someone spoke to regionalization. We've never even considered regionalization. We haven't looked at regionalizing.

As long as I've been here and as long as I've been asking for it, there are so many things that I have. I've got a list of probably 75 lines in this budget where I want to know why we're consistently overestimating over our five-year average. So until we have done the really hard work, and that's the hard work, the easy work is to say, oh, we just have a deficit, and you know what?

You're going to have to cut, and that's it. No, the hard work is going through this line by line, item by item, and saying, can we live without X? Can we live without nice-to-haves?

Can we live without employee recognition? I saw employee recognition in here, and I'm shaking my head. I'm not going to sit here and consider employee recognition when we're looking at a $660,000 deficit.

I can't even tell you. I asked the question two weeks ago, when was the last time we cut FTEs at Town Hall, and I was told 2008, and we're in 2025. So until we've actually done the hard work, I don't think it's fair to even have a discussion of, where are your cuts?

Let's see what they are. I just think that's way out of line. I think we're not doing the hard work that we need to do, and I think it's clear from listening to everybody here tonight that that's what we need to do.

So it's not easy. Amy, Gino, I commend you guys for all the work, because this is hard, and it's a lot, and it takes a lot of time. We are lucky enough to have an incredible finance committee.

We are lucky enough to have an incredible school business manager. Let's put our heads together. Let's take the politics out of it, and let's figure it out.

That is what we are here to do. That's my view. Again, I will happily sit here and go through line by line for every single line that I have a question that is over the five-year average, because there's a lot of them.

And if we can't find $660,000, I'd be shocked. Is that he? PA?

[Speaker 26] (2:28:50 - 2:28:53)
I was going to say Pam has her hands up.

[Speaker 4] (2:28:54 - 2:28:55)
Pam Angelakis has her hand up.

[Speaker 5] (2:29:04 - 2:29:06)
Pam, you should be able to unmute yourself.

[Speaker 4] (2:29:09 - 2:29:15)
I know the delay on things is always awkward. She's already a presenter. You don't have to give her permission.

[Speaker 26] (2:29:15 - 2:29:17)
She should be able to unmute.

[Speaker 1] (2:29:19 - 2:29:21)
Pam, can you unmute yourself?

[Speaker 2] (2:29:27 - 2:29:28)
The clock is ticking, Pam.

[Speaker 7] (2:29:30 - 2:29:45)
While we're waiting for Pam, I just want to make one clarification, because it's come up a couple of times. I think I was the one that brought it up the last time we made cuts. It was in 2008.

However, that doesn't count the people who have lost to attrition, some of the positions when people retired that we just didn't replace. I just want to note that.

[Speaker 5] (2:29:46 - 2:30:05)
Thank you, Gina. It was actually Amy who I asked that question to, and I was specifically talking about reductions, so not attrition, not retirements, not placeholder positions such as DEI coordinators. I was specifically asking for people that we cut at Town Hall, reductions in force.

I think it was Amy who told me 2008.

[Speaker 6] (2:30:06 - 2:30:08)
Do these five that are now in this budget, do they qualify?

[Speaker 5] (2:30:08 - 2:30:21)
I don't know who the five are, Doug, to be quite honest with you, because I was not aware that we were cutting. From what I looked at, it looks like we're cutting two positions in the library, and I had no idea that was the case. So I'm not even clear on the five that we're cutting.

[Speaker 1] (2:30:21 - 2:30:28)
We're not cutting positions in the library. Those were efficiencies where the library director essentially combined some part-time people.

[Speaker 5] (2:30:29 - 2:30:34)
So do you have five that you want to tell us? Should we ask you? We have not communicated those questions.

[Speaker 6] (2:30:34 - 2:30:34)
Okay.

[Speaker 5] (2:30:35 - 2:30:37)
So then how can we ask the schools the same question?

[Speaker 6] (2:30:37 - 2:30:42)
I'm not just wondering. I wasn't saying that. I think that's what should happen.

[Speaker 5] (2:30:42 - 2:30:55)
No, I didn't say you did, but somebody did. I'm not directing it at you, Doug. I'll tell you when I am.

I heard the comment that someone said in the audience, or maybe it was Eric Schneider, that was asking about who was the school going to cut.

[Speaker 16] (2:30:57 - 2:30:59)
Sorry to chime in, Danielle. Sorry.

[Speaker 5] (2:30:59 - 2:31:00)
Was it you, Eric?

[Speaker 16] (2:31:00 - 2:31:52)
I don't even remember. Yes. No, no.

The point I was trying to make was that, yes, this is a tough budget season, and there's a lot of emotions, and what is being presented in part is, oh, if we cut, we're talking about teachers, and all I wanted to do was clarify whether the school is just looking at teachers or whether they're cutting across the board. Because obviously when you cut teachers, it affects the classrooms and that, but if the school was only going to cut teachers to make up the difference, that would obviously exponentially impact students and the educational environment, but it was good to hear that it was something they're looking at across the board. It was just a clarification point.

[Speaker 4] (2:31:52 - 2:32:35)
I would like to speak to that and say, for example, we have an administrator that we lost within the past year that people might say, well, she wasn't kid-facing, so that's okay. That's better. But this was somebody who was providing one-on-one tutoring to kids, particularly our most vulnerable, our kids who are English language learners.

So it all impacts the kids to some degree or another. So if we get rid of a secretary at the elementary school, then we have parents that we need to take care of and make sure that they know what's going on.

[Speaker 19] (2:32:36 - 2:32:37)
Adjustment counselors.

[Speaker 4] (2:32:38 - 2:33:02)
Yeah, we lost our director of social-emotional learning. Yeah, the kids didn't see him on a daily, but he has directly contributed to the amount, and we have data, the amount of kids that we kept out of the hospital and in school. We see that as a win or a loss now that he's gone.

[Speaker 5] (2:33:03 - 2:33:59)
And that's not to say, and I have said before, that I do feel like there are efficiencies that can be combined, school and town. I feel like there are overlaps in positions that, you know, when I was the head of payroll, there wasn't an HR person at the schools. So that's not to say that I don't think there are opportunities that maybe school and town can collaborate and get together and get on the same page and both realize savings.

I think that's definitely the potential. I've brought that up before. I've mentioned that before.

But that's the hard work. That's part of what I'm talking about. It's going through each of those scenarios and saying, maybe I can do this, but maybe you can do that.

Or if not, maybe we can take away this. That's the real meat of this work, and I just want to see it happen. And I think it's upon us now to, we're all trying to avoid what happened at last town meeting, let's be honest.

Nobody wants a repeat of that scenario, so how do we get there?

[Speaker 4] (2:33:59 - 2:35:30)
So part of when we watched the presentation last week and we heard really the tough situation that we're in financially as a town, the school committee asked our chair, okay, you've been in these chair meetings and dutifully reporting back to us every time there's a tri-chair meeting. Was this information that you knew about? Did we know we were going into a year like this?

And the answer was categorically no. And this is one of the things that the school has felt to be problematic is that those tri-chair meetings are like the school's reporting in on what we're doing and where we're saving money, and nobody said to us, listen, we're coming up to a cliff. Now, here's the reality, and I think that Suzanne would speak to this better than anybody.

Even without knowing that we're in this financial position, we have taken a really conservative approach to our management of our money. And there were years, oh, there you are. So the idea that it's been conservative, I mean, enough so that our teachers have taken under, it's the number one way to save money, was through slowing down the growth of our teacher costs, and they took six years of the crappiest COLAs while the rest of the town was getting market value COLAs.

[Speaker 23] (2:35:32 - 2:37:03)
I'd say conservative is a nice way to put it. I mean, thank you for what you said, Danielle. We looked at this, all of us on the school committee looked at this really carefully before we voted on it, and it doesn't even include a health teacher for the middle school, which is something I know I stood up at town meeting last year and specifically highlighted that, and it didn't happen.

And yes, it was very disappointing that that didn't happen, but to kind of paraphrase what Amy said, we went conservative because we knew that there definitely are no nice to haves in this budget. That's for sure, and that's how we looked at it. And yes, the historical part is all true.

And just to add one more thing, I've said that at a couple of school committee meetings as we were going through the budget process, and I've heard some of the parents echo some of the same things, so I'll be very quick on it, but if we have to go the route that it sounded like, unless we can find something there, this won't be a place people want to come. This will not be a place where teachers want to stay, and this will not be a place that students will have long-term success. We might have short-term gain, but long-term failure with our students because the services they need, especially now from what we're hearing, are definitely needed and we'll be there for them.

[Speaker 4] (2:37:03 - 2:37:16)
We just got our report card from DESE, and one of the standouts was that our kids at the high school don't have enough offerings of art or technology.

[Speaker 13] (2:37:25 - 2:37:33)
And DESE has noted that.

[Speaker 8] (2:37:33 - 2:41:11)
I think if Pam were speaking, she would speak to the fact that we do zero-based budgeting. So we're looking at the kids who are in school today, and maybe the kids that are going to be in school tomorrow, that Ms. Brannon knows about, and we're looking at what our needs are, and we're seeing really severe needs with social-emotional needs and developmental needs and all sorts of stuff. So we build our budget, and it's based on the kids that are here, and I think it's really important that as we build this budget, we're not thinking about cutting, we're not thinking about anything other than what our students need.

And one of the priorities in this district for maybe 10 years now has been social-emotional learning and development and education, and the other thing has been providing well-rounded education, especially for a lot of our kids that aren't college-bound. And it's been a real commitment of the superintendent and the school committee to make sure that we have programs that have hands-on components and more like vocational education. And in doing this, we've been providing services to all different types of students and all different learning needs, and we've been able to attract kids back to the school from the vocational programs.

We have kids at our school that are at our school in the morning and go to the vocation in the afternoons. We have kids that are doing all sorts of alternative things. We're providing our kids, and we're at this point now that those programs are not going to be cut.

Our kids and their social-emotional well-being and the ability to have well-rounded education, that's not going to be cut. So we're staffed with what we need, and that's just what it is. And I agree 100% with Ms. Leonard that I look at this budget and I say to myself, like, why are we paying a consultant in the assessor's office when we're hiring a full-time consultant?

Like, why is there a consultant fee of $60,000 in that budget when now we're going to have another full-time? That's Patriot Properties. Yeah, but I'm just saying.

It's the AssessPro software. Pam has her hand up. Sorry, but I just think that I look at property and casualty and I say, why is that going up so much?

And I'm sure there's reasons why, but is there room in that? Like, is our school right now, the new elementary school, so much more expensive than what Stanley's school was? Are we going to have savings?

And if we're going to have savings when Hadley is not ours anymore, you know, there's so many sort of bonuses built in here. Like, bonuses are nice to have, right? Like, they're not contracted.

The ones that are in the budget are contracted. Can we just hear from you? Yeah, please.

[Speaker 9] (2:41:12 - 2:41:19)
Well, I missed a lot changing computers, and my apologies for that. But can you hear me now, obviously?

[Speaker 26] (2:41:19 - 2:41:19)
Yeah.

[Speaker 9] (2:41:21 - 2:44:36)
So some people already said what I think Danielle was saying, what I wanted to chime in on. Doug had a question. And I'm going to repeat what I have said multiple times and then coming in on what Suzanne was just saying.

You know, when Doug asked what positions, and Eric asked what positions would they be across the board, and coming in on Suzanne's, I don't want to be redundant, there are no positions to cut. In all of my years of doing this, I have gone to the drawing board with my leadership team, looked at efficiencies. We are lean.

There is no place where there is a luxury. There is no place where there is excessive money put or excessive staff. The staff are driven by the student needs.

And coming in on what Suzanne was saying, she said most of what I was going to say, I had repeatedly said throughout this budget process, I am not going to touch the programs we have built to educate all of the students in our district, which would mean that we would go after the core. We would not be going, and I haven't even spoken to school committee about this, we would not be going at administrators. Our administrative team is lean.

Our administrative assistants, people have questioned time after time. We have piggybacked jobs on our administrative assistants. They are not doing one duty.

They have given us the flexibility to modify their jobs, to be doing two jobs in their one position. So we have really over the years done everything possible. And I know that in the past I have asked for more than 4.79%. I don't think that $600,000 is a lot. I know from the town side you think it is. But I would agree with those that are sitting here tonight and saying that we can do a better job digging into the town budget and seeing where there is possible efficiencies there. I don't know.

I didn't have time to go through the entire budget book. I got it today in the middle of meeting. And I think I saw an administrative assistant who works part-time at the police department that was reduced.

I don't know the other positions that were reduced. I do know that over the years you've all heard. We reduced 40 positions.

There is nothing left to touch unless I'm going to touch programs that draw our kids to staying within our public school. And I'll say what's already been said tonight about people moving to the community. They're going to move for a beautiful elementary school to join us there.

We know it's 900 student capacity. It's at 740 right now. But what about when they get to middle and high school?

And we're not offering programs to keep us here. Are we going to have enrollment decline because they're going to go to St. Mary's, St. John's, all these other schools and go to private schools? I am not being dramatic when I say there is no place to cut.

And I've been instructed to look at the budget by the school committee and see where the reductions can be made. And I haven't had a chance to circle back to them, but I have to my team and say we can't reduce anywhere. Thank you.

Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (2:44:41 - 2:44:45)
Does anybody have any more questions? It's 10 after 9, I think.

[Speaker 19] (2:44:46 - 2:44:54)
I would just like to say that I appreciate what Danielle said, and we did really all just get this today. I don't know if you guys got it today as well.

[Speaker 1] (2:44:54 - 2:44:54)
I got it yesterday.

[Speaker 19] (2:44:55 - 2:44:55)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:44:55 - 2:44:57)
It just got balanced yesterday.

[Speaker 19] (2:44:57 - 2:45:13)
Right. So, I mean, it seems like, I don't know, isn't it just the normal prudent thing to do to make us go line by line like I would imagine you guys go line by line as well, right? And question everybody in every department and what do they do and can it be done differently?

[Speaker 5] (2:45:14 - 2:46:34)
I would really like to see, to be quite honest, Cheryl Stella, who I think we are lucky to have because she has been on both sides of this fence. She has been a school administrator, business administrator, and she has worked for this town on the town side as a town accountant. Amy Saro, who clearly has put in the work and the time to create this massive project of a budget, a $75 million budget.

I would like to see those two women, with the town administrator, with Mr. Kalishman, with Pam Angelakis, sit down in a room and try to hammer out some type of, this is what we can do, this is how we can negotiate this, this is where we can get, maybe we're not going to get $600,000, right? Maybe we're going to get half of that or close. But I think that, and I'll volunteer from the select board if you need somebody.

I'm sure someone from the school committee would, maybe finance committee, maybe Katie, Eric, whoever, sit down in a room and see if we can come to some type of better situation than the budget I'm looking at right now. I don't see why we don't give it a shot and use the resources and the smart people and think outside of the box and see what we can figure out. Maybe we won't.

Maybe we'll come to the same conclusion. Maybe we'll find $100,000. Maybe it'll be one job, two jobs.

I don't know. But we have to try. I mean, we can't just throw our hands up and say, forget it.

You're out of luck.

[Speaker 19] (2:46:34 - 2:46:35)
It can't always land on the schools.

[Speaker 5] (2:46:36 - 2:47:09)
No, it can't. And it can't entirely land on the town. We know that.

We're hearing the grim outlook that we have. But we've got to try. We can't just give up.

We can't just battle it out in town meeting floor every year. I mean, this isn't what we are, right? I really think there's potential to do that.

And I have faith in both of our business managers, Cheryl and Amy, Gino certainly. I have faith in all of us. I really do.

But I think we really need to give it one more shot to see if we can come up with some better numbers here. That's my request. I don't know about everybody else.

[Speaker 2] (2:47:09 - 2:47:11)
We're going to stick with the Finance Committee.

[Speaker 10] (2:47:13 - 2:47:29)
Just real quickly, I just want to echo that. I'm willing to volunteer and go line by line. I was just going through and circling and making notes.

And I do believe the school committee wants to avoid what happened in the last two years. I believe that.

[Speaker 4] (2:47:29 - 2:47:32)
This is why we came to you guys a month earlier than usual.

[Speaker 10] (2:47:33 - 2:47:47)
And this is why at our last town meeting when Doug stood up and said, I want to have a financial summit, that was going to be so instrumental to really get in front of all of these issues. And we really wanted that to happen.

[Speaker 5] (2:47:48 - 2:47:49)
We wanted it.

[Speaker 10] (2:47:49 - 2:48:25)
We did. It didn't happen. So to hold the fact that that didn't happen against the schools, it's difficult.

We are going to go again. It seems that we're going to see what efficiencies we can scrub from this budget. But we are also going to go above and beyond our financial guidelines that we've set forth.

And that did get us into this positive place where we're a AAA bond-rated community. But what does that mean if we're cutting? We're not just cutting the fat.

We're cutting the bone.

[Speaker 4] (2:48:26 - 2:49:09)
I just want to say thank you because this is the first time in my 12 years of doing this that we have had the opportunity to sit down like this in public and really sort of go through some of the nitty-gritty. So I appreciate the fact that you heard the suggestion and made it happen. That was a big deal for us.

And like everybody, you know, when people come to speak to the select board, when people come to the school committee, everybody just needs to feel heard. And working this way helps us to hear you and vice versa because for whatever reason, that tri-chair is just not working. I'm encouraged by this as well.

We've never done this before.

[Speaker 5] (2:49:09 - 2:49:28)
It's never happened, right? We are not going to have a marblehead situation here. We're not going to do it.

We're going to figure this out. We're better than this. I cannot stomach the idea of going to town meeting and having battling bills.

I don't want that as a role model for our kids. I don't want that for myself.

[Speaker 4] (2:49:28 - 2:50:09)
I feel like we can do a lot better, and I really think I'm encouraged. I do want to drive home the fact, too, that in our budget, it includes the money for our negotiations with our teachers union, with our tutors, with our ESPs, and with our non-contracted. And that's, you know, that's a big deal.

Even though our budget isn't growing by leaps and bounds, towns all around us are growing by 5, 6, 7, 8, 9%, and we're at 3.7. I'm not sure it's really 3.7. Well, I'm going by what you reported here.

[Speaker 2] (2:50:09 - 2:50:34)
Okay, so your request originally was 7, 6, 8 originally, and then we backed out utilities. We backed out a number of things, and then it came down to 4, I think 4, 6, 8. So, you know, we do have to talk about the real numbers and what they look at.

[Speaker 4] (2:50:34 - 2:51:18)
Other towns are also sending money in, too. I can't. This is the only town I live in.

But we can, and you've asked us to compare ourselves to other towns, and we do. There are 10 towns that we compare ourselves to on a consistent basis, and one of the things that we know is that they're all growing significantly faster than we are. And we also know that they are sending in, they're having money to fund technology through capital improvements, similar to what we do.

Yeah, every town does do it a little bit different. Absolutely. It's really hard to pick apart that onion.

But what we know is that we are below the norm in this area.

[Speaker 9] (2:51:19 - 2:51:47)
I do want to say that there was a step you missed in there, Mary Ellen. Yes, we presented you first with a 7% budget, but we went back and did work then and made some adjustments at that point, and they were reductions in our original ask. So if I say to you I can't present reductions now, it's because we went back and things that we had put in that we do feel we need, we sacrificed in order to get it to a more palatable number.

So that was one step that you just missed.

[Speaker 26] (2:51:47 - 2:51:50)
Like a health teacher. Yes, exactly.

[Speaker 6] (2:51:50 - 2:52:02)
Just to make sure it's going both ways, the exact same process has happened, right? So we need to recognize one side, we need to recognize the other side, right? So that exact same, we're both in the same situation, ish.

[Speaker 4] (2:52:02 - 2:52:16)
So I think that we all really understand that when you're faced with these difficult decisions, that it's hard. You look at that staff and you think, what am I going to do, and what can we not have?

[Speaker 2] (2:52:16 - 2:53:00)
So I don't think there's anyone here in this room that isn't in agreement that we've got to scrub this a little more, we've got to find a way to get closer to these numbers. I think everybody is in total agreement with that. The process in which we do it, that's a question, because it's very important.

The finance committee plays a very important role. We cannot vote on this tonight, because technically, I'm looking at our agenda, and the word vote is missing from here. So we don't have to vote on it, but I think that we have to have a plan going forward.

And Eric, I just want your opinion here, because your folks need to start getting your arms around this budget, and how would you like to see us proceed?

[Speaker 14] (2:53:00 - 2:53:02)
So we're planning to start on Monday.

[Speaker 2] (2:53:03 - 2:53:03)
OK.

[Speaker 14] (2:53:03 - 2:53:10)
Because I think I need to start going through the detailed line item budget. Hopefully, we need you guys to have voted yet. Hm?

[Speaker 1] (2:53:11 - 2:53:14)
After the town administrator recommends it becomes the finance committee's budget.

[Speaker 2] (2:53:14 - 2:53:42)
So we'll go through line item on Monday. You could start without us giving any type of official vote. All right, so you'll start on Monday, and then how about tomorrow?

General Gino and Pam, you have a conversation tomorrow about anything further using the financial directors. How's that? Great.

[Speaker 16] (2:53:42 - 2:53:46)
OK. This is Eric Schneider.

[Speaker 2] (2:53:46 - 2:53:46)
OK.

[Speaker 16] (2:53:47 - 2:54:08)
Just wanted to bring something up, because I think it's on your next agenda item, and it's also related to the budget, in that it's the increase of the casualty insurance, which I think Amy or Karen brought up. And I think a large part of that increase concerns the Hawthorne property. Is that right?

[Speaker 1] (2:54:08 - 2:54:50)
No. So the Hawthorne property, when we switched from Hub to Gallagher as our broker, the Hawthorne property was able to be covered under our umbrella building policy. So that is no longer a standalone policy at this time.

The increase this past year was the addition of the new school, which that policy was $82,000. So we'll have a better idea when we get the new policy information on what the premiums will be per building. But the anticipation is that the Hawthorne would still be included under our umbrella policy.

[Speaker 16] (2:54:51 - 2:55:22)
Well, I'm bringing up the Hawthorne, because I guess the question is, from a budget perspective, is there a savings? Because we're currently leasing it, and are we making more on the lease than the insurance is costing us? And if not, does it make sense to accelerate the demolition and turn it into some green space and not pay the insurance on it?

And if we can do that quickly, maybe we can get some savings. So I just wanted to bring that up.

[Speaker 2] (2:55:23 - 2:55:29)
We can generate money. We're going to talk about that in the next line item here.

[Speaker 16] (2:55:30 - 2:55:31)
Yeah, so I just wanted to bring that up.

[Speaker 2] (2:55:31 - 2:55:34)
It's 920, Suzanne, is there anything else you're really adding?

[Speaker 8] (2:55:34 - 2:55:42)
You just brought something up about the utilities and special ed reserve. I was just wondering, where is that in the budget?

[Speaker 1] (2:55:42 - 2:55:57)
It's not, because the special ed reserve is a separate fund, and so that is not part of the utility. That is a request of free cash to be appropriated at town meeting. So that was not included.

So this is the direct appropriation.

[Speaker 6] (2:56:00 - 2:56:02)
Was that a satisfactory answer, Suzanne?

[Speaker 8] (2:56:03 - 2:56:09)
Yeah. Hi, I'm just wondering, I saw it in the budget last year, the 200.

[Speaker 1] (2:56:10 - 2:56:28)
Last year we had a separate warrant article because we were going to do that utility reserve fund. And then as we discussed it more, because it was going to be similar to my answer for health insurance, because it was going to be such a short-term thing until the solar canopy went on, it didn't make sense to set up a fund. Yeah, I just couldn't remember.

[Speaker 2] (2:56:28 - 2:56:47)
Cheryl, can you give the update on where we're at with that solar project? I mean, I reached out to Senator Creighton on getting National Grid stepped up. Do you know where we're at?

Somebody have a microphone? Are we going to be able to get that project in?

[Speaker 18] (2:56:49 - 2:57:25)
So the last I spoke with Max about this project, that we were lined up to start this and that it would be completed by the end of the summer, this coming summer. Okay, so National Grid has come through for you then? Yeah, he did get some movement there with National Grid.

So at this point it should be at least on the building by the end of the summer. And then obviously we have to wait for them to do the whole connection, right, and for us to start seeing the credits.

[Speaker 6] (2:57:25 - 2:57:26)
That's the rooftop solar.

[Speaker 2] (2:57:27 - 2:57:43)
No, but that's the rooftop solar. That's the reason why we put $200,000 on the side, because we didn't have the rooftop solar. So there's a possibility that we are not going to need to fund her.

How would we answer that question?

[Speaker 18] (2:57:44 - 2:57:56)
I don't know that you can, because it is highly dependent, again, on National Grid, then doing the whole connection piece, and then us finally starting to get credits.

[Speaker 6] (2:57:56 - 2:57:56)
Exactly.

[Speaker 18] (2:57:57 - 2:57:58)
So I don't know that you could.

[Speaker 6] (2:57:58 - 2:58:03)
When it actually goes live and then you're into October or November and you're not really getting the job done.

[Speaker 2] (2:58:03 - 2:58:17)
Okay, so Senator Creighton has made it really, really clear in the conversations I've had with him. He wants to be involved. If it looks like National Grid is not answering what your needs are, just let me know and we can jump on that or you can call him direct.

[Speaker 18] (2:58:17 - 2:59:13)
I will say, though, that the way that at least last year in the agreement was set up with the money coming into the school budget for the utilities was such that we have it in our budget as a separate line, and we only move money out of it as we get utility bills at the new school. So if there's anything left in our reserve line on our budget, that will remain unspent on the school budget and fall back to free cash. And I would assume that that would be the same practice that we would do this coming fiscal year, so that if there were any concerns that the utilities come online and we're starting to see some level of savings, that would come back to the town in free cash.

[Speaker 2] (2:59:13 - 2:59:19)
What are we looking at as our year-to-date now? Have you had to tap into it? Oh, yeah.

Okay.

[Speaker 6] (2:59:22 - 2:59:45)
I'm going to ask Susanna if she got her question answered because I'm not sure I'm 100% clear. So the $200,000 for utilities, right now we're thinking about that coming out of free cash. The $300,000 that we're already spending in CIC, we're also spending for the utilities, right?

That's magic, right? No, but we only have $300,000.

[Speaker 14] (2:59:45 - 2:59:48)
We're going to go below our threshold. Policy.

[Speaker 6] (2:59:49 - 2:59:50)
So we only have $300,000.

[Speaker 14] (2:59:50 - 2:59:52)
Yeah. We want to stay within our policy.

[Speaker 6] (2:59:52 - 3:00:02)
Okay. Yes. Fine.

So we'll be dipping below the policy as it stands right now. And the special ed money would be coming from?

[Speaker 1] (3:00:03 - 3:00:14)
So if the board and finance committee wish to appropriate additional free cash into the special education reserve, that would come from free cash.

[Speaker 6] (3:00:15 - 3:00:16)
There's three things to free cash.

[Speaker 1] (3:00:16 - 3:00:25)
There's already a balance in there, so you could also wait until next Maytown meeting to see if there is money that needs to be appropriated into it.

[Speaker 6] (3:00:26 - 3:00:34)
But that runs the risk that somehow you draw the fund down or in January there's not enough funds.

[Speaker 1] (3:00:34 - 3:01:12)
And from Cheryl's presentation, it seemed like the amount they anticipate with, you know, the best of Ms. Raymond's crystal ball, what they were anticipating potentially tapping in is already in the fund. Obviously, lots of moving parts and contingencies that can happen between now and then. But there's currently money in that fund that if need be can be tapped into to give us time to replenish it if need be before that.

[Speaker 6] (3:01:14 - 3:01:15)
Still believe that?

[Speaker 2] (3:01:17 - 3:01:23)
Okay. Sure. Sure.

[Speaker 4] (3:01:39 - 3:01:39)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (3:02:08 - 3:02:19)
So with that said, we have a financial plan here, and we can move on to our discussion on Hawthorne. You folks can sit down.

[Speaker 7] (3:02:19 - 3:02:29)
I just wanted to say thank you to everybody here for keeping this civil. I was kind of worried coming into this that it might go sideways fast, so thank you all. I appreciate it.

[Speaker 2] (3:02:29 - 3:02:40)
Oh, where are you going? If people want to stay, stay. If you want to leave, we'll wait two minutes.

Yes.

[Speaker 26] (3:02:50 - 3:02:52)
You're welcome. You're welcome.

[Speaker 1] (3:03:00 - 3:03:03)
Can someone on the finance committee second the motion to adjourn?

[Speaker 2] (3:03:05 - 3:03:24)
Second. Eric, do you want another room? Because you could use the principal's office there if Al is still here.

I just gave him that nice award.

[Speaker 14] (3:03:24 - 3:03:26)
FinCom folks, if you can stay on the line for a moment.

[Speaker 16] (3:03:26 - 3:03:27)
FinCom.

[Speaker 14] (3:03:30 - 3:03:32)
Just go in the principal's.

[Speaker 2] (3:03:32 - 3:03:34)
It's open. It's not locked. But don't lock it.

[Speaker 17] (3:03:36 - 3:03:36)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (3:04:04 - 3:04:29)
So now we have discussion on the Hawthorne reuse. Does anybody have any comments on this? Want to add or take away?

So if we're all set with that?

[Speaker 6] (3:04:31 - 3:04:33)
We don't have any timeline in this, right?

[Speaker 2] (3:04:33 - 3:04:41)
Do you want to put one in? Or do you want to leave it open and we'll tell Margie we'll come back with a timeline? Would that help?

[Speaker 5] (3:04:42 - 3:04:45)
I had asked her about a timeline. I thought she was going to put one in.

[Speaker 2] (3:04:46 - 3:04:56)
I just don't want to hold. Is she on? Yes, she is.

MG, are you there? I fell asleep.

[Speaker 20] (3:04:56 - 3:04:57)
Yes, I am. Good evening, everybody.

[Speaker 2] (3:04:58 - 3:04:58)
Good evening.

[Speaker 20] (3:05:01 - 3:05:34)
I'm happy to add the timeline to the mission statement and to the vision. But I wanted to have a discussion with the committee members just to assure that we will be able to hold at least maybe one or two meetings per month to assure that we're able to reach all of the objectives. Right now, we are going to have a public meeting on March 18th.

And I would be happy to come back to you with maybe a better timeline once we have an opportunity to discuss it with the committee members.

[Speaker 2] (3:05:35 - 3:05:44)
So would it be possible if we have a motion to approve the submission statement? And then Margie will come back and fill us in on the date. So moved.

[Speaker 17] (3:05:45 - 3:05:46)
Motion. Second.

[Speaker 2] (3:05:47 - 3:05:47)
All in favor?

[Speaker 6] (3:05:47 - 3:05:48)
Aye.

[Speaker 2] (3:05:48 - 3:05:50)
Great. Thank you.

[Speaker 17] (3:05:51 - 3:05:52)
Thank you, Margie.

[Speaker 2] (3:05:53 - 3:06:02)
Now, let's move to the consent agenda. Does anybody have any questions on the consent agenda? Do you want to take anything out?

[Speaker 10] (3:06:05 - 3:06:09)
Is the early voting, is this consistent with how previous elections were handled?

[Speaker 26] (3:06:10 - 3:06:10)
Yes.

[Speaker 7] (3:06:10 - 3:06:11)
Yep.

[Speaker 10] (3:06:14 - 3:06:14)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (3:06:21 - 3:06:24)
Can I have a motion for the consent agenda? So moved. All in favor?

[Speaker 16] (3:06:25 - 3:06:27)
Aye. Second, aye. Oh, second, aye.

[Speaker 2] (3:06:28 - 3:06:38)
Just a second. Okay. We've got that.

Motion carries. Select board time. Danielle?

What else could I say?

[Speaker 5] (3:06:38 - 3:06:58)
Thank you to everybody in this room for being collaborative and really trying to get this done. I think it's a great display. I've never seen it before.

I'm encouraged by it. Thank you to my colleagues here in finance and school committee. I think it was a great effort.

That's all I have.

[Speaker 2] (3:06:59 - 3:06:59)
Doug?

[Speaker 6] (3:07:02 - 3:07:20)
Very short little thing. I saw somewhere the 200,000 we did for fishermen's resilience that there's like a group that's starting to get together to talk about that. Is that correct?

Is Mercy still on there?

[Speaker 20] (3:07:22 - 3:07:28)
Yes, that is correct, Doug. We did have a kickoff meeting last week.

[Speaker 2] (3:07:29 - 3:07:32)
Is that with Martha? What committee is that?

[Speaker 20] (3:07:32 - 3:07:40)
Yeah, it's Martha, Jackson, Liz Smith is on it, and the Kleinfelder team, as well as Gino and myself.

[Speaker 2] (3:07:47 - 3:07:55)
Is this a committee? Who are these? How does this?

Why do we have these people involved? How does this come about? How does this work?

[Speaker 20] (3:07:55 - 3:08:27)
These were just the key stakeholders that were part of the MVP process. As you recall, we have submitted quite a few applications to the state for vulnerability studies and plans. It was just a key group that was not a formal, very informal group that worked on the grants and continued to work to advocate some of the work that was not funded through the grant and is partially being funded through our funding.

[Speaker 2] (3:08:29 - 3:08:31)
I'd like to see something a little bit more formal.

[Speaker 6] (3:08:32 - 3:09:19)
This was like a committee of committee chairs. That was part of bringing this all together. I don't have any concern with that.

I just want to make sure that everyone knew that it was happening and that we have some kind of regular sense of what's happening. It's mainly very much a Kleinfelder data analytics type of thing, so I'm not sure there really will be. There's not intended to be a community input.

This was the first stage. We needed a lot more information. If you all know right now that you had a meeting and it's not going to be until four months from now, we're going to hear back from Kleinfelder.

They're going to do a lot of work. If that's what's going to happen, it would be good to understand that. If you need guidance, that's really just the question I have.

[Speaker 26] (3:09:29 - 3:09:32)
I'm happy to update you on it.

[Speaker 20] (3:09:32 - 3:09:51)
And once we have additional information, we can come back to the select board and we will advertise our meetings as they are being held with the agenda. And I'm happy to post the school. That was funded through a contract with Kleinfelder as well.

[Speaker 10] (3:09:52 - 3:09:52)
All right. Thank you.

[Speaker 20] (3:09:53 - 3:09:53)
You're welcome.

[Speaker 2] (3:09:55 - 3:09:56)
David?

[Speaker 10] (3:09:56 - 3:09:57)
I got nothing.

[Speaker 2] (3:09:58 - 3:10:57)
Okay. So for me, I am going to comment on the resident comment earlier as my comment. I did receive a phone call from the town clerk asking if I could send my text messages through copies of my text messages.

And I did explain to him that I don't save my text messages, especially after Verizon dropped Message Plus earlier in the year. And I do use an older phone and I don't save messages. So I did forward a number of emails that I was able to find under that category.

So, you know, I'm disappointed that I'm being accused of something nefarious. But, listen, if it works for the resident accusing me that, then all the best to him. So that's my resident comment.

And with that, can I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second.

All in favor? Aye.