Finance Committee Sep 15, 2026

uh recording. >> Good afternoon everyone. Today is the September 15th meeting of the finance committee. And seeing that we have a quorum, actually we have everyone here today. Um my first order of business is to make sure we can hear you and you can hear us. So I'll just go around the my my screen as I see you and however you want to indicate that everything is working. Jeffrey, >> I'm here. >> Lynn, >> present. Sam, >> present. >> Kathleen, >> present. >> Anna, >> present. >> Councelor Brebeck, >> present. >> Joe, >> yes. Here. >> Great. Um, uh, people have seen I think have seen the agenda. Our first, uh, thing on the agenda is public comments. So, I will be opening it up for public comments now. And then Sean, I think the you remind me of the order, but we're doing the fourth quarter report. Is that correct? Then the um the library project financing, then a report from the chair of the ad hoc subcommittee on the budget book, and you then briefing us quickly on the budget timeline. Um and so that's we are and I will try to keep us efficient on all of those. So um I am opening it up for public comments and I see we have two members in the public. If you wish to make a public comment, please raise your hand and keep it to no more than three minutes and as I think you know we will not be responding to any comments or questions but we will be listening closely. So if you have a comment now please raise your hand. Seeing no hands up, I am closing public comments and we will move to the first item on the agenda, the um end of the year fourth quarter FY26 report um which was in the packet and I made sure to share it on Friday. So Sean, what I think is you might want to just lead off. Um, we have a few members who haven't seen these before, but I thought it was very clearly written. So, if you want to just do highlights and then get questions and comments. >> Yeah, that sounds good. Um, I'll share my screen. Let me know when you can see it. It's It's up on mine and you could make it a bit bigger by uh >> better. >> Yeah. Yeah. Can everyone see that? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um so this is the fourth quarter report, the second most interesting report. Third quarter is probably the most interesting because you can actually do something about it. Um fourth quarter is really just presenting the outcome of last fiscal year. Um it is a sign that we're, you know, we're moving along and closing out the fiscal year. So, uh, with this report being completed, we're also working on actually closing our accounting system and getting all of our our state reports submitted, which will ultimately produce free cash. Um, I know one, you know, one interesting piece of information from these reports is how much will we have in free cash, which will, um, we bring that figure to the council in the fall. Um, you'll see that as we go through it. Just keep in mind that this is sort of like the foundation of what ultimately will become um free cash or will be added to free cash, but there are lots of adjustments that going through the the state uh end of year reporting process that get made to this number. So it definitely won't be exactly what you see here today. Um but this will give you an indicator of roughly how much is going to get added to free cash and might be available for um appropriation. So I'm not going to go through the narrative. I'm going to go right to the the actual charts. So, we start with revenues. Um, and I'll point out a few here just so everyone knows. The way revenues work is that when the council approves the budget in June, they're really only expend uh approving the expenditure side of the budget. Um, the revenue side are estimates and the council is not approving those estimates. um the revenue budget gets set um for the year when we uh file for our tax rate which happens in November December. That's when we have to submit final estimates to the state and they approve all those estimates and the whatever we don't raise in um nonpropy tax revenues becomes the property tax amount that gets raised. Um so that's why it says recap estimated revenues because the recap is that process of submitting all this information to the state in the fall. Um, so a few items that you'll see that jump out to you. The the single greatest contributor to our uh surplus on the revenue side is investment income as we sort of anticipated. Um, it is a higher than what we were planning for when we went into FY26. I didn't build the FY26 budget, but we were anticipating that interest would start to come down a little bit um, you know, based on actions and sort of the the tone um, set in Washington. Um but what we've seen is that interest rates have actually stayed pretty strong in terms of um what you can earn on money markets and and CDs and all that and in some cases it's actually starting to rise again. Um so our investment come investment income has stayed strong. The other contributing factor to the investment income staying strong is that we did our um financing for the uh the library Jones library project and some other smaller capital projects in March. Um so basically the first three months or the last three months of the fiscal year had a had the benefit of having some of those um funds on hand as they get spent that winds down. Um but because that financing happens at the end of the fiscal year there's a few months where interest revenues were higher than typical. Um so that's the single greatest contributor. Um a couple other areas that added to it are licenses and permits. Um we saw building permits stay strong. Uh the other area is rental permits. And so that's a new program. I think we're really only going into sort of the second year of those revenues for the full year. Um we have our rental administrator now who oversees the program and is monitoring the the timing of permits. And so for FY27, I think our number is going to be much more um will be much closer to what we actually bring in uh because we'll have more data to base it on. So we've we've increased licens and permits for FY27. And so a lot of these areas where you'll see surpluses, those estimates have already been increased for FY27. Um but just so you have some context as to why that might be a little bit bigger, that rental permit number was um less data to base it on. Um miscellaneous recurring is primarily a couple things in there that we don't budget for. That's our opioid um our opioid money that comes in through the settlements that we have with the state. We don't budget for that because those funds come in and then in the fall we appropriate that into the opioid revolving fund. Um so that's about 90 to $100,000 of that that difference there in uh motor vehicle excise tax just continuing to have um uh better collections than anticipated. A lot of that's the price of vehicles. Again the motor vehicle excise tax is based on the cost of the vehicle um with a depreciation schedule set by the state. So, as we see the cost of vehicles stay high and um and get higher in some cases, um you know, we're catching up to the to what we're actually realizing. Hotel and motel um also beat its target, which is good. That's a one of the indicators of economic activity downtown that we look at that and um the meals tax, which also beat its target. Um so, those two came in higher, which is great. Again, we did increase those for FY27 already. So, um, we are catching up on the budget side. Um, but it's a it's a good sign that those are coming in higher. Cannabis tax is another one of those areas that we don't budget for, um, because we have a a sort of a understanding that we will contribute the cannabis tax revenues to the reparation stabilization fund. Um, so that money comes into the general fund every year, closes out to free cash, and then there's a transfer in the fall of whatever that number is into the reparation stabilization fund. Um so the number that would be is going to be brought forward for uh consideration would be the 48,178 um for FY uh in FY27. The one uh sort of big negative on the revenue side is our property taxes. So, um it's a combination of one thing that's definitely a one-time really one really one big thing that's a a one-time issue and that was the um the Olympia fire that contributed uh a significant amount to our abatements for the year and then we also had just some regular abatements during the year because we uh raised the level of um the the valuation on multifamily units quite a bit to catch up with what we thought the market was for those facilities. So, we've seen a number of abatement requests for apartments and then we had large one single very large abatement request um for the Olympia Place fire. Um so, for the first time that I can remember, it's been, you know, years and years and years. We actually exceeded the allowance that we set aside each year. Um, so the the property tax revenue number that you see here, the estimate, the 71.1 million, that already factors in about 3 to $400,000 of an allowance. So it's already lower by that amount. Um, but we surpass that by about $200 or $300,000 more. Um, so that's something that will rectify itself um for the next uh when we set the tax rate the next time around that the value that was abated at Olympia Place will be redispersed. across the the complete tax base. Um but for FY26, it's resulting in a little bit bigger um delta in property taxes. The rest of it's typically just what we're waiting to collect on June 30th. um you know, we're usually in that 90 to 95 um or 90 98 99% collection uh range just um we're regular property taxes, but the uh fire pushed us over that a little bit. So that's So all in all on the revenue side, um we're about 3.2 million to the good. Um we would have been higher if it weren't for the property tax uh situation. And as you can see, you know, the vast majority of that is from investment income. Um, other than that, most of the targets were pretty close. >> Sean, why don't you stop for a minute and just take any questions or clarification on the revenue side? Just focused on that, if there are any. >> Sean, just a a quick question. This is Joe. Um, thank you so much. Do do we really see that kind of impact uh from investment income like in past years? Um that seems like a it's a pretty strong pretty strong. >> Yeah. So the investment income it's you know it's one of these areas that's um it's going to take a careful approach to how we want to budget for it. Right. So we our our investment income historically before interest rates shot up you know back when in 2022 2023 um our investment income was under under $200,000 a year total. >> Yeah. Okay. Then interest rates uh shot way up. Um you know we're looking at three and a half 4% CDs and uh money markets that are paying that amount. And then we also have additional funds on hand from the construction projects that are going on. Um so the investment income as you can see it's this was probably the highest it's been last year. I think it was around 2.5 or 2.6. Um so we're definitely at a high point. Um what I anticipate is a high point with investment income. The question when we budget for when we talk about budgeting for FY28 and even when we set the final uh target for FY27 is going to be, you know, where do we what do we think is a sustainable level to budget this at? Because I'm want to be very cautious around budgeting anything that will kind of get swept out from under us um very quickly. These are all short-term interest rates that generate this money. Um so, you know, that means it could change pretty significantly between one year to the next. Um, so it is it's a good thing. I think it's allowed us to put more money into roads. I think, you know, hopefully it'll allow us to continue to put more money into roads um, you know, in the in the future and and other priorities of the council. Uh, but I am very cautious that to say that we can count on $3 million. I'm pretty comfortable saying we can't, but I do think the new normal around investment income is probably higher than what it used to be where it was only$100 or $200,000 a year. >> Absolutely. Okay, cool. Thank you so much. Okay. So, on my screen I see councelor Brevik, then Lynn, then Kathleen, and Jeffrey had a hand up, but it went down. Um, okay. And I have a question. So, Lynn, go. Uh, uh, Jill, go ahead. Or council. >> Thank you. And yeah, my question was about the future of the investment income. So, thank you. That was a really clear response. But I did have one other very small question on just on the excise tax just out of curiosity. The it makes sense to me that the um revenue would go up because of the higher cost of vehicles, but you also reference that it's due to higher collections. What was that from? Were there are there additional activities that we did that led to higher collections as well? So every year um when we budget um the upcoming cycle of motor vehicle excise tax, it each year it's a combination of the money we collect on that year's uh tax, but we also continue to collect on prior years, unpaid amounts from the the years past. Um so we're usually pretty conservative in terms of what we're going to collect on the prior year. So that's where some of the additional amounts come from. um the amounts we've collected on prior year taxes that were just passed due. >> Lyn, >> um do you have any comments uh regarding the state aid issue? I mean half, you know, $51,000 is not small. >> Yeah. Um I can Hold on. Let me see if I have a report. Let me see if I have the back up to what's generating that because it's not. Um, sorry, that's not it. Let me stop sharing for one second. >> Why don't you go to the next question? I'll pull up. Um, I can give you a breakdown, Lynn, of the specific category of state aid that is uh generating that. >> Yeah. Lyn, were you looking at the negative 51? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Okay. Kathleen. >> Yeah. Thank you. My question is about the um recreation revenue. I think it's just a definition of what's included in in your definition sheet. You say that it's pool memberships, swim lessons, and administrative fees, I think. But then the narrative seems to say it's over because of the re one of the revolving funds, I think, after school. So, I just wasn't sure what like what actually is in that revenue line there. >> Yeah. So, there's a few things. Um, so it does include the pools and it includes the programming. Um, uh, well, you can see there's a breakout between Cherry Hill revenues and then the pool uh, which will be in the recreation section. The admin piece that is referenced in the report. So, our the way recreation works is we have three revolving funds. So they aren't uh you don't see those figures here because they're outside of the general fund. We have three revolving funds that handle recreation activities. We have one for after school. We have one for um sort of all the broader recreation programs that we have and then we have one for indoor uh pools, aquatics, but which is primarily indoor pools because the outdoor revenues stay in the general fund. Um, and the second one there, the recreation one that I mentioned, that's our biggest one. That's where the majority of our programs are. And we, in our general fund, we budget an admin fee or it's almost like an indirect cost. So, of all the revenues and the expenses of the recreation pro program that go into that revolving fund, um, they try to target uh, $140,000 is the amount that they would pay back to the general fund as an admin fee. Now, so and they were able to do that this year. What they also do is at the end of the year, by law, the revolving fund is only allowed to end with a $10,000 balance. So, the practice has been that if there's anything left over in the fund after they pay the admin fee that's in excess of that $10,000, that also comes back to the general fund so that it can close out to free cash. Um, and that process of closing that excess out. It didn't happen last year, probably just because of all the turnover that was happening. Um, so there was sort of an extra-large balance in that revolving fund that's being closed out to free cash and that's why it contributed a little bit more um this year in terms of surplus revenues. >> Okay. So just just for my own just so I understand. So when you say that it helped balance out the overage in in one helped balance out another maybe aspect of the recreation you're it's really just that it went to the general fund like it because it it reads as though one it reads as though like one departmental like that that overage is coming back and being directly applied to another departmental >> I think that's on the expense side is that were you looking at the expense side or the revenue side for that >> I mean I was just looking at the narrative comment about the revenue side where it says that the department that recreation department revenue finished 60% over estimates due to strong performance in the afterchool revolving fund and outdoor pool programs and then subsequently I don't I'm trying to remember where it says maybe on the expenditure side it said it was all set by so I just >> yeah so there's a different there's a different I can talk about that in a second there's a different um budget issue on the expenditure side that's not related to that transfer okay >> um on the expenditure exercise, recreation. There's three categories again. There's there's recreation admin in our general fund budget. There's Cherry Hill, and then there's the outdoor pools. And the outdoor pools and Cherry Hill were over spent during the year. Um, but they we kind of look at that group of three as one big group when we're monitoring the budget because they're all sort of under the purview of the same department head. Um there were savings in the actual expenditure budget of the recreation admin component. Um and this the area where those savings were in particular was subsidies. There's a certain amount that's going to offer subsidies every year. We budget uh we have a budget for it. And if they don't if there's not enough requests or they don't give out as many subsidies, then there's funding there that can be shifted to cover other areas. Um and so that's the source that was able to cover the expenditure overages uh for the pool and for Cherry Hill. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> Uh, go ahead. Oh, here it is. >> Um, Sean, I don't know, maybe this is reserved for later on in the conversation when we talk budget book, but as we bring up all of these revolving funds, I I didn't realize there were three revolving funds for recreation and then we have an opioid revolving fund. Is there some place because I look in the budget book on the revolving fund section on page 255, it's only just recreation and after school programs. So, is there a place where all of our revolving funds can be seen? Like, I don't even know. How many do we have? How many revolving funds do we even have? >> Yeah, there's lots of little ones. Um, there's, [clears throat] you know, so there's opioids, a new one. So, we I mean that's an annual discussion item. Uh there's PAS, there's, you know, the basically anytime there's a special uh type of revenue that can only be used on a specific purpose, there's uh a revolving fund created for it. Um, so PAS and opioids are the two most recent ones. And is there like a list of all of the revolving funds that we have and what they can be used for? >> I can give you a list. Um, again, this is going back hundreds of years, right? So, there's lots of little ones. There's gift funds, you know, there's lots of little things that have very specific purposes that we monitor, but um, but I can provide a list of the revolving funds. >> Thank you. >> Yep. And we have to report on them um to the state every year as well. So, it's not, you know, it's not like secret or hidden. It's we have to um submit each of them and their balances to the state every year. >> Um and then real quick um Lynn, your question. So the two areas that were the two areas that were were overbudget um on state aid were or under budget on state aid, sorry. Charter school tuition reimbursement and veterans benefits. um the the charter school tuition reimbursement that's usually related to the expense the tuition itself being lower. So it's not in itself a bad thing and that was the majority of that that shortage um was related to that. So I I wouldn't view that as a bad sign that usually means charter tuition came down. >> Okay. I do have another question, but Kathy, you have you were gonna ask. >> Okay. I I just had one. And when you you kind of quickly talked about it then with the fire at Olympia Oaks that did a big abatement, you said that money will be redistributed over other properties. So does that mean um the two and a half that applies each year is to the amount that we had the year before. But if a property goes belly up, it stays in the overall base and then gets just redistri gets so people's homes, you know, or the big apartment buildings absorb the fact that that large building is no longer paying. Is is that Basically, what you said, that's what I heard you say. So, I just >> Yeah, that's how it works. So, you know, if there's a a large abatement, um the tax levy doesn't change. The the full and fair cash value of the town changes. And so, it can it'll have a upward impact on the the tax rates. Now, in the grand scheme of things, it it probably will be relatively minor given the, you know, we have billions of dollars of um property and there will be other new properties coming online and going off. So, there's always pluses and minuses, but um um but that is the general impact of a big property like that going offline is that it'll it'll have a negative impact on the rest of the base. >> So, I just wanted to make sure I understood it correctly. So, Lynn and then Kathleen. >> So, I have two quick ones. uh rentals is that property we rent. For example, Belure the houses on Belturetown Road. >> Um I don't I'd have to double check if there's if we're still getting rental revenue from those houses, but it is like the um child care facility. It's the the biggest one is the Musanti Health Center. We collected a large sum each year. Um North Hamer School, we used to collect money for the Mson Memorial Building. uh we bring in quite a bit of rent uh different programs there. >> And then my other question is there was a recommendation um regarding Cherry Hill to create a revolving fund and I noticed there was the plus amount this year of I think 122,000. Am I correct? >> Except that they're they're over 30 in the expense side. So take those. >> Okay. I I didn't know where we stood on creating that fund. >> Yeah. So that's something that Paul and I need to um talk about and decide whether we want to bring that forward to the council as a recommendation or not. >> Okay. Thank you. >> The working group still I think they're making a a formal presentation at some point of their findings to the town manager and then I think that would be a logical time to then discuss what to do with those recommendations. >> Thank you, >> Bethleene. >> Yeah, I just have two quick questions. um when we discussed the third uh third quarter report, you weren't sure if the Hickory Ridge solar money was going to hit during this year or next year. And I was curious if if we received any of that. >> Um we did get the uh so there's two pieces to the Hickory Ridge Solar. So the um the solar itself, the tax bill was sent out. So that money would belong to this year when it's paid. I'm pretty sure it was paid, but I have to triple check, but the the money is due to us for this year. Um, the piece that was not is the battery storage. Um, and it it's because that wasn't um that part wasn't component wasn't done with the project, but there will also be another um we anticipate another commitment or increase to the amount that they owe related to the battery storage. >> Okay. Thanks. And then um the the Medicaid um reimbursement I assume just sort of passes through this budget and goes to the schools for services rendered is that >> well it's part of um it's vice versa or it's kind of the opposite right so we fund the schools at a level where they can provide the Medicaid eligible services and then we get some of that money back as a reimbursement um but it goes into the big pot of money that we're able to give out increases to operating budgets for. So, but if the if the revenue was higher than expected, does that mean that the schools provided services more than was anticipated and that's why the reimbursement was higher? How does that work? >> Yeah, I mean it it it could be that's one. It could be that they provided more services. It could be that a student moved in that has um more Medicaid eligible services. A lot of it is it could be that the service providers are doing a better job submitting their reports. Unfortunately, that's a big piece of it is the documentation and the report. um the report component because every time uh eligible provider d has uh contact with a student and provides services to a student, they have to submit um that doc that documentation to the school who submit it to um our our third party administrator which is the lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative and then we get our reimbursement. So, um it could be higher levels of service or it could be better compliance and um uh more timely submissions of those services. >> Okay. Thanks. >> And and every now and then it's like a new a new type of service becomes eligible. That's happened a few times over the years too where something that wasn't previously eligible now is and so the reimbursement goes up. >> I think we can move to expenses. >> All right. it will uh it is noteworthy so I'll just I'll mention this quickly the enterprise funds so the enterprise funds um did a lot better than anticipated uh the you'll see you know nine 10% increases in particular for the water and sewer fund >> um or 9 10% over target the when we looked at kind of dug in during the year what's going on here it is related to usage so usage is up um and that's the major driver of why these revenues are are over target. Um the in talking with DPW, you know, I was reached out to Guilford and his team to find out, you know, is it people just using more water? It seems a little strange. Um a lot of maybe not a lot of it, but at least a piece of this they believe is related to their efforts to replace water meters. Um we've been they've been doing a lot of water meter replacements, especially on bigger uh facilities. And um what happens is that when you have a a meter that's not working properly, it relies on estimates and then when you finally get it fixed and you put the new meter in, there's a catch-up and you can kind of get you start getting better reads going forward. So he thinks um with water and sewer in particular, a big chunk of this is just their efforts to replace the the water meters and get more accurate reads throughout the year. Um but the increase in usage was pretty evenly split between UMass and and not UMass accounts. It wasn't just UMass. Um but there was an increase there as well. And then solid waste. Um, again, noteworthy because the council approved a new agreement. Uh, cell tower revenues came in stronger. So, Ruxton is, um, the Ruxton site is owned by the solid waste fund. We have a cell tower there and we have a revenue sharing agreement with, um, Verizon and American Tower who manages it for Verizon. Uh it's actually their tower, but they lease um they they put the tower up and they pay us uh make payments to us annually for this. So we get a flat amount and then we get uh increment for uh 50% of the revenues that they generate from the tower. And so we've seen they I think they added a new customer to the tower which is and they negotiated some new agreements and so we've seen our revenue sharing numbers go up quite a bit. And then we've also negotiated a new 20-year agreement um which we're finalizing now which will also boost up these revenues going forward. Um and then we have another tower that's at the landfill. That one not doing quite as well. It still generates revenue but um that one is lagging way behind the the tower at Rxton >> Lyn. Uh first of all Sean you do you want to put this >> put back on screen? Oh yeah. Sorry. And then my but my question actually is going to the um uh wastewater um uh the fund that includes wastewater and uh just a reminder when do we expect the study about the uh sewage plant? >> Um so we're starting to get some information now. um DPW has already been getting some information um because I know they're they um either applied for or planning to apply for a grant related to one component of improving the wastewater uh facility. So I I think they're starting to get some information now, but I I think the original was it's still going to be sometime next year um you know well into next year before it's finalized. And then the water rate study um we are working with uh we have a scope and um I've told DPW that we really want the at least an initial draft or a preliminary report by December um so that it can be used uh considered when setting rates this year. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Jill, has there been any progress toward the storm water enterprise fund development? I know we talked about that a little while back. >> Yeah. No, it's a good question. Um, we actually met um last Friday about it. Uh, Guilford's team and u me and the treasure collector. Um, so yes, we have gathered a bunch of research. We've done some modeling with our GIS system and overlaying parcels to figure out how much impervious surface area there are in every on every uh parcel in town. Um, right now we're in a phase where uh DPW is I've asked them to build like what the budget would look like for storm water and have it over five years. So, um, we can eventually have a conversation with finance committee about that. Um, so that's what they're looking at is how much they would put in towards covert replacements and monitoring and all the different components that are required, um, by our our, um, water permit. Um, there is still a question, I think this will be a good discussion with the finance committee about, you know, we're going to bring you a budget and then the question will be, do you want to assess a new fee to residents? Because anytime anytime you introduce a new fee, that's a difficult conversation. Um, but I do think you'll see that there are legitimate and, you know, important investments that that fee would go towards and and ultimately it'll be a conversation with the finance committee about whether you want to do that. So, um, I think we're targeting again probably late fall, early, you know, winter um, to have have something for the council to consider. >> John, thank you so much. Um, this is probably a really lame question, but um, can you sort of remind So, we have a solid waste fund, but we have a cell tower that generates and and um, shares revenue with the solid waste fund. How does solid waste fund and cell towers how how does that relationship work? >> Yeah. No, it's not lame. >> It's not it's not it's not that lame. Um, no, it's a good question. Um so you know there's a lot of history behind this but you know the solid waste main revenue source is the transfer station and selling permits um to residents to bring trash to the to the landfill. So that's the primary revenue source. Yeah. >> Um >> but the way enterprise funds work is they actually own property. Technically they're the like they're the owner of the property. So, the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund owns the the landfill, but it also purchased Ruxton many years ago. And I think it had something to do with maybe having like a a staging area or there, you know, Paul may remember, I don't I don't know the exact details, but it the the landfill actually bought Ruxen. So, that Rxton site is technically owned by Solid Waste. And so the tower that sits upon it as we as we look for different revenue sources and ways to grow revenues um generates revenue that we can put toward solid waste. >> Solid waste. Okay, cool. Thank you so much. >> It's probably about, you know, it's probably 10 to 15% of the total revenues of the fund. It's not not the primary source. >> Yeah. Interesting. I just didn't know that, but thank you for for sharing that. Appreciate it. >> All right. Um and then the other noteworthy thing, transportation. So the I'd say the one dim spot across all the activities last year is our transportation fund. I think I highlighted this in earlier reports that um it was struggling both on the expense side and on the revenue side. Um it did come up short in meeting its revenue targets and the primary um area where it came up short was our violation revenue. And so we've met with our parking enforcement team. We've you know looked at data in terms of how many tickets are being written this year versus prior years. where are those tickets being written? What time of the day? Like lots of data around tickets um you know there's nothing that stands out to us in terms of um you know like a lapse or anything like that. The one area that there was a part-time position that we haven't filled for most of the year. So that could be part of it but that also helps on the expense side. Um but this is on the revenue side and on the expense side. Sort of that one area of the budget this year that struggled. Um and that we are uh we pulled together sort of an internal group of folks um the police chief, treasure collector, myself, um our planning economic development director, and we've looked at parking and we're going to similar to what we did several years ago. We're come up coming up with a bunch of recommendations of ways we can increase revenue and lower expenses um that will probably be brought to the finance committee at some point during this year. >> Joe, is your hand back up or did it just not come down? Okay, thanks. >> All right, moving to expenses. So, um I will just highlight a few of these. Accounting where you see a big chunk available. Um that was largely because we have the comproller position vacant for a good chunk of the year. Um employee benefits um that's because we have a contingency for health insurance that we budget every year. There are a certain number of plans that we budget for health insurance um for additional enrollment in health insurance um as we hire new people and during open enrollment um uh that we did not have to tap into. And it also this year was a little bit larger because we had a contingency for negotiations in there um related to DPW. And so, um, we didn't have to shift all of that contingency out because there were staff turnover savings in some of the DPW lines that could cover cover the the first year increases. Um, so that's why that one section is a little bit bigger or is the biggest area in the budget. Um, going down, the two areas that struggled the most were police and fire. Um, in police there was really there were two main things. one uh there was that October event near Halloween um where there was a sign significant amount of overtime that had to be worked and there was a lot of yeah just public safety activity um around students and things going on in town. So so the Halloween event for police this year was a was a big driver. Um but the biggest driver was actually it's more of like a an accounting issue related to a new collective bargaining agreement. Um, in their new agreement, they the police department switched from getting educational incentive payments twice a year to getting it monthly. The overall amount didn't necessarily change, but the the frequency and the timing of those payments changed. Um, and the way it changed this year is that we made the first sort of half-year payment and then shortly thereafter is switched to a monthly. Um, and that half-year payment was retroactive. It's always looking backwards. So the the net result I apologize it's sort of in the weeds but the net result was more than 12 months of educational incentive got paid and it was just something that you know when they the budget was built probably you know definitely something that could have easily not been foreseen or you're not aware of um so there were more than 12 months paid not it's not any more money or less money going to police it's just the timing of when that money got paid so there was like a catch-up in FY26 and now it's being paid on a monthly basis so that that issue won't happen again. Um but that was a big driver for the police department budget. And then fire, a little bit of everything. The Olympia fire definitely impacted um their budget. Uh but they also saw higher um cost in fuel and maintenance and uh utilities. Um so fire department when we talk about looking at budgets in the future and the impacts of inflation, I think fire department's one of those ones. Um unlike other departments that don't have the budget for their own facility expenses, fire departments one that all those facility expenses are in its budget. Um like then not just the public safety expenses, but again their heating, their electricity, it's all in the fire department budget. Um and they all contributed to this uh larger than normal overage. So um that's definitely a department we'll have to look at for the next cycle. Uh community responders was under budget just mainly due to staff uh turnover and vacancies. um DPW we transferred in funds to cover the um impact of their new collective bargaining agreement. So most of these overages are related to non salary um types of issues. The one exception public works administration they over um they had their extra helpline was over budget um due to an apprenticeship program that they have with uh Dean Tech where they have an electrician that comes and works with us. um we really needed that electrician because we we've been down an electrician all year. Um so that that was the one that was salary, but everywhere else it's primarily related to fuel or equipment maintenance um that's driving those overages. So we did increase the DPW's operating budget quite a bit for FY27. So the hope is that the when we looked at FY27, there won't be as much of this. That being said, um, one of, you know, when we do the first quarter budget report for FY27, the main thing, the main theme of that report is going to be energy costs are going to be really, um, impacting the operating budget because we've seen the price of diesel, the price of gasoline um, remain high. Our electricity contract ends in December and what we're seeing for renewal prices and electricity are pretty significant increases. And so utility costs and energy costs are going to really impact the FY27 budget um in a big way. And what else? See, um senior center there. A lot of the savings you'll see are mostly related to turnover or um vacancies for a period of time during the year. um debt service mainly related to the timing of paying some of our short-term debt and also the uh the regional debt assessment came in. Um they must the original number must have been based on an estimate provided by the region and the actual assessment came in much lower. So that contributed to a positive uh s uh positive result. So, all in all, on the expenditure side, um we finished with $600,000 left over, which is probably in the range of what we want to see. Um in a year-over-year basis, it's a little more than half a percent. Um so, overall, I'd say that's a good outcome. And then our enterprise funds, water and sewer, finished a few percentage points under target, um which isn't uh unusual. Solid waste finished a little bit undertarget. Transportation actually finished over budget. Um not by much, by a few thousand dollars. And what happens when it finishes over budget is we have to shift some of that expense. Basically, the general fund has to pick up some of that expense to balance it because we can't finish with an appropriation deficit on the expenditure side. Um so that's why it looks like transportation finished exactly on target, but in reality it actually finished a little bit over budget. Um and the reason it finished over budget was um electricity costs were high. Um and uh some of our technical services are the software we pay and the transactional fees that we have every time folks use their cell phone or their the the kiosks. We're seeing a big shift of people using those way more which is good. Um but we actually have a cost every time someone uses that. There's a we when we set those systems up there was a cost sharing arrangement where we would pay half and the the customer would pay half and so as more people use those systems the share that we pay gets higher. Um so it's just an area of the budget we have to adjust going forward and that is the fourth quarter report questions on the expense side. Um I have an interactive question. If I look at the enterprise funds, just water and sewer, high on revenues and lower on expenditures are the two things that emerge. And if you're looking at the FY28 rates, um >> what it says is especially if usees up, does, and I know this is really speculative, Sean, so you can say too soon to say that. Does that mean we potentially will have a lower rate increase than we've seen in the last several years that we've boost them up enough that >> Yeah. >> So two things we're generating reserves is what's happening. This is all going into their reserves. Yeah. >> Yeah. So the most recent rate increase was much lower than the prior year. I know the prior year there was a very significant rate increase. The most recent rate increase for water and sewer was um I would say more in the the typical range. Um but yes, it the the can't say for certain because we haven't built those budgets yet, but if consumption is up and it continues to stay up, um that will result in a lower rate. The higher the consumption, the rate can be lower um because there's more to more um you know sales to spread the revenue or the the budget across. So if consumption stays higher, that's positive thing for the rates. Um the other thing is we we have a range that we like to see retained earnings in um kind of like we have on the general fund side and if we you know if we're near the high end of that or if we surpass that range then those um the retained earnings could be a source for capital as opposed to putting it on the rate um or having to go out and borrow that could be a source an appropriation source um and save the town money that way too. So and then the other good thing is just you know we'll see as we have retained earnings similar to the general fund um the investment income on those retained earnings stays within the water and sewer fund. So you'll the investment income in those funds has done well as also um so it also that relieves some of the pressure on the rates too. >> Okay. Thank you >> Sam. >> Uh thank you Kathy and thank you Sean. uh question uh police and fire expenses. Um obviously we live in a town where there's uh activity that is affiliated with uh residents that sometimes things bubble up. Uh and you indicated a big chunk of this was overtime for the police related to a November Thanksgiving uh excuse me Halloween event. How much of an anomaly is this? Is this a regular every other year type? In other words, uh should we how difficult is it to budget the police expenses given the potential for events to pop up? >> Yeah, I I think it I think it depends. A lot of it's weather related. Um I think that's what we've seen in the past is when the weather's nice on some of these um and these events are on the weekend or near the end of the week that you see them pop up more. Um I Paul can correct me. I feel like this year UMass actually um provided funding for the uh spring event that happens every year. Um so that event there was actually some funding to offset the costs. Um the one that we know about and we you know all hands on deck for. Um but this one I think this Halloween one what I heard from the police chief is they haven't seen it like this in a while and so it was a little unexpected. And if I can add, uh, so this year, uh, they're anticipating Halloween to be another big one because it's a weekend again and that's usually when most of the activity occurs. And usually police and fire both staff up extra people to handle that the the volume of of uh, transports and responses. >> It it seems as though it has to be a challenge because responses are required uh, and there are expenses affiliated with it. And so as a town, what do you do? You absorb them. Uh uh >> Bill, you mess. >> Well, good question. Exactly. And then you know university andor the participants and then you get into the the questions of uh uh paper play type. But uh it just popped into my head because having lived in this town for so much time uh this has to be a recurring theme. uh with Blurnney blowouts, etc., etc. And uh >> and on the on the fire side, again, we we get $700,000 a year um for fire and EMS EMT services, right? So, so we do get a financial contribution that has allowed us to staff >> on a higher level. We, you know, they paid for an ambulance. UMass paid for an ambulance. Um so there is a financial contribution at least that's based somewhat on service levels. Um but we don't get anything for police and I think you know that's an area where we need to keep an eye on because if there is continued elevated overtime as a result of of activities um then you know we should at least have that discussion. >> Just two things. So when we do transport someone we do you know we do an ambulance we get to build them you know for the transport. So we do build the insurance company whoever the student has usually as a student. Uh, and then for the so-called spring event, Lonnie blowout some people call it, um, the university does pay for all the external overtime for all the external police officers are in. They cover all those costs. >> So, I see two more hands up and I just I if possible, I'd like to try to still end by three. So, um, but I'm I don't want to cut short the conversation. Joe. >> Yeah, mine's real fast and probably uh also ridiculous. Um uh Sean, you mentioned the parking facilities like using that app, the park mobile app. And um you mentioned like you you lose 50% of that revenue or you sh you have to share 50%. Can you just can you just >> Yeah, I can those things work. I might get the the exact one wrong because it's there's it's the kiosks and it's the app. But one of them in particular, we there's a a 20 to 25 cent admin fee. >> Oh, okay. >> That is paid every time someone uses uses it. And that admin fee, the town pays a portion of the admin fee. So, we don't lose we we get the the full amount of the revenue that we charge. Um but then but then there's a cost to us as well splitting the admin fee with um with the customer. >> Okay. Okay. And just more you're seeing more people use that. I mean I use my >> Yeah. Yeah. We've seen a big shift. If you look at the revenues, the the revenue we're getting from meters on the like the the coin meters is way down and the revenue we're seeing from kiosks and and phones is up. Um and so which makes sense. And we've actually taken some of the coin meters out because we you know we're trying to drive more activity to the uh to to the >> to the app >> to the app because it's we can we get better data from it. We can monitor it better. >> Okay. Cool. That's That's I'm done. Thank you. >> Any other questions, comments on this? Again, thank you Sean um for both the report and the explanations. >> Yep. All right. Want to switch swiftly into library update? >> That would be great. >> Okay, let me bring in I see Sharon and Nate are here now are here. So, I'm going to bring them in. And I think what I'd like to do is I'll give a very very quick like true project update. Um and then we'll go to the questions Kathy that were sent in. >> Thank you. >> And just so people know that it's split into two. One one is the known town cost right now for the uh short-term and long-term debt that we're we've got on and then it's the what the library trustees owe to us. when are we receiving it? And those questions were sent in advance to get a sense of the flow of funds as well and relative to their endowment fund. So, >> all right. So, this is on the screen a a report that we get we've given to the building committee a few times. This is just a real high level snapshot of the project itself. Um, and so where we stand today, we've encumbered about 93% of the project budget, which is that top section where it says total project costs. We've expended 24.3 and we have another 18 18.5 that's under contract. Um, which leaves about 3.2 not under contract. Now, that that number is not our contingency because there are some things that are just not under contract yet that we know are coming up. Um, so I'll show you what we what the the contingency is currently, but um, all in all, we've encumbered about 90 encumbered or spent about 93% of the overall budget. Um, you can see the expenditure source breakdown. Not super helpful at this point because um, we have contracts that are purchase orders that are just tied to one source. So you can see the remaining for the general fund is high, but there's funds other places. Basically, as the invoices come in, we shift um we shift them uh to where they need to be. Uh in the revenue side, you can see where we're at. We've got the the town share um fully borrowed. We've got the Community Preservation Act share, the MBLC, we've received most of it. Um and in fact, they've actually, I think, and Sharon can speak to this a little bit, accelerated some of the payments to us, which is good. Um and then in addition to that, we generate some interest on the money that's in that fund until it's spent. So, um, so it's generating interest as well. And then in gifts and donations, there's about 8.4 still to go, but you'll see in our in our narrative responses, there's some credits against that number that brings it down um because the library has paid some expenses directly. And so those get factored into their share. So you'll see I'll speak to that in a second in terms of what the um from the town kind of what we have currently and what we've seen paid currently, how much is left from our our perspective. and then a breakdown of all the vendors and their contracts and so on. I won't get into all that. Um and then I think the just in terms of the health of the project and the most interesting thing to be aware of is just where we stand with our contingency because that's a sign of you know are we having you know do we have enough to get through the end of the project. Um and Bob Parent has been amazing in terms of managing this project very closely and working with the contractors and the AR architects and OPM. Um so where we stand right now is we have about 1.7 in contingency remaining. Um we anticipate based on what the OPM said another 100 plus thousand coming out the next billing cycle. Um for change orders um and then you know we've asked are there other areas where we can anticipate big change orders and that you know we don't I'm not hearing that there's a lot of other major areas but just the nature of construction projects is there's going to be lots of little things that continue um to go against that contingency. So, um, no, you know, talking to Bob, I don't see any immediate warning signs, but, you know, it is a tight contingency that we're going to have to manage. And then the other piece that we just heard last night is that the um the uh opening date has been pushed out a couple months. So, we were targeting February or March. Now, um based on some uh delays that happened during the the constructing of the steel portion of the project, it's looking like it's going to be more closer to May um when that's when we're opening the building. All right, I will stop. So, that's any questions on the sort of high level project update before we get into the questions that were submitted? >> Um I I guess I guess we'd be able to find out. I don't need you to talk about all of them, but the change orders have eaten in considerably to the contingency. Um, and and the one I think we knew about when we voted on it is that the slate roof was not in the original contracted cost. Is that the 595 sh? >> I think that's I can get you the details, but I believe that's the big one. Um, the 595 to add that back in. >> Okay. And then on the town side, we've got um the the short-term loans that that we've got bans. The the one you have now, are you about to show that? The one you have now will have to be refinanced when? Um >> yeah, so our current short-term um borrowing is through March. So we will refinance you know we'll be preparing to refinance um before that time but um the you know what we had to borrow last time will come down because we've received grant payments we received additional contributions from the library. Um so we when we set that number it's we look at the cash flows that we anticipate coming in and going out um to to figure out how much we need to borrow um on a short-term basis. But it's likely we will need to do at least one more short-term borrowing um based on the timing of when the final MBLC payments will come in and the final um donations um and contributions from the the library. And um in terms of the dollar amount of that and when you say so if the library is not is not going to open in February or March which would have been when the this one was being renewed but not till May. We'll be carrying it longer and incurring interest costs on that. Would you go out for another year? Would you go out for six months? I mean and and this flows into when do we get the last payment? When does the library fair share discussion? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So I don't want to I think we'll consider different terms. Um we look at that with our financial advisor with bands. You have more flexibility. Um bond bond anticipation notes. Um you have some more flexibility. We'll look at rates and all that. Um but a lot of it will be looking at the project cash flow at that point. You know what we've collected, what bills are still to be paid, is there still retainage to be paid. Um and so looking at all that Okay. And it's just so everyone knows in the debt service table that we get that we got in the budget book, these lines appear. So you can see the the 15.8 million and what we're carrying on on repayment of that. And then you can see the short term. And so there's a about 240,000 in or or or some on each of those on the short-term covering that gap where we're expecting to see the funds. So those are all in other documents. >> Okay. All right. Do you want me to go through some of the questions, Kathy? >> That'd be great. >> All right. Um and Sharon and N I will turn it over to you at some point. Um so just be ready. Um so the the f first question is what are the financing costs of the different short-term and long-term debt obligations? Um so we have a long-term debt obligation which is the town's portion of the project um for FY27 that has a principal payment of $255,000 and an interest payment of $64178. Um so you know roughly $900,000. Um and that total payment will stay the same approximately each year. Kind of like a mortgage. it will the principal portion will come up and the interest portion will go down over time. Um but for FY27 it's about $900,000 uh for the long-term obligation. The short-term obligation has an interest payment of $286,000 and that would be due in March of 2027. >> And then that's the question of what you're going to budget for FY28, >> right? >> Uh Kathleen, do you want to >> Yeah, I wasn't sure. Do you want us to hold questions till you run through or do you want do you want questions as you go? >> Um, you can go ahead and ask a question. >> I just was I just was curious with the with the long-term borrowing, how many years and do you have an an estimate of the total interest that would be added to that over time? >> Um, the for the long term? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, the long-term is 30 and I think it's in the budget book, but it's, you know, like like any uh borrowing, you know, it's a lot of interest in terms of the total cost. Um, so I think the if the principal's 15.7 um I can get you that number, but it it's it shows the breakdown of interest versus principal um in one of those tables. >> Okay. Okay. I think because I think the last I think like the one of the cash flow analysis from year few years ago showed it at maybe close to 8 million but maybe that's when it was a 20 year. >> Yeah. No, the length will change that. >> Yeah. The length will change it. The rates have changed um from projections years ago as well. >> Okay. So when we think about the town share, we're really thinking about the 15.8 plus this plus the interest. >> Yeah. Yeah. I would say the the plan was always to finance it. So, >> Yep. >> Okay. Yep. Thank you. >> Um and then the next question is, what are the expected dates of upcoming MBLC grant payments and how much is outstanding? Um Sharon, correct me if I'm wrong. Uh we have $1 million from the original MBLC award. So, if you remember, there was like the regular award and then they came back and gave us more money, which was great. Um, so there's $1 million left on the original award um that we anticipate being paid sometime in FY27 and then there is $1,694,000 which is the additional amount of funding that we expect in FY28. Um, and again I would say the and and Sharon alluded to this last night the billing committee meeting. Um, some of this depends on the MBLC and their other projects and how much money they have to give out and where we are in the project because um, they've already from what I understood at the beginning of the milestones, they've already accelerated some of that in terms of pay making payments to the town, which is good. Um, how much do the trustees currently owe the town? What is the gap between funds raised or pledged and the fundraising target? So, uh, to date the trustees have turned over 5,379,186 to the town. Um, in addition, the trustees and their partners have paid about $102,000 um worth of expenses. Uh, some of that was through an earmark and then there were some other bills that the the trustees or the friends just paid directly. Um and so the total contribution I have at 5,482,000 um which brings based on the original or based on their target brings them to $8,340,000 remaining. So a little bit less than what you saw on that chart because of the the expenses paid directly by the by the group. Now, I I just want to be really clear. This is different than what the what's come in as pledges and what other commitments the the uh trustees have raised. Um this is just purely what's kind of either we've seen paid or what has been physically turned over. Um so I know you know when you talk to Sharon and the numbers they've provided that's going to include things that have not come to us yet and it makes sense. There's not that's not a not a problem at this point. Um, what date must the trustees fulfill their obligation? Um, so theou that we have of the trustees states that they will make their final payment on the date the MBLC makes its final payment to the town or one year from the date that a certificate of occupancy is issued for the project. Um, so not knowing, you know, based on what we just heard in terms of the schedule, um, and not pushing back to May, um, April, May, I I would think it's going to be the spring of 2028 is that due date. And that could float, you know, forward or backwards in terms of the the exact timing. And [sighs and gasps] I will turn it over to Sharon and N. Now, do you guys have the questions in front of you or do you want me to read the question? I mean, I have your responses. However you want to handle it. >> Uh, hi. Assuming you were you were asking me that question, Sean. Um, I'm actually going to turn it over to Nat >> um [clears throat] to take it from here. >> Just so everyone knows, Sharon is the director of the library for the We have a couple new members and Nat is a library trustee and I believe you're also the treasurer. Is that correct? >> Uh, vice treasure. Not treasure. A vice, but vice treasure. vice treasur. All right, got it. Go for it. >> So, I think um Nad, if you wanted to start with what is the current balance of the endowment fund and then work your way from there to the the other questions. >> Yeah, sure. So, at the beginning of September, the balance was just under $9.6 $6 million. And that's a um um about half of that is a kind of 60/40 portfolio, 60% equity um domestic and international and about half of it is uh money market. So the next question is how the trustees plan to pay what's owed? Will they take out a bank loan or use the endowment fund directly? And the trustees have not made a decision yet uh on this. But as I mentioned um about half well it's actually about 4.5 million of the endowment has been held in um you know money market funds. So not subject to market fluctuation. We did this uh I think April of um of last year because it looked like it would be likely or at least we wanted to be prepared for the possibility that the endowment would have to be used to um pay uh what is uh owed to the town and so we didn't want um all of the funds subject to market fluctuation. Uh so we put about 4.5 million in uh money market accounts. So um again uh when the time comes the trustees will have to decide how to uh how to do that. Um and the question is if the endowment is used how much money would be lost for the operating budget uh contributions. So, um, as you know, um, every year the, um, there's a a draw and it's been about 4% um, over recent years, uh, that's been used to fund the library. Um, but that determination is made on an annual basis. So, recently it has been, uh, 4%. Um, our FY27 budget includes a draw of uh just over $399,000 from the endowment and that represents a 4.6% rate. That's a little bit higher because with the new library opening and the new staffing that's required to um you know open with a responsible uh level of staffing uh it's a little bit higher than the draw rate in previous years. Um, so if we assume, let's just keep with a 4% draw rate in future years and $4.5 million is removed from the endowment because that's used to pay the town, uh, that would represent a loss of about 180,000 of operating support to the library. So that's a big amount and um in order to replace that amount of money I think going forward it's going to be very very important for the friends of the Jones to continue uh the fundraising and even expand the fundraising platform and strategies uh both for the annual support of the library to um come up with that $180,000 as well as the future rebuilding of the endowment if that has dropped by let's say four and a half million dollars. So that's going to be a very important piece of the uh puzzle going forward. Uh and then um the next question is if a bank loan is used to for the trustees to pay the town um assuming a relatively conservative interest rate and loan terms how much money would be lost for the operating budget. Um, and of course that depends a lot on, you know, [clears throat] how much it is, what the term is, interest rate, so forth. But let's just assume that it's four and a half million that's paid to the town, and the trustees borrow that at the rate of 7%. Um, and money market funds held by the endowment yield 3.5%. That means that the borrowing would result in a loss of 157,500 annually to the endowment. That's basically what you lose on essentially borrowing at 7% and investing at 3 and a half% on 4 and a.5 million. So that would result in a loss of 157,500 annually um in addition to the 180,000 loss of operating support. So I think those were the questions that we had. Yeah. >> So I I there was one more, but Sean may might not have sent it. Um Sean just said the amount you the trustees owed the share is 8.4, but you have some pledges that you haven't yet turned over to the town. Is that correct? you know, I mean, there's, you know, I know there's the Amoris College, you know, there's some pieces that were state money, but are >> yeah, there there quite a number of um pledges or gift intentions that are, you know, still to come in uh this year, next year. They're they don't go out very far, but but um uh so roughly there's about 6.1 million remaining to be secured as part of the capital campaign. So that's so that if I flip that, you've got pledges of around 2 million, but you need to raise another six million. Is that what I just heard? >> Roughly. Yes. Yeah. >> Okay. Okay. Uh Jeffrey, >> um thank you. I just had a quick question about the last comment you made about the the bonds. If you were to go out and obtain bonds to to fund this, you would no longer need to have as much of the endowment under um your money market funds. Would you be able to reinvest that at the previous 60/40 split and make a better return than three and a half%. >> Quite possible. It's just um that would be highly leveraged um situation uh >> borrowing long-term and investing in um in a 6040 portfolio. Uh so in the past the trustees have never chosen to know leverage the portfolio. Um in my view it'd be fairly unusual for a endowment to be leveraged like that. >> So it seems like you're anticipating not to go down that road. >> So I can't speak for the trustees but but um I don't from my point of view I don't think it makes sense. >> Thank you. >> I see councelor Brevik and Sam. Ka Bre, >> thank you so much. Um, I just had a question about the fundraising piece and wondering what your plans are for investing in development support or how you anticipate that type of increase in in fundraising revenue over the long term, >> right? Really good question. Um, as I said before, that's going to be very important uh going forward. Um you just to remind everyone uh so the trustees themselves are not uh doing the fundraising that's been part of the friends of the Jones libraries and that's where the capital campaign uh has been housed part of that um and I understand that you know going forward one of the things that the um friends are focused on is making that transition and starting to plan for uh if some of the endowment is used to pay the uh town um than how to you know ramp up um the fundraising. Uh so I think that's part of it. um the trustees are involved to the extent that there's been a memorandum of understanding between the friends of the Jones and the trustees regarding the fundraising and that's something that uh we're looking at again how can we um you know support the uh the friends and uh you know encourage [clears throat] the type of fundraising that we think is necessary for the library going forward. But I think again in my my view I think it it will involve um a um you know more personnel more efforts uh different types of um fundraising that's been done in the past uh for the annual fund. So I think that will be very important going forward. >> Sam, >> thank you Kathy. Uh and thank you Sean as well as Sharon and Nat for your presentation and comments. Uh you know it's good to hear that the project is the construction is going smoothly on a relative basis. That's uh good to see that there's not any uh major identified hurdles uh in front of us. Um, I do have questions andor concerns about the uh longerterm um financial situation uh coming closer to spring of 2027 andor a year past occupancy. Um, some of the questions have been asked already. One that jumps to my mind is has there been any indication to the Jones trustees that a a bank loan is a possibility? Have any banks indicated that they would be willing under you know have has there been any outreach to see if that's a viable path? Uh and similarly um would a bond issuance be viable? I assume it would be uh determined based on higher rates but has have those discussions or u outreaches been broached? >> Yes. Yes, we have had discussions with a couple of um uh banks and um um have had some indications. So the obviously that was a little while ago but um you know rates have changed and markets move but um that rough 7% uh rate that I was um giving as an example is probably you know the ballpark range we'd be in. Um so I've not gotten any indication that the um borrowing rate would be any closer to what we're earning on our um money market fund currently. I the the reason I inquire is uh I assume that any bank and or other lender would be looking at sources of revenues andor assets and my guess is um depending upon fundraising would be going towards the town. So without large sources revenues it would be uh leans on assets and or um pledges. Uh, [clears throat] in that light, I I did follow a prior couple of meetings and the building committee and the Jones library financing indicating that it's uh there's apt to be or at least there's currently a projected shortfall of library fundraising against what's needed to bridge the gap between the total amount. Uh and I'm wondering uh I assume the the library has considered these possibilities uh looking forward which we all would do. uh what would the plan be if for some you know worst case scenario best case scenario but if things don't go well would the plan B then to uh go into the endowment and if so a question that I realize this is slightly premature but it won't be that far out in the future um what would be the impact on the Jones if the endowment was significantly depleted uh to bridge the gap. Uh I understand there's operating expense uh contribution implications which you referenced that 157 I think you said distinct from the 180,000 but are there other uh uh implications of that of the of a smaller endowment to the just the um cohesiveness of the Jones? >> I I think it's really just the financial component. when I say just that's still a big a big part of it because that's really what the endowment um has meant um and I think that's why in addition to the um you know the annual support trying to increase the you know fundraising uh contribution for the annual support um personally I think it will also be important to try to um you know do the fundraising to build the endowment back up too. Uh, I think that's something that um um hasn't really been done in prior years. The endowment has been um really something we've been using to draw on for the operating support. It hasn't been something that we've been fundraising to build up uh for, you know, many many many years. Um and I think that's something that um I think makes sense to change going forward. It it seems to be quite a task. Uh the effort has been grand and significant. Uh we've all seen the uh outreach and fundraising efforts uh with contributions coming from many locations and tremendous effort. Uh but it's clearly challenging as well. Uh and we don't know the future. Um it it seems as though there'll be a competition for funds that are raised in terms of uh where that money might go. Has the Jones considered uh the use of an ongoing fundraising oper operation to fund future operations? uh that that is to say if the numbers play out the way they are right now it seems as though there'll be uh an operational contribution gap and might the Jones have and how would that impact you know does raising funds for the capital project versus raising funds for contributions to the operations are the distinctions there I guess the the way to phrase that is you know what might the Jones or Does the Jones have a contingency plan in terms of how they may um deal with a larger library with more staff for operations? Are you, you know, are you looking for more volunteers? I realize this is projecting farther than the current one or two cycles, but uh uh it it seems as though it wouldn't hurt to look forward and and I do I believe I can see some of the challenges that are faced. I don't know if that's a direct question or not. I guess the question is long-term operational contributions from the uh from the Jones and how the Jones envisions that might work. >> Well, I think on on the um on the fundraising side, again, I think the assumption going forward is that we will continue to rely on the Friends of the Jones as the fundraising entity rather than the the library itself or the trustees. Um, and so we need to be in conversation with them and and make sure that uh they're in a position to support the increased fundraising needs that we are, you know, trying to prepare for. Um, and yes, it would be um challenging um certainly, but the fact that over $10 million has already been raised uh for the building project is amazing, which I think is um you know, maybe gives us uh some encouragement that over the longer term that a you know beefed up uh fundraising um platform will be able to fund the library that um we're all looking forward to, you know, um having been built and uh and operating. So, um yeah, it will be a challenge, but I think that's the only, you know, the only choice we have. We'll have to u work on the fundraising with the friends to kind of fill in the amounts that um um that we might be losing from the endowment. >> Jeffrey Uh question for you on the draws that you're allowed to take. Now you mentioned previously it's around 4% but because of adding additional staff you're looking to draw uh 4.6%. Does the endowment have strict limits on what can be drawn as a percentage each year? >> Good question. We don't have strict limits. We have had a uh document that's been around for I think about 10 years um saying that the goal has been 4% um but the decisions are made every year. So the you know during the budgeting process we can decide to take a higher or lower uh draw but the um uh it's usually it's been based on a calculation that is a 12 quarter trailing um calculation. Uh so it doesn't get affected by you know market swing no short-term market swings. Um but that's just calculating that 4% uh or whatever it is. Um, but we're not limited. As long as the trustees vote, uh, we can choose whatever uh, amount um, uh, is prudent and and um, meets the library's needs. >> So, you're looking at a three-year rolling return average and trying to maintain draws underneath that. >> Yeah. Both three-year um, uh, rolling um, yeah, total value. Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you, >> Lynn. And then Kathleen, >> um, have you actually looked at what a loan, um, might look like and how that of the payment of the loan coupled with the, uh, keeping the endowment intact would play out over a period of years? >> I would say not in any in any detail. Um it >> the reason I'm asking this is because I think that you know the bottom line for the town is we're not in a position to do lots of increase in our operating support for the library. And if you um are if the endowment is dropped by a certain percentage or certain amount and therefore you do not have that operating money, the logical place you'll come looking is to the town. And I mean you don't have to look far to know what our budgets have been like last year and they're not getting any better. And so I I think what I'm feeling and I think what you're hearing from other people is a concern about that path and whether or not a different path at least should be explored even though borrowing money is um at a higher rate than you're presently making in the endowment. Um but what in fact does that picture look like? That's where I'm coming from. Yeah, it's a good question and I think you know one of the um it would be great if we knew that we would continue to be earning 10% a year on the endowment and we could borrow at 7%. That would be a great way to leverage. Unfortunately, what were um we don't know what future markets um returns will be and adding leverage uh would create even more risk in a downturn. Uh so I mean my view certainly is that leveraging the endowment in that way uh where our liabilities and our assets are you know mismatched um would create greater risk for the endowment and that means greater risk for the town too because um sure the endowment is um part of the Jones library but the Jones library really is part of the town. So certainly the way I view it is that we're all in this together and that we have to do what makes sense for uh the Jones Library and the town because they're not on different sides of the equation here that we're we're all you know part of the same um um you know financial uh entity in the bigger picture. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you. I have a sort of shorter term um question thinking about the short-term borrowing that may have to be um refinanced come March. Um I'm just curious if you if you guys have a an estimate or a goal of it looks like you have 2 million more in pledges and then another 6.1 million waiting to be secured. I'm curious how much if if you have any estimate of how much more you anticipate turning over to the town before that sort of March timeline whereby the town has to refinance and incur more interest um you know on on that borrowing if that makes sense. >> Yeah. So, uh, we I I've not seen that from the capital campaign, um, committee and and Sean, I don't know if that makes a difference from your point of view on when the cash is, uh, um, is coming in relative to that March date. Yeah, I think what um what I'll do next is we'll be in touch when we get closer to planning for it to see if any um contributions are are known uh to be made in the next 6 months, you know, 6 to 12 months. Um I know you guys just turned over a big chunk of um what you had. So, uh that to to your question, Kathleen, we'll be in we'll be communicating with the library about that >> and and Ned, that's a if there's eight and a 8.4 4 million or that number that has to be refinanced. If pledges came in at a million and a million and a half that you could secure a maternal, then the town doesn't have to incur the debt. That's basically what Kathleen was saying. You know, that that that date is March. Um and so if uh become 500,000 or or anything that does that means that the shortterm loan balon doesn't have to be as big and then doesn't have to incur the interest rate that that would incur. Um >> right. Yeah. So we don't we don't have that much control over the you know people people have pledged. Um it's usually been by um uh by year by calendar year uh and when those pledges come in during the calendar year. Uh we don't always know but certainly we might keep a small amount on hand for ongoing expenses. Uh but typically we're able to know turn over funds kind of as we as we receive them. >> Well maybe if everybody knew that it's more for the operating budget for schools and everything else if we don't have to pay debt costs. there there's an interaction here on the larger community as as taxpayers. Yeah. >> Jeffrey. >> Yeah. I was just gonna follow up and ask Sean like when we incur these costs or whatever the $100,000 are for um the short-term borrowing cost for the library project, is that coming out of general fund revenues? Is that something else that comes out of like capital funds? It's more like a capital project. where where are those dollars coming out and being accounted for in our actual budget? >> Um it comes out of the uh the capital allocation that we set aside every year which is it is part of the general fund. Um so whatever you know this past year we did it was 10 10.3 or 10.4 when it was all said or done uh percent of the levy went towards capital. And so the first thing we do with that allocation is we subtract our debt, our actual debt and projected debt payments. >> Okay. So it's money that could be used for like like >> it would go towards other most like it could go towards other operating um or like this past year it would probably go towards other capital needs um because there were definitely capital needs that we didn't you know didn't entertain because we didn't have enough money. >> Yeah. So now you mentioned it it's kind of on a calendar year basis. Is this something like historically could happen multiple times per calendar year? Because as as you mentioned like we're all in the same town. So if there's opportunities for the town to save money because of timing and it helps everybody. Certainly, it's a discussion and I can bring that up with the capital campaign uh committee uh to ask them if um uh if there are donors who are expecting to fulfill their pledges um whether that can be done by that March date and turn over to the town. Um that might be helpful. >> It would definitely be helpful. Um, Sam, Sam, um, you know, I think we're reaching a closure here, but go ahead. >> Uh, thank you, Kathy. I guess I have a couple of questions. One for Nat, one for Sean. Um, so, uh, Nat and or and and or Sharon. Um what's been the or has there been any um retraction of pledges? Those who have pledged to donate who have subsequently said we're not going to be able to follow through on what we said we were going to do. Is there a percentage of um I guess it would be lost pledges that what's been the experience of uh uh to date with that? What I understand, I'm gonna cut in there, Nat. [clears throat] What I understand is that we have had 666 people donate uh and two people have withdrawn their pledges um because they moved out of town. >> That's a pretty good uh pretty pretty high uh collection rate or pledge rate rather. Uh, and Sean, am am I correct that we're essentially looking at an 18-month time frame at which point the uh the balance would be expected and that planning should be from that date backwards in terms of time frames >> you're talking about for the for the due date for the turnover. Yeah. >> After occupancy. So the >> Yeah. Again, the MBLC, you know, there there are two sort of two either or in thatou agreement, but based on the part that we have more information about, which is the certificate of occupancy and the timeline, that would put us again April or May of um 2028. >> So that that would be the date at which moving backwards from a planning standpoint, time periods of we want to get this done by this point in time. whether it be bank loans or uh measure fundraising it would be because that's when the town would be at points of or even before then to anticipate operating budgets. Um okay, thank you. >> So I'm not seeing any other hands up and uh Sharon and Natt, thank you very much for joining us and being on the hot spot here. I'm I'm I'm sure you would like to say, "Oh, we just had another three million come in. We've we're bringing you some really good news here." So, but but but thank you very much. Um >> not not not today. Maybe that'll come later. [laughter] >> All right. So, you you both are free to leave unless you want to stay for the next topic, which has nothing to do with this. So, thank you. So, next on the agenda is uh a report from the ad hoc subcommittee and I'm going to let Kathleen present um what is a report. So, this was structured as a report to the finance committee, but if there's an agreement of the recommendations that are in or we amend any of those recommendations, we'll turn it into a report from the finance committee to the council. Um, and Kathleen already got an extension of we're report back by August 30th. So, we're we're not we're we're we're hoping to then get this to the next council. It's a combination of what what's been being recommended and if we agree on it, voting to have that be our recommendation. So, Kathleen, it's in your >> um I won't say a ton about it. I I hopefully everyone had a chance to look at it um after I circulated it. Um just in terms of process of how we got to this document, um our committee met twice. Um Sean was with us and super helpful and um you know, a lot of times it was us saying, "Well, this is something we'd kind of like to solve." and Sean had the solution of like this is what I could create to to make sure that that information is there or this would be the best place to put it. Um we got to these eight sort of general recommendations and we put them together in this document. We circulated it amongst our subcommittee. Um I incorporated most of the feedback I think that I got um from Kathy and from councelor Brevik there. I think there were only two sort of possibly unresolved um issues that we differed on or or like couldn't quite figure out how to resolve here. One was um had to do with sort of like how better to tie some of the budget um spending to the council goals. and we talked about whether it would be better to sort of pull that out into a section or highlight it um or like really pull it into each department section so that it was very obvious. And the way I left it was sort of a compromise that it could be sort of some of that could be pulled out um you know in into tables in the back of the budget but that things that really bubble up to be really important maybe they could be highlighted per department so that it just draws attention to it. And then the other one that we didn't fully resolve had to do with like whether we could have some kind of pie chart that broke out, for example, all the entirety of spending by schools, um, library and municipal operations. And it was very complicated because you start out saying, okay, well, I'd like to make sure that all the health insurance and pension costs, right? But then there's capital and then there's CPA and then there's Right. So I it's not resolved like I think I think the conclusion we came to is that this is important and that people have a sort of real interest in seeing all the money accounted for and sort of how it's split. but that it may not be possible um in the budget document itself just by because of a lot of the timing of when these um streams of funding are known. But that you know maybe this group can talk about that further at another time even um to see like maybe once a year we can see kind of that split um and figure out how to do that. So, I don't know if if folks have feedback um edits, you know, we can we can try to incorporate some of that and then hopefully pass this document along to the town council if if everyone um sort of supports these recommendations. Um, so I might just say a word about the second piece that Katherine talked about, you know, in terms and I'll use both either schools or library as an example in the town municipal budget for assessments is on pension is over $2 million for non-teer school employees. So it never shows up under school. um it just sits over there and and someone might know about it just because they're told about it, but it's not broken out. Then in and then in the capital budget side, both for the region and for the elementary schools, there's a large portion of the debt service that comes out of our capital budget that's for either one of those schools. And then if you took the library that we just talked about, there's the library operating budget, which is this very small slice of the operating budget, but there's the million plus another half a, you know, quarter of a million in debt service. So, it's that kind of, you know, if we talk about the whole general fund capital and and everything else, how much is for each? because um and where I first saw this is the Northampton mayor did this particularly for schools. So the other thing the town budget pays for by the way is we I double check with Sean so you can correct me Sean but when we get assessed for the charter school tuition assessment the town pays that it's not in the elementary school budget not for region but it does. So that is in our assessment under municipal. So you don't see it listed as school even though the reason it's have. So it was a how would you show it? And my sense is what the mayor in Northampton's done is she's done a once a year chart. So it's not part of the budget book per se, but a chart that explains that. Um so that that was the issue because it's you know doing it carefully and being prepared to do it again. Um then the goals was mainly that it it reads really long right now and is there a way to do it? But I just wanted to say there was this complicated that buried in the regular municipal and capital budget or allocations. So people see oh we're only x% of the total spending and actually it's a bigger percent you know h how and where could we show that and when so that that was that was the one we left you know how would should we do it how would we do it was a question >> Lynn you're you're muted >> yeah thank you um I I think this question you're asking is a critical one. It's one that uh the group of four towns that have talked have wrestled with and part of wrestling with it is agreeing what's in and what's out. And when you do that and you agree what's in and what's out then you basically have a map so that you can do it every year and then you can trace it that way. So you know one of the obvious ones is the issue of benefits. That's what what is the town paying in terms of the town side of the budget there actually for school people and and is there an estimate or is there some kind of percentage? Um another area is your debt payment. You talked about that. But then there are other areas that um get a lot are a lot more confusing. The one for instance about uh charter schools is terribly confusing at times. Um, but it seems to me that the way and I'm not clear this is something that should be in the budget book, but should should be able to be done once a year at a time when we think we have the best numbers for the past year, whether that's at upon closing the books in October or whenever it is. Um, and it's a matter of setting it up and it's almost like just a separate report. don't make it part of the budget. But people need to understand when we're talking about the budget that this line item includes this that goes over here because the you know again I'm going to go back to my own experience with this four group and you know it's like ma 50% is the magic number. if you get below 50% that you're spending on the schools. Well, depends on how you count whether or not you have 50% plus for the schools and we clearly do have over 50% that we pay towards the schools. Uh but then the other piece that I just really want to go back at and that is you can't compare a town that provides the level of services that Ammerst does to a town that has one or two police or maybe a fire a volunteer fire department. We're a different town. So, you know, if somebody says, well, you know, Lever spends 73% on education, it there's just no comparison. We aren't the same kind of town and we're never going to be a 73% for education town because our residents expect too many other services. So, I I encourage us to recommend that there be such a reconciliation, but not as part of the budget. That's where I would come from on that. >> Kathleen and then Sam. >> Yeah. And I'll just say that is how we left it right now is that the recommendation is like this is critical to get right and we need to sort of grapple with how to do it. And I think that another argument of not having it in the budget itself is that Northampton's budget is quite different than ours. Right? they have an other than ordinary maintenance category which encompasses a lot of capital that we keep separate in capital right so you can put a fraction of their sort of budget and it it looks very different than ours because we have capital separate so you know um I think yeah I think that's where we left it and if if folks agree then I think that it sounds like something that this this group can can grapple with at you know moving forward Sam. >> Uh, thank you Kathy and thank you Kathleen uh and the subcommittee ad hoc group for your efforts. Um, I I just took a look at some of the comments that I had feedback that I had submitted. Um, one I put in and I I really like the summary uh that is in the existing budget book on the in inside of the cover the pie chart that breaks it down by category. It may not be perfect, but as I look at this, and I think most people would want to go to a quick summary and then from there branch out. Uh, I found or find this type of visual, some of the ones that you use in many of your presentations, Sean, to be extremely helpful. the pie chart. The only suggestion I had was that we add the numbers with the percentages. Uh so I I personally would like to see a one-page kind of budget at a glance. Uh or [clears throat] uh you know or something along those lines because I think most people who are going to be looking at a 280 page document are going to go, okay, what can I look at that summarizes it? Uh I like what the uh group subcommittee has done in terms of suggesting that we consolidate the um charts and tables into one location. Of those charts, the ones that I like or look at first are the uh excuse me, it it's the ones on page I think it's 47 and 49. the general op revenue and expenses chart which I see that you're looking to expand on that to take all the other subcategories and put them beneath them. I'm not sure how that would look if those two pages would still be the summary and then there'd be or would it be simply an extended report but highlighting that and putting those charts together I think is a a a great um idea uh that that's what I was hoping to see the uh you know highlighting the particularly those first two pages of revenue expenditure sum summary the pie chart with numbers uh and referencing it in the table of contents so somebody who's looking there can go okay this is where it's at. Um [clears throat] I saw the discussion on staffing numbers. Um that's when I you know we talked about it previously that was those types of details were some of the things when I referenced that I hadn't really looked at it before. I hadn't looked at the budget book in terms of the detail of everything that's there. I kind of like them. uh segmenting them out into a single uh summary of all of them together in a staffing summary that might work. I don't know. But it's it's very useful information for me to see the trends by department. Okay, what do we have previous year? What do we have next year of staffing and whether it's done in a a single section as suggested you know wherever that seems good to me. Uh and the [clears throat] other comment two other comments I have is um I I think it's helpful and important to um make it easy for those looking at the report to uh be able to see some of the hidden expenses that one might not uh normally think of if they're not prone to. I call it the don't you know don't look in the basement specifically a summary of what actually is the underfunded amount of a summary page of the pension and to make it easy to locate and I see that it's recommended here to place them I believe that's what the intent is uh together with all the other uh with the health oped health health insurance pensions and workers comps I would like to see I see that the committee was hoping hoping to um do it on a per employee basis I believe you know it's not okay what's the it's what's the percentage of extra costs per that's the exact type of information that I think would be extremely helpful to everyone looking at it because a lot of folks may say okay we're spending $100,000 on this particular department well actually there's the builtin additional expenses of the healthcare and and the and the pension. So a clear delineation of whether it's exact I understand the actual actuarial dilemma of trying to retrofit that per per department. I could see that because it's different amounts but the the summary total of here's approximately where we're at in terms of what our long-term obligation is. You know how much we have to pay. you you mentioned, Sean, that we're going to be paid off by 30 uh 2034, I think it was 2033. So that number along with what the 1.4 1 point whatever it is per employee, I think would be very helpful. And the last thing uh that I thought might be helpful is a reference somewhere in the document uh of where we might on the towns. I don't know if it needs to be in there or not, but where someone could go on the town website to say, "Hey, here's our income statement. Here's our our other financial documents. Maybe it's all just in that one new section or highlighted section on the town website, which here's the financial information source, but it might be helpful to put it in there." Um, the other thing that I wrote down, which may not be applicable, is it'd be nice to see what the uh is similar to the don't go in the basement. I consider the uh deferred road expense. I realize it's not truly a a liability, but kind of is. Uh it'd be [clears throat] nice to see uh if there a page of a single summary page of hey here are some things that are out there that you might want to know about. I don't think we account for them as a a liability in the balance sheet but uh you know we know it's pending. So I I'm very pleased to see all the suggestions and uh I I find the communication of the report really helpful. Uh and in summary, uh pie chart with numbers on the first um revenue and expenditure summary at the front of the charts is great. Um pension indications somewhere of hey, here's what we owe, but also here's what it is per employee. Uh and I think that's about it. So, thank you for what you've done and thank you for listening to me, >> Lynn. I I don't want to I I want to make sure as we leave this conversation we recognize two things. Our budget book is already an outstanding budget book. Okay? >> And we want to thank the committee and Sean for engaging in this conversation because it's only going to improve what we can say to our residents. So thank you >> and and and Lyn we can certainly in the report back that can be the overall summary and this is making important information somewhat easier to find >> and in and easier to find and easier to absorb. So of P Sam is this one picture un unless people see it. It's the inside cover of the book right now the pie chart and you might not find it because you look for it later and it doesn't appear. Um you know if you had the book and you open it up it's not always where you would find it but but it was trying to make things easier but I think we can convey that Kathleen >> and put and putting numbers in it. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I will I will add that Sam. Um I yeah just to follow on to Lind I just want to say that Sean reminded us repeatedly that like we may be numbers people but not everybody accessing this budget book is a numbers person. And so that the budget book was built in a way to balance that and be accessible to all different types of people and learners. And so that was you know that's one of the things I think our budget book does really really well. And like we wanted to keep keep that aspect of it for sure. Paul. >> Uh, yeah. So, I really appreciate all the work that went into this and appreciate the recommendations as we put out put together the budget book for next year. I think um and I what I think that's really good about what I think was the challenges for the previous budget books has been people or finance committees in the past would ask for certain things that would go in the budget book and that would stay there forever even though that person who had that particular interest in something moved on. It wasn't relevant. My goal on this will be to create what what I think you've done is able us to open up the historical legacy budget book that we've used all the time and sort of look think of it new and creatively and looking at best practices that other communities do. Um I think there will be some losses in that. So we might be losing some trending data that we have always reported. That's always something we struggled with like oh do we take this category out and and a lot of times I think what the finance committee does when it looks at its budget is what's changed from the prior year and I think if we like we only have five years of data for performance indicators and that might go away so that might be a hardship for people not to see that trending data because we'll be introducing new trending data but that I think this is the opportunity to do that. I think it's really good. I think it's important to think about this not as a compendium of all financial information for the town of Ammerst. That's not what this is. This is a budget book that's designed for the next fiscal year for the council to make an informed decision about how to spend money for the next fiscal year. I will not be including additional reports that don't really re relate to that. You know, I think we'll we can talk about that and and look at that more detailed. I think there's other places for it. I like, you know, I think we can learn a lot from other communities and what's been successful and a lot of, you know, really good communities out there who are managed really well that have better budget books. I think ours is really big and people always always comment on it to me like wow how do you have the time to put a 280 page book together because it is challenging and and uh Sean has done remarkable to make it more efficient but it's still a ton of information that has to be gathered and some of it no one looks at and I think that there's different places to put some of that information and if there's in if there are questions that counselors have to that need information to make more informed uh decisions that we can always provide that. So, I really appreciate the work that the committee did and any other comments the council comes up with. Um, I'm welcome to listen to that. >> Sam, I see your hands up again. >> Uh, thank you, Kathy. Uh, well, again, I want to underscore what uh Lynn said and add to it that I think it's a phenomenal document and I I think your presentation, Sean, are fantastic. Uh, and you know, there's so much information. And it's kind of like shopping on a empty stomach. Which which ones are we get? Which ones do we want? We want it all. Um, so it's a great document. The the one other comment uh in terms of the feedback and the recommendations of the subcommittee was the references to the goals and challenges and the objectives. Uh I do I could envision that being challenging over time to incorporate given the number of the communications because it's kind of like it's kind of like an HR element and a finance element you know it's kind of a performance management type uh so I assume that it would be a work in progress uh yeartoyear and that there may be tweaks that come a subsequent year as well. I would envision there uh not being quite as smooth a process on that one just because of the implications of it. Um but I really did like seeing them in this budget book that we reviewed because it provided some uh um context to uh the financial information that was provided. So, I'm not sure how that's going to play out in terms of uh you know goals and time deadlines affiliated with them. It'll be interesting to see, but um I envision it being a step-by-step process in the right direction. Thank you. >> Let me ask, you know, I Sam provided some very specifics that we can incorporate. Um yeah, I don't think we did that pie chart and said that pie chart with numbers so we can include that in to see it early. So are people basically okay with this rewarded to start with it's a great budget book and this is and whatever and then send it up with the this is the recommendations that are coming up from the finance committee as per the ad hoc. You know, I don't think we need to take this is some of these things were left with Sean will figure out whether it's easy or hard to do, whether this is done shortterm or long term. Um and so we left lot it wasn't uh so I don't know whether we need to put it to vote or just a basic are people comfortable with this and we'll rewrite it into a report from finance up to everyone and pe and I'll share that report we have and then it would be on the docket for the 28th for the next council meeting I'm seeing sh you know it's you know it's it's it's a set of ideas rather than a a detailed guide. Um, okay. So, I will take this and change the way it starts a little bit with the praise of it and Kathleen can and I both took we all took notes and then the next thing you'll see is our report back up about the budget book review. Great. So, it it's 2:59 um and we were scheduled to go till 3. The only other item is for Sean to just give us the timeline on FY28. Um, and Sean, if you want to put that quickly up on the screen and we can come back to this at the next finance committee meeting and it will potentially have the auditor's report. >> Yeah. So, I'll be brief. Um, and some of these these dates are tentative. Um, you know, I'm not sure what the discussion was last night. Some of these dates might have changed a little bit, but this is sort of the road map for the next several months to get us through the issuance of budget guidelines. Um, just to kind of keep everyone in the loop. And there's a couple different components that we're introducing this year to be uh responsive to some of the feedback that we heard last year. Um, one of them is uh to start BCG a little bit earlier. And so we have a BCG meeting scheduled for the end of the month. Um and we're going to have a couple meetings with them to provide feedback to the finance committee. The finance committee will still be responsible for drafting the um the budget guidelines for you know for the town, but this will allow BCG to have a more active role at the front end in terms of um providing input into those those guidelines. Um so you'll see again the first thing on here the 30th and then plan for BCG again to meet shortly thereafter um after the financial indicators are issued and then even maybe one more time um to provide final input to the to the finance committee and then the group will meet I expect you know one or two more times during the budget cycle. Uh and then the other change that we um put into this calendar is to try to get some of the department head feedback earlier in the process. Um I think Anna that was you know some of the feedback we received from you. So we would invite not all department heads but some of the larger department heads of schools public safety u public works um to provide some input and share some feedback with finance committee during the drafting of the guidelines. Um, so you could hear, you know, you'll for I'm imagine if Guilford comes, you'll hear from him about diesel costs and things like that that are, you know, hurting their budget, similar things like that for the school. So that's a way for the finance committee to hear a little bit more directly from department heads on, uh, what's impacting their budgets before they set guidelines. >> Uh, I see Anna has her hand up. Anna, >> Sean, I could cry. Thank you. Um, this is this is like a huge step in the direction I've been hoping we would go and I'm really grateful for the work that you put in on this. Um, my only recommendation I think would be if it's possible and and request or re I don't know what it is thought. Um, BCG has never created budget guidelines before. So, it might be really helpful to provide them with some sort of template or expectations going into it as to what uh what they should kind of be aiming for, right? um not necessarily recommendations for what the budget guidelines would exactly be, but just uh what what they could give finance that would be helpful for us. Um and yeah, just giving them some sort of guidance on that would be would be beneficial, I think, so we don't just end up with something that finance isn't really able to utilize in creating the budget guidelines. I trust BCG. I mean, I think that they've all been around the the the block and know what they're doing. And as finance, we're the ones that will be using what they come up with and it it might be helpful to kind of just be on the same page about what we're going to receive from them. >> Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. And um we are going to intentionally try to have those meetings be very structured. I think last year they were a little less structured. Um and so for example, our first meeting it's just going to be everyone talking about you know what are the the cost drivers the opportunities that they see in the budget. Um you know trying to make it more collaborative like it used to once be. It was a very collaborative process. That was one of the things that really u made Ammeris budget process unique is that we had all these structures that brought everyone together to build the best budget as opposed to people kind of pulling the budget apart and trying to you know just you know be kind of territorial. So trying to get back to a more collaborative approach um with but the BCG uh committee and um so yeah that's good feedback >> but generally thank you so much. This is great. >> Uh so councelor Brevik and then Lynn. So, I'm not actually sure where this question fits into on our agenda, but I I'm wondering about the information report back about the closure of JCPC projects or joint capital planning committee projects that Sean I feel like we talked about as part of that process this past year. You mentioned it was a little bit off cycle due to staffing changes and different things that meant that the normal cycle of like checking in to see the status of JCPC projects, you know, we like skipped a year and we were kind of getting trying to get back onto a cycle with that. I guess I'm just wondering where that's at and then how that information report back is is included in I guess potentially part of this process. What you don't you don't hear is she doesn't see the um cash capital discussion Sean here. >> Yeah. Well, so joint this is not we haven't gone to joint capital planning committee. Um again I I didn't want to overwhelm with the full budget calendar. So this is really an outlook through December. Um joint that discussion and conversation would happen um with the joint capital planning committee which would happen in February or March. Um and it would be part of So we've for example we've sent all the capital projects out to every department head. We've asked them for updates on their spending especially the older ones. Um we've received updates on ones that can be closed out. Um those funds then become available for the next round of capital planning um like we did this past year. And so uh that the natural place where that happens would be as part of the capital improvement program and through discussions with the joint capital planning committee. >> Okay. because I thought you said that it it it it was had historically possibly been a fall activity that would >> it's a fall activity in terms of the department heads doing their part in terms of reviewing um like closing out their projects, >> but we still won't get the information on that until after the budget guidelines process is completed. >> It's always been something that's been part of the capital planning process. It hasn't been like a separate um fall discussion to to my knowledge. It's always been part of the capital planning process because it's that's the source of funding. >> Okay. >> Lyn, >> is there still a plan to have a joint meeting of all the boards in early October? >> I think so, unless something changed last night. Um Paul, you can tell me otherwise. Uh I we intentionally didn't include that meeting on this calendar because I I view that meeting as sort of separate from the annual budget process. It's more of a long range uh financial challenges opportunities discussion and not really specific to just FY28. So I didn't want to put on the budget calendar but I think we are planning that for October. >> Yes. October 5th. >> Yes. Thank you. I wanted to make sure that Yeah. because the finance committee even and the including the non- voting members are invited to that. >> Okay, thank you. >> We we will thank you everyone and thanks for that calendar. Um right now um tenatively the audit report would be available at our next meeting but but Sean will let us know what is um you know our next meeting isn't until October. So it's um you know we're I think but in any case Sean we we'll get out to you how this various information flows are coming through the finance committee and it is 3:07 and I am going to make a motion to adjourn and thank everyone for being so coming prepared to the meeting. Is there a second for the motion? >> Second Gothier >> and I'll put it to a vote. Lynn, >> hi. >> Kathy is a yes. Kathleen, >> yes. >> Anna, >> hi. >> Joe, >> yes. >> Sam, >> hi. >> Councelor Brevik, >> yes. >> And Jeffrey Robert, >> yes. >> And if there are any follow-up questions, just send them through me and I'll get them to Sean. So, thank you all very much. And we are adjourned at 308.