March 10, 2026 – Board of Public Works – Video & Transcript
March 10, 2026 - Board of Public Works
I heard about Mike, and you'll join us when he comes back.
Let me first read the introduction.
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I'm going to call it to order with first being a roll call vote.
Judy?
Here.
Mike Spelman?
Here.
Ed?
Yes.
Yes.
And George is here.
So we have four of the members in attendance.
And as I stated before, Mike will join us in a little bit.
First thing is any announcements by anybody? I have none. Board members, any? Okay. Next then we'll... I'm sorry? I'm sorry, I said none here. Okay. Next, at the next section is public comment. Do we have anybody for public comment? No, I see no public comment. Okay. Good. Moving right along. The next one is town meeting warrant articles, discussion and possibly vote. Let's start, if we can, with the SRF update. Tom? Sure. I'd be happy to. So as you know, last July 2025, the town submitted an application to the Clean Water Trust for consideration of a 0% interest loan. Included in that submittal was a ranking sheet that asked for predicted ratings based on understood ranking criteria. The top tiered projects are considered tier five projects and are scored at 500 points and are projects that address compliance with federal or state drinking water standards, and more particularly those projects that reduce PFAS levels to concentrations below regulated standard. And so that is where our project was to have fallen into that particular category, a tier five. With that ranking sheet, we predicted that our submitted ranking would be 500 points. Upon receiving notification a week and a half ago of the draft intended use plan, which is the list of accepted projects, we learned that Wayland was not included in the 2026 loan program. Upon review of Wayland's score sheet that we received from MassDEP, we learned that rather than the predicted 500 points, we were ranked at 200, far less than what we feel is the proper value for that particular ranking. In phone conversations and email exchanges with SRF representatives and those at the Division of Water Investment, which are overseeing this program, we have been unable to learn how our project was misunderstood to not completely meet that tier five ranking. We had been counseled. We had heard from representatives. They attended our meetings. I think you were all a part of that. And we had been counseled that our project, as described, would be a shoe-in for funding selection. We have told State Water Fund representatives that we'll submit a written appeal of this ranking, as well as provide testimony at a hearing that's scheduled for March 24th, of which I am already registered to present at that. Our conversations with SRF representatives lead us to believe that we do have a chance at a successful appeal. So that's what we are striving for at this particular point. I was told that upon hearing from us and receiving written appeals, that a decision would be made within the month of April. So my hope is that although that decision won't be learned until after the warrant is printed and distributed to voting members of the town, that if our appeal is successful, that we will have the ability in our narrative on town meeting floor to give an update on the status of receiving this loan.
Okay. And that's my update. Thank you. From board members, any questions for Tom? Judy? Thank you, Tom. Can we, as board members, get a copy of the appeal before you send it in, or have you sent it in already? Nope. That's still being crafted, so I'd be happy to provide that. Great. What we're going to do is we're going to focus on, you know, there was a narrative, a project narrative, and we listed all of the things that we thought were of importance that would have achieved that 500-point ranking. We'll certainly reiterate that, but I think I'll spend a lot more time writing and talking about, it seems from some of the communications from DEP that they thought that our happy, hollow treatment system was, you know, achieving its goal was a permanent system, although it was stated that it was not. But I'll be focusing on that not being the case, clarifying that, talking about, you know, how we don't have any other options than to build a new plant and really hone in on some of those things. That's why it had to have been totally misunderstood. And there's really, there's no communication between, once we submit that project application, you know, I would have thought that since they ask us to predict what we feel is our ranking, and we put it so high, that when they were considering us and came in much lower, that we would have received some communication saying, hey, if we miss something, is there? And I don't have any experience in not receiving the loan. I've sought and applied for many, many SRF grants in my career and have always gotten them. So this is new territory for me. But yeah, there was no communication whatsoever that they ranked us far lower than what we had, you know, thought it to be. Yeah, and I think the other points to make is the fact that the Happy Hollow Well does not currently have the capacity to do it, and the other wells are not there, and that our system is a least pilot system and is not a permanent solution and is starting to fail. I mean, I think those are a couple big issues that they have missed. Yeah, I agreed, agreed. So we will be honing in on those, and I'd be happy to provide that appeal right up once it's developed. Okay, good. One thing I think is we are getting new water from MWA, which is not considered as water quality problem. So that could cost our, you know, application some point. And because of the grant itself is only, it's an interest-free loan for water quality improvement only. So, I don't know, can we discuss with them about, you know, we do partially apply for the grant for build a new treatment plan first, plus some water mean. Then later on, we can add some, if we can, get the MWRA water online. So there's two things that I can respond to that is I would prefer to apply for the total project because there is a benefit of becoming an MWRA community prior to December of 2027, and that's a $7 million value of an entrance fee waiver. But I can, in my write-up, and also when I testify, that we would prefer to get full funding from the SRF loan, but if at all possible, perhaps there's partial funding, that they would fund one portion, whether it's the Happy Hollow treatment plant and not the other. Anything would be a help when compared to where we're sitting at right now. So, yeah, that's what, that's what I mean, you know, we're trying to see we can apply it in a two separate application. So we can get first, get one first, then we can, you know, hopefully we'll get another. Yeah, I would assume that will impact the timing. And also, if I remember right, wasn't there some coordination with the switchover while we were going to have to be using MWRA water as we switch the sources from the old Happy Hollow to the new? Yes, you know, since we're actually using a whole different disinfection process, we'll be using chloramines. It would be a lot better to be converting over those two components of the project at the same time. The other thing, because I know there's always people look at Wayland saying, oh, you're a rich community, so you don't need to help like other people do. And I don't know if that had any impact, but one of the points that we can make is that having to go on the market borrowings will significantly increase the cost to our citizens in terms of water rate. And Brian can probably give us the percentage, unless you have it, of the number of senior citizens that would be negatively impacted by having that significant increase versus the SRF loan. Yeah, I mean, I do know when we apply for grants, you know, Wayland is not considered a disadvantaged community. That's the characterization that they use. So we are passed over on grants that we apply for because of that reason. But I have to say from what I've seen and what I've experienced that this SRF loan program really takes into consideration the strength of the project rather than the wealth of the community. So I don't think that that played into this ranking. It may not, but it can't hurt. Can't hurt. Nope. Yep. So put that out there. Okay. Anybody else have any other SRF questions?
There was one thing while I have the floor, George, and while I can still talk, I just wanted to take a moment, there has been some, you know, conversations, discussions recently about if we do not receive this 0% interest loan and we have to go with a more conventional loan and there's an increase in the cost of the project, perhaps that we should, you know, defer the project, try again a following year. And I want to say, and I'll say it tonight and I'll say it in the future when asked, we need to advance this project on schedule now for a number of reasons. I mean, obviously the SRF loan program was one deadline, but the other one that I mentioned was the $7 million entrance fee waiver. And also that we have impending PFAS regulations that are going to be promulgated between 2029 and 2031 that we currently don't adhere to. Delaying it a year will prevent us from meeting those regulations. And also, as I've spoken to this board about before, is that we are making regular repairs to our current systems and Happy Hollow is at half capacity. Baldwin Pond is at half capacity. If we do not get this project started and completed by 2029, we truly risk not being able to provide potable drinking water to the town. We have our emergency connection with the MWRA, which was a great decision to build that, but that is extremely expensive, and it's also not intended to be used entirely as our water supply. So there should be no expectation of using that as a permanent supply of water. So when asked, I will say that we should not delay or defer this project based upon the news of this loan program.
Thank you. The next topic is... George, if I could jump in. Go ahead. Let the minutes show that Mike has joined us. Thanks. The idea of splitting I don't think is a good idea either because at peak times, we wouldn't be able to provide compliant water because we'd have to utilize water from one of the other sources that contains above-the-limit PFAS. That's correct. So the decision we made to go with both of these simultaneously as a combination, your point is heard and correct. Yep. Sounds good. Okay. Thank you. If we can go to article H, and before we start to go into the article, Tom, can you put up the debt service schedule that went out to the board? Okay. Bear with me here. Debt service schedule. That's the one that shows the level payments and equal principle that I pulled off of the hilltop. I think I have... Bear with me. Let me see if I can get it. Stand by.
All right. Let me see if I can share. If not, I can try and do it. Yeah. I think I got it.
Can you see that? You just have a blank screen. There we go. Okay. Can you make that any larger at all? Get rid of the stuff on the right? Yeah. Let me see. Bear with me.
Does that do it? No, but we can work from there. Now I've lost it completely on my screen now that I just minimized things. So, okay. This is an analysis that was pulled from the hilltop information, and this is not meant to be the actual numbers that we could get today. It's just to show you the difference in debt service in terms of different options, and what option we would pick probably would wait until the borrowing time because things can change. But you can see that when we say level debt payment, that's like a mortgage that you would get. We pay the same amount principally every year, 30 years or 20 years. And the equal principal amount is where you have the same amount of principal paid each year, then the interest is on the unpaid principal. So you can see, for example, that in 29, if you did a 30-year debt service payment at 4%, it saves you about $1.2 million versus the equal principal. And it evens out as you go forward because, again, your equal principal, the amount goes down where your level payment stays basically the same. So if you take a look, for example, at 44, the level debt principal payment would be $2.250,000, whereas the 30-year equal payment would be $2,030,000. So you can see that's about when you start to get the switch over. So that just kind of gives you a feel of the impact of the debt level and the various options. Now, the other thing to keep in mind is they ran all these scenarios at 4% interest rate. In communication from them, the comment was made that if you go to the 30-year timetable, it would be more expensive, most likely, than the 25 or 20 because people want to get a better return for going out farther. And then there's always the issue of what the market is like when you go out and to see whether or not that level debt payment is even available. The other point that they made is that it also has an impact in terms of the town borrowings and the amount that's outstanding because, obviously, in the level debt, your amount of debt outstanding is higher than the equal principal. The other thing to keep in mind is that the interest in $27,000 for debt service that we already have is $2.4 million, which is $1.7 principal and $700,000 of interest expense. So that kind of gives you a flavor. Now, one of the issues that the board will need to take a look at going forward, and Brian can give us some feedback on this, is that if you remember, we have a fund balance and cash balance. The fund balance at the end of $25 was $1.4 million, and the cash balance was $1.2 million. Well, as you get this large debt out there that's going to be due in November, for example, of $29,000, I'm sorry, $28,000, which is physical year $29,000, you have to have enough cash on hand to make that payment. So you've got to look at not only the expense for the year, but also the cash flow in terms of making the debt service. Brian, you want to chime in on that? Yeah. So George is, uh, George is correct. If you take a look at the top line straight across, no matter which plane you go with, uh, it would appear that you don't have enough cash to make the payment. Um, we don't know how to solve this problem yet. You know, some of the things we could do is do what we did this fiscal year with a general fund, loans money to another fund to cover its expenses for a period of time. The money has to be returned by June 30th. I mean, that's something that we might be able to do with this. We did it this particular year with capital items. I don't know if we can do it with an enterprise fund, but you can clearly see that the value of the fund needs to increase between 27 and 28, heading into 29 to at least try to get to that cash balance point. You're going to have other things going on by the time you get to November, you're going to have payrolls being paid. You're going to be collecting money. So there are other things going on. However, when you look at this, you do see that there's a significant shortfall in cash, no matter which option you go with. So it's an unsolved problem right now. And remember, it's not only the amount that you show there, but also the additional debt service that we have on existing debt that we've already issued. So that's about 2.4 million, of which probably 2 million is due in November, on top of what's going to be here. So as we set the rates, we need to keep an eye on that. Any questions? For context, can you provide info on who Hilltop Securities is? They're the investment banker that the town uses that floats and negotiates all the debt.
Thank you. My pleasure. Any other questions?
Yeah, I think the payments are, these are the payments. So level debt payments, 30-year and 20-year on the left side. And so if we choose, let's say we chose to go with the equal principal, we'd have to pony up a lot more cash in year one. That is correct. Yeah. Okay. Now, the issue is, again, what's the difference in rate between the, not only the term, but also the type of loan? And then what is the availability in the market? Would there be, or what would the appetite be for a $36 million loan, roughly, on a level debt payment over 30 years? And if the appetite is low, the cost is higher, assuming you can get it.
Got it. So we might say, hey, we want to do level debt service for 30 years, but need to see. And then the other thing that we were warned about from Hilltop is that the term for the borrowing has got to be related to the, whatever the funds were used for. So it has to have at least that much life. So they may, the underwriter or the people that are looking at the bonds may say, hey, this doesn't have that much, a 30-year life, for example, even though we may think it does. Right. Good questions. Anything else?
Judy? Mike Spelman? Ed? No.
Okay. So that's kind of a look-see at the impact. Everybody got in it. Thank you. Got a copy of Article HH.
And just curious, anybody have any changes, questions on the article that went out?
FinCom is doing an excellent job, Carl. We appreciate that. And thank you for your first draft, which we incorporated liberally from. I did get some comments in the last 24 hours from, I believe, either Tom or Mike or both. I don't think they require a re-vote. I'm going to be looking, I wanted to look at them today. Life got away from me. But we will certainly take those into consideration. But I think we're very close, if not done. Okay. We'll assume for our vote that they're very minor. Mike, is that a truism? Absolutely. That's my view, too. Okay. So, Tom, we need a vote on that?
I am uncertain as to whether you need. I mean, it wouldn't hurt. It can't hurt. If we're not certain, then we'll take a vote. Can I get a motion to accept Article HH as drafted in principle?
Somebody?
That's not in our packet, right? Yes, it was. It was. So moved.
It was that it went out after a separate item. I don't remember which. Okay. Yeah, I don't see it. But while you're depending on the motion, Carl, do we have a vote listed for the Board of Public Works in the write-up already?
I'll have to look, Carl. I'm not 100% sure, but I'll look right now. Well, I would have included one.
It's not listed on the article. I believe you took one, but go ahead. Well, it's just so we're getting a vote on the final form in principle. Judy made a motion. Can I get a second? Second. Ed seconds. Roll call vote. Judy? Yes. Ed? Yes. Just a quick discussion. I think we really should have an article to reference, at least share it on the screen if you have it separately, but it's not in the packet. So we should have an article that we're referencing to vote on. It went out to you on Monday, by the way. So to answer Carol's question, the latest version I've seen and the one that FinCom approved says that BPW has approved 5-0, as has the select board. Yeah. Point of order, Mr. Chair, is that you don't vote the write-up. You vote to support the article. Okay. The finance committee, as you know, has full control, editorial control over the comments, the pros and the cons. The select board has over the title, the estimate costs, and the article description. Okay. I see it on page two where it's 5-0-0 that we voted. So I assume that we don't need to do anything with this. I don't think so. But if you'd like to vote supporting the article again, that's fine. Just not the write-up. I think you're good. Right, Carol? Okay, I got you. Okay, thanks. But if it's done and we supported the article before, then the wording changes really are moot. Right. Okay. So let's move on, then, to Article E, which I believe was in your package.
Yes. On Friday. Yeah. Okay. A couple things that I noticed is, first of all, there's an article, question, question in the fourth line on top. So I assume somebody will fill that in.
What was the question, George? I'm sorry, Carol Martin, Lake Grove, member of the select board. Sorry. No problem. The Article E draft, fourth line, says, article, question, question, as printed. Oh, that's the select board. That's in the text. Then what happens is we'll reference the, Brian, we referenced the budget article there, right? I'm looking at it now. That's, he's in the text where it says, because these numbers, once they get voted, then end up in the omnibus budget. So last year was like Article 10. Yes, George. Okay. As soon as Brian confirms what I'm saying, we'll take care of that.
Okay. Water, where it says, number one, water revenue, the $6,246,000. Again, we've talked about the $200,000 that is going to be from retained earnings. So, Brian, I'm not sure that that number is before or after the $200,000, but that $200,000 should be noted.
And I believe the revenue number should be $6,046,000. Well, the way it works, George, is that this is the board of selectmen article. And town management gave the select board our recommendation on the use of retained earnings. We do not support the use of retained earnings. It's been a position we've had for a bunch of years now. As we've talked about before, your fund balance has gone from $4 million in 2013 down to $1.4 million. You don't know how the results are going to be for 26, but you just saw on a debt schedule that you have debt payments coming in at 29, greater than the amount of money you have in the fund. So, it's town management's position that retained earnings cannot be used for any reason within the water budget, whether it's a capital or for operating expenses. But the, I happen to agree, but as chairman, the board voted to use that $200,000. But that's not binding, George. This is the board of selectmen's article. Well, wait a minute. You've told us before that we can't use retained earnings unless it's in the warrant. And now you're telling us, even though we've voted to include it in the warrant, that you're not going to allow it. So, that's our recommendation to the selectmen, yes.
Carol?
Yes. Please enlighten me on why the board, who is in charge with setting rates, and has said they want to set the rates without the $200,000. Oh, and by the way, that doesn't mean that, as part of the rate setting, that one of the expenses is to put in X dollars for the MWRA project to build the reserve. But the question is, how to fund the contingency?
Does the select board really want to go to town meeting with the comment that they have overruled the Board of Public Works, who's in charge of setting rates? I believe that the select board voted last night to support the recommendation of the town manager and the finance director. We did have a discussion about this, and I had said back in the fall that I know that you do this, I know you take a vote on this, and I had personally recommended let you do it through this year. But come May, as we've said umpteen times during the discussions of Article HH, we need to have a major serious discussion about the rate setting come May. We have huge tsunami bells coming, and we really need to look at this. If the Water Fund, as Brian has told us, a number of times defaults, and there's not enough funding in your retained earnings, the general fund will be on the hook for that. That will throw our budgeting completely out of whack. If you have to use retained earnings above and beyond and dip into your retained earnings, that affects our fund balance, which will affect our ability to borrow money. We have a AAA community. We're required to keep a minimum of 20, and now they would like 25% of our budgets. Right, Brian, is that the right word? And that's fund balance set aside. So I personally, I personally tried, I spoke for your decision, but the select board voted last night to not include retained earnings as a funding source. If you'd like to come and appeal at Monday night, we're meeting Monday night, you're welcome to do it. Okay, just for a point of clarity. It's our purview to recommend revolving fund article budgets, skimp pending caps, and enterprise fund budgets to the town meeting. That is our encode. I'll let that Brian find it because I don't see it in the article. Okay. The thing to keep in mind, by the way, is the difference is not in the ability to pay it in the year. It's a cash flow timing issue, as Brian said. So it's not a matter of not having the money built into the rates. So the interesting thing, though, George, is this year you're going to use your 200, about 160 already of, I think Brian reported, 160 of the contingency will be used to fund the connections to the emergency. I'm sorry, I've got it backwards. For the water, excess water we had to have. That's true. So you're using 200 of retainers. I think that's what swayed the board. No. But that's not a truism. That's not true. It isn't? Well, it's true in terms of contingency is going to be there and use a good part of that 200. But the issue is that the revenue is going to be higher than forecasted to offset a lot of that. I don't have the proposal that Tom worked on right here in front of me. But is my memory right, Tom? So in some of the recent spreadsheets that we've been discussing, we are including the $85,000 that's been predicted that would be an increase in revenue based upon converting to quarterly billing. You know, so we'll know better on that as we get closer to the fiscal year, but in some of our discussions we've been including that, but that has yet to be, you know, experienced. So I think the risk is we'll continue to set the rates for what we think is reasonable to get to the target that the board sets. So we'll continue to do that. That may put Brian in a little hot water with DOR, though. Again, this was intended to make sure that we end up with more revenue than expected and cover our costs. And as a historical note, we've hit those targets, those retained earning targets, almost without fail and very close in the years where we haven't. And I think Tom can attest to that. So we're very careful about how we set our rates. And regardless of whether or not you put this in, we're going to set the rates the way we set the rates. But keep in mind, Mike, you can only use retained earnings if Tom Ening approves it. Nope. You've told us differently. And we've followed that. If we end up with a shortfall, then we end up with a shortfall and retained earnings covers that.
That's true. It's not retained earnings that covers it. It's fund balance. But for you to set your rates with the use of an amount of money that you refer to as retained earnings can only be used if Tom Ening votes that. If, for example, your budget for fiscal 26 is $4.8 million, let's assume that you set the rates to bring in $4.8 million and you actually spend $4.8 million. But in reality, you bring in $4.6 million. You have a $200,000 shortfall. That $200,000 shortfall comes out of fund balance, not retained earnings. Retained earnings, the C is a DUR certified number. So any shortfall of revenue to expenses comes out of your fund balance. Fund balance is really your historical revenues received against your historical expenses paid. Just like in private accounting, which is retained earnings, it's the same thing. There's no difference. So any shortfall in revenue to expenses automatically comes out of fund balance. But to set the rates by using retained earnings can only be used if Tom Ening votes it. And DUR was clear with that when they met with us in the summer. We'll set the rates the way we determine. We're going to set the rates to hit the target retained earnings. Retained earnings is a subset of the fund balance, right? Correct. So you've got your fund balance, then you've got your subset, which is retained earnings. I think we understand this pretty well. I think we've been through this a number of times. I understand your recommendation. We'll set the rates the way we decide to set the rates. Whether or not you're working in coordination with us to make sure that we don't get in trouble with DUR, that's your decision. But please don't complain to us. Mike, with all... Well, I think your issue is going to be with the Select Board, not with DUR. DUR won't get involved. If you use retained earnings to set your rates next year and it's not approved at Tom Ening, I mean, that's an issue the Select Board is going to have to deal with. Yes. Mike, with all due respect, one of your comments about the expenses that ignores is the continued revenue shortfall, that that contingency does not only cover expenses, but also revenue shortfall? Yes. Okay, and that revenue shortfall has reduced so you don't have the $200,000, but you also have the encumbrances. So, you know, this is the major reason that I decided not to rerun for the board because I did not want to be party to what I consider financial lack of due diligence or whatever you want to call it. So, I think we know what the play is. We know why it's here now. And so, you know, the board next year when they set the rates are going to have to deal with it.
And one other thing, when we come and talk, we don't want to have, you know, an adversarial conversation. We're here to give our best advice and be helpful. If the water fund continues to use retained earnings, it's going to probably get to the point where the general fund is going to have to step in and use free cash. So, we'd be drawn into this irregardless. We're only trying to give everybody here some sound advice on how to manage the budget. We don't want to have an adversarial conversation. It's the facts of what they are. You're at $1.4 million right now, as George said, at the end of the year. We're only trying to give sound advice to get that balance back up and growing north instead of south. You may have a shortfall in fiscal 26. Your fund balance would yet drop again. So, when we come and give advice, and we've done it in the past, Louise and myself have come in the past. I wrote a letter to Nam Balmer and Chris Brown when he was the chair about the depletion of free cash back in 2016. When the Board of Public Works wanted to use 1.3 of retained earnings for the water meters, we again, Louise and I, spoke out and said that was not a good sound idea. You're depleting your fund balance. So, when we come with these things, we're doing it only because we're trying to help. We're not trying to have an argument with you folks. We're just trying to give you the facts as we see them. Thank you.
Enterprise fund, the first line, check your math because I think it's 27.8 versus 27.9. It's probably rounding, but you just may want to have somebody check on that, Carl. And then on the transfer station one, on the second line, it says salaries should be a dollar sign before the $37,000. And where it says, for an assessment of, I know EF is enterprise fund, but it probably should read transfer station enterprise fund. So, it's clear as to what it relates to. Where do you see the dollar sign, George? Transfer station on page three, second line, in salaries, and it says $37,000, but there's no dollar sign, at least on my copy. Yeah, George, there's a, I think, might be a later version of that. I saw one today, didn't we? It's page six. But we should check for that. Second line down.
And then in the fourth line, where it says assessment of EF operations, you might want to say transfer station enterprise fund or EF operations. So, it's clear, even though the section is transfer station.
How recent is that version that you have? Has it been in the packet a few days? It came out Friday. Yeah. So, Carl, we saw one earlier. Sorry, Mr. Chair, popping in here. Sorry. I think I saw one today, and it did speak a little bit more clearly. I think, Michael, you'll like this, is that it talked about that $50,000 as not a subsidy, but as a payment. And then it, on the line, speaks about it as a payment for services provided by the transfer station to the town. Pam and I have worked on this and feel strongly. I'm sure Mr. Wiggabaya will join me on this one. Definitely. That, you know, we're receiving $50,000, but we're pretty sure the cost is closer to $60,000. And so, I think there was some, some of the select board comments include that. Okay. With all due respect to the select board, Carol, giving us $50,000 and then hitting us with $81,000 is not a positive result. No, I don't, I don't blame, I don't think this, I agree. Sorry, I have the wrong sentence. And one of the things I don't understand is that if we're contributing about $60,000 worth of labor for the town, I don't know what percent that is of the total salaries, but I would think that that portion of the indirects belongs to the town, not to the transfer station. So, just my two cents for today on that.
Yeah, but, you know, coming up with charges you'd never hit the transfer station before, when we've got a consulting study going on and trying to figure out what to do, to me is, let us say, less than desirable and leave it at that. Understood. Let the minutes show. Don't just worry. Is the consulting study funded by General Fund as well? Or is that the sticker holders are paying for that study? That's General Fund. That was what they gave us the $50,000 for last year.
I thought that was the subsidy, and they asked that we use that subsidy for a study. Well, they weren't going to give us a subsidy, and then we talked about the consulting project. They agreed to continue it for one more year. Well, it's a break-even, so there's no point in that. I think he used them $58,000 of retained earnings in 2006 to fund that study.
Well, just for clarity, the use of retained earnings is a net result of revenue versus expenses. And that revenue included $50,000 from the town as a subsidy that, when it was made last year, was in recognition of doing the consulting study. If we had not agreed to do the consulting study, I have no support that says we would have gotten the $50,000 subsidy. But the cost of the study is $50,000, so it's not really a subsidy. It's just asking us to do a study.
Come on. Give me a break. Well, isn't that the case? No, because the $50,000 was a break-even, but the $50,000 was because we were going to do the study. It's not paid by users of the transfer station. Okay, so we didn't get a subsidy last year for the amount the town cost. That would be correct. Okay.
Okay. Anybody have anything else on Article E?
Okay, and this is not our article, so there's no vote or anything else on that. Yeah, I'd make a motion that vote of no support for the article unless it includes the $200,000 for retained earnings for the Water Enterprise Fund. That's only an internal vote, Mike. It won't show up in the article. Okay, so you're not looking for our support for this article? No, I just think Mr. Uvigis is showing that to you because that's what's going forth on the warrant. There's no vote of the Board of Public Works on that. It is purely a town article. Okay, next, anything else on the articles or we'll move on to the supply forum and town meeting coordination?
Okay. Tom, you want to walk us through that, please? Yes, so as I mentioned before, we have the Council on Aging Community Center reserved for April 7th at 7 p.m. to host this forum. It will be the Board of Public Works members. We will post this as a meeting. Klinefelter will also join us with their team to make a presentation. I anticipate having a version of that presentation available to the Board of Public Works later next week, so we'll have time for your review suggestions prior to being able to craft a final version that will be given on that particular night. So I will be sending that out to the Board later next week. We will have outreach materials. We have that letter developed by Mr. Chang, Board of Public Works member. We'll have that. We'll have, obviously, hard copies of the presentation that folks can take that home with them. And I'm open to suggestions of anything additional that you feel that you want to have or other suggestions. You know, we've done a forum in the past about this time last year to support the request for design funds. Klinefelter gave a presentation. We then opened it up to the participants for questions and answers, and then we concluded the forum. So I was imagining we would do something similar, but I'm open to suggestions if you think otherwise. Tom, will Matt be given a presentation on the financing and the effect of rates based upon one of these options? So right now, that was not the intent. I'm not sure on April 7th whether we're going to know the funding mechanism for this. Not only that, Brian, but I'm not sure we could make a decision now because until we get closer to the actual bond date, I mean, we could put a range in, but we have no idea of what the interest rate differential will be. And how much of the savings between 20 and 25 years, 30 and 25 years, for example, would eat up by a higher interest rate. Or even if the market has a appetite for some of that and the impact on the town.
Unless you think you're in a position to know what we can do to come up with the lowest rate. Obviously, from our standpoint, the 30-year fixed payment, the first option there, saves us a significant amount of money built into the water rates. But whether that is even doable at 4% or not, we don't know. And won't know until probably right before the bond issuing. Yeah, so when we've done this before with other projects like the library, high school field, you know, COA, Hilltop has always used the 4% figure. Right now, if we issue bonds today, we'll probably be around 3.5%. So it's worked out well in the past, I think. Coming up with a 4% number and using these is probably doable. I don't think if you did a 3% and it was the other way once you issued the debt, it would be not a good thing. But I think the goal here is that you want to bring the article to town meeting and have the residents fund it. It's going to be funded by the authorization. The motion will be to authorize the selectmen to issue debt, whether that's being in debt with the state or being in debt with bondholders. I think the window of time between town meeting and when we issue this will be November 28. You know, maybe we'll get some relief from the state. Maybe we'll get all of it or part of it. We don't know. But I was just thinking maybe residents would be thirsty to understand financially what it means. Sounds like, you know, there's too many moving parts to do that. I would think that we could give them in our presentation because we'll have two more months of information and know more about the SRF loan. We could say that these are the options that we're going to be looking at and which option is going to be used is going to depend on what the market will allow us to do at what rate. And that our preference is, and I'm just going to pick one. And I don't, well, the board would have to decide the 30, and I assume it's a board decision, our board, not select board, the 30-year fixed payment option, the one on the far left. Am I correct that that, since it's going to be hitting our revenue stream, it's our decision? Ultimately, it's the select men that sign the notes, so you'd have to make a presentation to them, and they would have to support that. But the select board signs the notes, so they would have to be involved in that conversation.
It will be an interesting discussion since they won't use property taxes to pay any of it, and it's got to be paid by the water users. And there's no vote required if it's not by taxation that we went through. It's purely on the water board, or the Board of Public Works. You still need the authorization to tell me to issue the debt. I understand the authorization. That's different than who makes the decision. Generally speaking, Mr. Chair, the select board does not work unilaterally. Basically, we get a recommendation from the finance team, which is Mr. Coveney and Mr. McCall, and then it comes before us, and then we authorize, we sign the contracts. We saw how well the recommendation worked with property taxes.
I think I need to add some context. When we understood that the debt would be funded from the SRF with a 0% loan, FinCom voted unanimously to support it. When that disappeared, perhaps tentatively, let's hope tentatively, and the prospect of going to the market and floating bonds was front and center, the vote changed dramatically. We did support it, but with dissent, and I think you need to consider the FinCom as a microcosm of the town, and I'm not suggesting that you're not doing everything you can as a fiscal matter, but I really urge you as strongly as I possibly can to communicate as much information as you can and to get people involved. Holding a public forum that nobody attends is not going to help the matter. You've got to get the information out there, whatever it is, because otherwise, I think you're going to get the town meeting, and people are going to have a lot of issues with this. It's a big number, and we can't tell them right now how we're going to finance it. Hopefully, and I agree with you, hopefully prior to the town meeting, we'll have information out to the public that at least outlines the various alternatives and have a discussion with the select board and the finance committee in terms of what our thought process and recommendation will be, and communicate that clearly to the public. And even at the forum, we might want to say, we're looking at a number of different options, using this as an example, while it is not a firm number, this shows you the disparity in terms of the cost to the tax, to the water users.
So there are two aspects of that, one of which is you only have the information you have, and I think you can only give them what you have. But the other is, posting a public forum on the town website is not sufficient. Nobody's paying attention. You've got to get their attention. You've got to get their engagement, and let them understand that, A, there's no alternative, and B, this is what we know today. Because otherwise, I'm worried that you're not going to get a vote at town meeting. It's going to be very close if it passes. And again, I'm basing this on seven people. Who are probably the more informed versus the average town person, yes. What would you suggest, Carl, you know, in addition to a forum, what type of outlets do you feel would be successful to get this word out to folks? Well, I think the forum is the right outlet. It's attracting the attention of people to get them there. So between, you know, Mr. McCall's biweekly email, the Whelan Post, maybe a letter. I don't know if that's appropriate or not. But just, you know, I was not a professional marketer when I was in law practice. But, you know, the rule of thumb is you've got to have seven or eight engagements before anybody pays attention. And this is really important. I mean, I, for one, and the FinCom as a whole, supports it. But I, based on the change in our own sentiment between the two votes, I think we have an uphill battle. So I would, you know, the more engagement, the better. It's not so much the message. It's the attraction of the people to pay attention. Getting it out. Tom, do we have some mailings in the water bills that we could put a little note in? And I assume this will also be televised, right, on Wacom? The forum will be televised. It will be recorded. We can advertise the link. The only thing with the water bills is that between now and town meeting, there's only, you know, there's, you know, three, three bills that are going out.
So you're not going to, you're not going to capture a lot with that. But, you know, that we do have the April newsletter. I'm not even sure if that, I think that that would, our forum is going to be before that April newsletter goes out. But, yeah, something to think about as to how, I mean, there were recent forums. I think, I mean, we had a forum about the South 20 landfill, you know, that was moderately attended. I don't think it's nearly as large of an issue as this. There was also a forum that was held. I'm trying to think of what the topic was just two weeks ago. Maybe somebody on, in the meeting, Carol, or somebody else remembers. 212 constituent? Was it 212? There was another forum, and I remember walking down the hall to the town manager's office, and there was a flyer that was posted or whatever. So we could craft a, you know, get a flyer and just advertise the heck out of this forum. So I have no idea whether this is appropriate for the town. But I will say that I am a member, a proud member of First Parish, right in the town center. And there is a social email alias that goes out to 100 or so people, maybe more. They're very careful, as you might imagine, about not advocating political positions, but alerting people to stuff that's going on is something that they do frequently. And I won't speak for that one church, but I think that going to centers of influence and saying, get your people involved. Letting them know that way is something you really ought to, you, we really ought to do. Because I have no idea how many people look at the town website and how often they do it, but that's only one outlet. Or can find anything on the website. Well, that's another problem, but yes. Is it possible, Carol, to have Mike send out just a little note about this because of the importance of it? And then also get a poster put up at like the senior center, the library, town building, police station, anywhere that, you know, that people may go into. I think, absolutely, there is that newsletter that goes out. I agree. The post is terrific. See if we can get them to run an article on that this is coming and then maybe they could do a recap of what happened. So then that reaches people who missed it. Oh, I couldn't go, but they could even say next week we'll have a recap or whatever. Tom, why don't you check with, I don't want to duplicate what people are doing here, but I would check with Jalen. Jalen, she'll help you with the monthly newsletter that goes out. There's press releases that go out. The town clerk often will post events on the Wayland Community Forum. So that might be another avenue. Those are things. I mean, I was suggesting some of these, Mike, the other Mike, for the transportation. The survey. Yeah, for the survey.
I think those are great ideas, Carol. And if and when we get through Monday, I will be more than happy to help with the dispersal of information because I am in your corner solidly. And I worry not about the substance. I worry about the messaging and getting to people. So I'm more than happy to help with that. Perfect. And we know from past experience, you have to tell them more than once. Absolutely. Well, you have to tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell them, and then tell them what you just told them. Well, I've already announced in my announcement section at the Select Board meetings a couple of times, and I plan to do it again Monday night that we are holding that. I think, Tom, you were there one night when I was waiting to be come on, if you will. When I spoke about it, I do it right at the beginning, not at the end. People are listening. So anyway, one of the concerns I have is the message as well. Although my thought is a little different. We need to go forward and we're focusing on the financing and the financing is big. It's a big issue and we have had a hiccup. But the fact of the matter is what we're asking town people to do, town meeting to do, is to support the dual source option for a long-term water supply. That's the message we're going to be giving to the residents. That's the message, basically, that's in the write-up. And, yep, we've got to know how we're going to find, we've got to know what it's going to cost us. We know we're going to borrow money because that's what the article says, but I think we really need people to understand this is crucial that we pass this to stay on, as Tom said earlier, on track. And I'm a little concerned that all the conversation will go to the financing. To Carl's point, I think that may not help the forward progression. Well, it seems like the key is that if we don't do it this year, we may well lose out on the $7 million waiver. Bam. On any financing terms, that's a really big number. Well, I heard Tom Hurt say it earlier, that no, so now we're probably not going to be able to provide potable water. Here is the whole water thing, yeah. And our resiliency is dropping, percent is dropping every year. So I think those are the key issues we need to drive home to get this through. And then if we get asked about the financing, say we've had a hiccup, we're working on it, we've got a lot of brains on this. We've got Tom working on it, we've got Brian working on it, we've got Hilltop working on it, we've got Michael working on it. And then we have the select board helping them. That was a joke.
I do think the message really is we've got to pass this period. Yeah. And the additional cost is very small compared to what the cost is if we have a failure and can't provide water. There it is right there. Thank you.
Okay. So, Tommy, do you want, should we get somebody from the board to help you with this project? With planning the forum? And communication program. Yeah, I'll take any input, you know, because obviously the board is involved. You know, so any participation that the board wants to provide, that sounds great. Judy, can you do that?
I'm a really bad writer. Well, you know, when I talk, you're a great idea person. Okay, I'll help. I'll get in touch with you, Tom. Yeah, just like a sounding board more. Can I ask a question? When we had the water fail, gosh, five years ago now, and we had to buy water to give people, remember that? Yeah, that was the PFOS. That was the beginning of PFOS, yes. How much did it cost the town to do that? Because that, like, when we have the forum, it might be like, if they say, oh, we don't want to do this, it's like, the alternative is we have to buy bottled water. It was well over $200,000. A week? No, we did that for about five or six weeks. Okay, so about $4,000 a week then. $40,000. I'm sorry, $40,000 a week. That's real money. Yeah, I mean, it's just good to give people real-life examples. Yeah, and it's not only the cost. You know, you've got regulators that will not be pleased to understand that Whalen just decided not to upgrade its water system. Yeah, it's not an option. It's not like we can say, oh, everybody buy their own water. We're just not doing this. I think a lot of people bought their, I know I did, bought my own water. I didn't try and get water from the town. And so if this goes out for an extended period, that number will increase significantly. Right. Yeah, and it just, logistically, it was just not sustainable. Right. It just, it was a complete circus. It was managed chaos. Yeah. So, Tom, I'm not a member of this board, of course, but if I can be of help, I'm more than happy to help in helping the, you know, scope out communication. All right. I appreciate that. I probably will reach out. I'll leave it to you to reach out, but I'm happy to do it. And if anybody else on the board can help, please let Tom know. All the help he can get is beneficial.
I know it's not particularly on the agenda, but I wonder if anybody is open to talking about May 4th. What the, what the intent, the plan, who will speak to this. You know, last year, George, I know you did it. Um, so I, I, it would be good probably to start thinking about who, what, where, what they're going to say, all of those things, because it'll, it'll be coming up very quickly. You know, it should be somebody that's continuing on the board. There's any of the emphasis from, from me not going forward. So. I recommend Mike Wegerbauer. I'll trade it for, uh, retained earnings in the, uh, enterprise fund budget. Good try. I think three years ago when we, uh, we're asking town meeting to authorize the town going forward with MWA and, um, admission, uh, Mr. Lewis was the chair and he was intended to speak. And then about what, a week before Mike, we found out he was not going to be able to, and Mike actually spoke and the board of public works. You can think about this as well. Um, because the select board is a co-sponsor. She had a couple of last couple of minutes of this, seven minutes with the select board. And at that time it was me. And I think it probably would be me again. So it's something for you to think about, um, as you go forward.
Yeah. I did it for Mike last year. So my guess is that it'll be Mike going for this year.
Okay.
I mean, we're talking about public outreach being important. I think that seven minutes on May 4th will be the most important thing that we can do to convince voters. So we need to focus on that. Do we think our article will make it to the first night? I believe, I guess, Carol, I'm probably jumping on your, uh, topic, but I, I think that, uh, the select board did, uh, schedule articles such that this will be discussed on the first night. Okay. Um, we're trying not to do things like first night, second night, just in case we run along quickly. We're putting more and more articles into the consent calendar, the abbreviated format. So we've listed them, but I believe that the, uh, the MWA is the, the second most article on the agenda. No offense to anyone else, but the budget and that. So we will do all the budget articles, probably have a couple of little articles in between. And then I believe the, the, um, the long-term water supply construction fund article is on the, um, right, Carl, right around the article 12 or so, 14, somewhere around there. I, I, I don't know what the order is, but I, I applaud the idea of doing it up front. Yeah, that's, um, that's where we are with that. So.
Okay. Anything else on that section?
Okay. Next one is transfer station evaluation update. Um, yeah, so we met with our consultant last week. Um, we went through the, the plan, uh, and timeline. I think we're a little bit behind, uh, we're putting together, they were going to put together a draft survey. Carol actually forwarded, forwarded that to me, Carol, I, for some reason didn't receive that message. Um, so I'm going to have to figure out why that's the case. Um, but that draft survey, we're going to provide comments on and try, uh, to Kelsey, um, to try and shore up. Um, and once that has been, um, finalized, uh, they'll begin to get that out to the community, uh, with the goal of getting, I think about 10% returns, hopefully higher. Um, but that's, um, that's where we're at is the, the first stage of evaluating, um, where the community stands on a number of things related to municipal and residential trash disposal and recycling. Is that going to be a mailing to the total town?
Yeah, I think it's all electronic. So it's going to be a survey monkey type thing. Is that something we can piggyback with some information on the, uh, water MWRA and long-term water supply? I'm not saying put it with it, but can we use that same mechanism to send a note out on the forum? Oh, sure. Yeah, I think, I think Kelsey is arranging, uh, most of that, um, uh, of those avenues, uh, for outreach. So, um, yeah, we would, we would plan to use those, we could plan to use those types of outreach methods as well for the water. Yeah, that's one time. That's one way to make sure at least everybody gets a notice of it and include a link so that they can watch it on their computer or where to go to, to be there and ask questions.
Yeah. Yeah, and if we can work, you know, like it's going to cover why the project, where we stand on, on financing alternatives, timeline, you know, just four or five major bullets of what we'll cover, trying to pique people's interest.
Understood.
Okay. Mike, anything else? Um, anything else I'm missing, Carol? That's the general overview. Yeah, I think they were also working on a marketing plan and I think we're kind of holding up for a couple of days where we kind of get all that in place rather than just rush the survey out, you know, because that was the timeline. But, you know, maybe take a few days to make sure we have something in the newsletter, the same thing, so that we reach, we'd like to get about, was, but Tom and Joe were there, it was about 500. We'd really like 500. She said minimum three is what they're looking for, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good. And then they'd put together different scenarios, budgeting sources for a few different scenarios is kind of what the focus group was looking for. Are they also looking at the difference between, I'll call it single family homes and condos, where the condos already have trash collection? Well, there might be a consideration of including pickup from condos as part of the program. Uh, so the, the disposal, not, not from individual condos, of course, but from the, the, uh, containers there. So, yeah, I think that's part of the potential, uh, one of the potential scenarios. Well, not, not, not all condos have containers. Like ours are all individual pickup, just like a single home would be. Oh, okay. Well, then of course. Yeah. So the only reason I'm talking about that is if you get it, get the response back, you need to let the condo people know that this is not just single family homes. This, this will be looking at more of the condos as well as single family homes. Doesn't mean that that's going to be the end result, but this study is going to do be looking at both. Yeah. We're looking at all scenarios. Yeah. And, and kind of some hybrid scenarios. Okay. Anybody have questions for Mike?
Okay.
Board member concerns. Do we have any time? I think you told me that somebody had taken out a petition for, uh, the open seat. I understood that there was an individual that was interested, um, in running for the open seat. I am not aware of the status. I think today might've been the deadline to get signatures in. I don't have any, uh, intel on, on how that went. Yeah. That's today was supposedly deadline from what I saw. Is anybody on the board have any information on that? I just know that the town website shows that one person took out papers. Um, not sure whether or not that person got them in. Okay. We can check. It should be posted on the town website in the next couple of days. Yeah. Okay. Any other concerns? All right. Meeting dates are listed on the agenda. Um, I might add one. Um, so I understand that on April 8th at 11 in the morning, there's going to be what I believe is considered a motions meeting and it's hosted by town council. Um, and I think there's an expectation of, um, any board chair that is introducing an article, um, along with staff would appear and discuss their article. So I'm happy and planning on attending that George. I'm not sure if that's something that you could fit in. It is it's, I'm sure it's going to be a, uh, well, I can't say it's, I would think it would be a hybrid meeting, but, uh, if we wanted to put that on the calendar, April 8th at 11 AM is what I understand it to be right now. So, Mr. Chair, go ahead. Thank you. Recognize Carol. Actually, that's a select board meeting and I'm glad to hear the date's been set. So what did you say? April 8th? April. As I heard this from Kelsey, uh, this afternoon, April 8th at 11 AM is what they were shooting for. Okay. So I hadn't heard about this. I'm glad to hear it get booked. So technically what you would like to do or should probably do is have the person who's going to be introducing the motion at town meeting attend the meeting because what town council has once now, all the book is done. Now we look at the motions we're going to make at town meeting. So we read them. We find out who the presenter is going to be of the motion. And that's what, that's what that is for every one of the articles going forward. So if Mike is going to, um, be the main presenter, then he would be the one presenting it or, or, or something, but I mean, I think that's what you might want to do to sort of talk amongst yourselves and figure out that. Thank you, Carol. That's helpful. Tom, can I ask any update on snow and ice where you stand based on the most recent events? I know today was beautiful, but any idea where it stands? Yeah. So I, I know that I introduced a figure of, um, being, um, in the ballpark of 700,000, um, in the, you know, that being, uh, overage on the, uh, deficit spend budget. Although we dodged a bullet, which was, you know, thought to be about a $50,000 expense, uh, the other day when we didn't get that event. Um, I think it's as a conservative figure, I would still say with that 700,000 versus what was the budget? Five and a quarter. So we're going to spend a million too. Yeah. It was where, yes. Yep. Oh, so the 700 is the overage. The overage. Whoa. Ouch. Well, they did a good job, but. Yeah. We had, we had 18 events, uh, this season. All but two were either overnight during holidays, uh, extensive periods of time, long duration. So it, uh, it was, it was a tough, a tough season. Yeah. I remember you told me somebody had got four hours sleep over two days. Yeah. That was the guy on the screen. The guy, Joe, just said, I know I'm just giving him a cat a boy. How are you doing there, Joe?
Okay. Um, something else I just forgot.
Okay. Anything else on the dates? Okay. Can I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Judy moved. Can I have a second?
Yeah. I seconded that. Okay. I had second. Uh, roll call vote. Ed? Yes. Judy? Yes. Mike Spelman? Yes. Mike Wegerbauer? Yes. George? Yes. So five, zero, zero. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks to the moderator.
First thing is any announcements by anybody? I have none. Board members, any? Okay. Next then we'll... I'm sorry? I'm sorry, I said none here. Okay. Next, at the next section is public comment. Do we have anybody for public comment? No, I see no public comment. Okay. Good. Moving right along. The next one is town meeting warrant articles, discussion and possibly vote. Let's start, if we can, with the SRF update. Tom? Sure. I'd be happy to. So as you know, last July 2025, the town submitted an application to the Clean Water Trust for consideration of a 0% interest loan. Included in that submittal was a ranking sheet that asked for predicted ratings based on understood ranking criteria. The top tiered projects are considered tier five projects and are scored at 500 points and are projects that address compliance with federal or state drinking water standards, and more particularly those projects that reduce PFAS levels to concentrations below regulated standard. And so that is where our project was to have fallen into that particular category, a tier five. With that ranking sheet, we predicted that our submitted ranking would be 500 points. Upon receiving notification a week and a half ago of the draft intended use plan, which is the list of accepted projects, we learned that Wayland was not included in the 2026 loan program. Upon review of Wayland's score sheet that we received from MassDEP, we learned that rather than the predicted 500 points, we were ranked at 200, far less than what we feel is the proper value for that particular ranking. In phone conversations and email exchanges with SRF representatives and those at the Division of Water Investment, which are overseeing this program, we have been unable to learn how our project was misunderstood to not completely meet that tier five ranking. We had been counseled. We had heard from representatives. They attended our meetings. I think you were all a part of that. And we had been counseled that our project, as described, would be a shoe-in for funding selection. We have told State Water Fund representatives that we'll submit a written appeal of this ranking, as well as provide testimony at a hearing that's scheduled for March 24th, of which I am already registered to present at that. Our conversations with SRF representatives lead us to believe that we do have a chance at a successful appeal. So that's what we are striving for at this particular point. I was told that upon hearing from us and receiving written appeals, that a decision would be made within the month of April. So my hope is that although that decision won't be learned until after the warrant is printed and distributed to voting members of the town, that if our appeal is successful, that we will have the ability in our narrative on town meeting floor to give an update on the status of receiving this loan.
Okay. And that's my update. Thank you. From board members, any questions for Tom? Judy? Thank you, Tom. Can we, as board members, get a copy of the appeal before you send it in, or have you sent it in already? Nope. That's still being crafted, so I'd be happy to provide that. Great. What we're going to do is we're going to focus on, you know, there was a narrative, a project narrative, and we listed all of the things that we thought were of importance that would have achieved that 500-point ranking. We'll certainly reiterate that, but I think I'll spend a lot more time writing and talking about, it seems from some of the communications from DEP that they thought that our happy, hollow treatment system was, you know, achieving its goal was a permanent system, although it was stated that it was not. But I'll be focusing on that not being the case, clarifying that, talking about, you know, how we don't have any other options than to build a new plant and really hone in on some of those things. That's why it had to have been totally misunderstood. And there's really, there's no communication between, once we submit that project application, you know, I would have thought that since they ask us to predict what we feel is our ranking, and we put it so high, that when they were considering us and came in much lower, that we would have received some communication saying, hey, if we miss something, is there? And I don't have any experience in not receiving the loan. I've sought and applied for many, many SRF grants in my career and have always gotten them. So this is new territory for me. But yeah, there was no communication whatsoever that they ranked us far lower than what we had, you know, thought it to be. Yeah, and I think the other points to make is the fact that the Happy Hollow Well does not currently have the capacity to do it, and the other wells are not there, and that our system is a least pilot system and is not a permanent solution and is starting to fail. I mean, I think those are a couple big issues that they have missed. Yeah, I agreed, agreed. So we will be honing in on those, and I'd be happy to provide that appeal right up once it's developed. Okay, good. One thing I think is we are getting new water from MWA, which is not considered as water quality problem. So that could cost our, you know, application some point. And because of the grant itself is only, it's an interest-free loan for water quality improvement only. So, I don't know, can we discuss with them about, you know, we do partially apply for the grant for build a new treatment plan first, plus some water mean. Then later on, we can add some, if we can, get the MWRA water online. So there's two things that I can respond to that is I would prefer to apply for the total project because there is a benefit of becoming an MWRA community prior to December of 2027, and that's a $7 million value of an entrance fee waiver. But I can, in my write-up, and also when I testify, that we would prefer to get full funding from the SRF loan, but if at all possible, perhaps there's partial funding, that they would fund one portion, whether it's the Happy Hollow treatment plant and not the other. Anything would be a help when compared to where we're sitting at right now. So, yeah, that's what, that's what I mean, you know, we're trying to see we can apply it in a two separate application. So we can get first, get one first, then we can, you know, hopefully we'll get another. Yeah, I would assume that will impact the timing. And also, if I remember right, wasn't there some coordination with the switchover while we were going to have to be using MWRA water as we switch the sources from the old Happy Hollow to the new? Yes, you know, since we're actually using a whole different disinfection process, we'll be using chloramines. It would be a lot better to be converting over those two components of the project at the same time. The other thing, because I know there's always people look at Wayland saying, oh, you're a rich community, so you don't need to help like other people do. And I don't know if that had any impact, but one of the points that we can make is that having to go on the market borrowings will significantly increase the cost to our citizens in terms of water rate. And Brian can probably give us the percentage, unless you have it, of the number of senior citizens that would be negatively impacted by having that significant increase versus the SRF loan. Yeah, I mean, I do know when we apply for grants, you know, Wayland is not considered a disadvantaged community. That's the characterization that they use. So we are passed over on grants that we apply for because of that reason. But I have to say from what I've seen and what I've experienced that this SRF loan program really takes into consideration the strength of the project rather than the wealth of the community. So I don't think that that played into this ranking. It may not, but it can't hurt. Can't hurt. Nope. Yep. So put that out there. Okay. Anybody else have any other SRF questions?
There was one thing while I have the floor, George, and while I can still talk, I just wanted to take a moment, there has been some, you know, conversations, discussions recently about if we do not receive this 0% interest loan and we have to go with a more conventional loan and there's an increase in the cost of the project, perhaps that we should, you know, defer the project, try again a following year. And I want to say, and I'll say it tonight and I'll say it in the future when asked, we need to advance this project on schedule now for a number of reasons. I mean, obviously the SRF loan program was one deadline, but the other one that I mentioned was the $7 million entrance fee waiver. And also that we have impending PFAS regulations that are going to be promulgated between 2029 and 2031 that we currently don't adhere to. Delaying it a year will prevent us from meeting those regulations. And also, as I've spoken to this board about before, is that we are making regular repairs to our current systems and Happy Hollow is at half capacity. Baldwin Pond is at half capacity. If we do not get this project started and completed by 2029, we truly risk not being able to provide potable drinking water to the town. We have our emergency connection with the MWRA, which was a great decision to build that, but that is extremely expensive, and it's also not intended to be used entirely as our water supply. So there should be no expectation of using that as a permanent supply of water. So when asked, I will say that we should not delay or defer this project based upon the news of this loan program.
Thank you. The next topic is... George, if I could jump in. Go ahead. Let the minutes show that Mike has joined us. Thanks. The idea of splitting I don't think is a good idea either because at peak times, we wouldn't be able to provide compliant water because we'd have to utilize water from one of the other sources that contains above-the-limit PFAS. That's correct. So the decision we made to go with both of these simultaneously as a combination, your point is heard and correct. Yep. Sounds good. Okay. Thank you. If we can go to article H, and before we start to go into the article, Tom, can you put up the debt service schedule that went out to the board? Okay. Bear with me here. Debt service schedule. That's the one that shows the level payments and equal principle that I pulled off of the hilltop. I think I have... Bear with me. Let me see if I can get it. Stand by.
All right. Let me see if I can share. If not, I can try and do it. Yeah. I think I got it.
Can you see that? You just have a blank screen. There we go. Okay. Can you make that any larger at all? Get rid of the stuff on the right? Yeah. Let me see. Bear with me.
Does that do it? No, but we can work from there. Now I've lost it completely on my screen now that I just minimized things. So, okay. This is an analysis that was pulled from the hilltop information, and this is not meant to be the actual numbers that we could get today. It's just to show you the difference in debt service in terms of different options, and what option we would pick probably would wait until the borrowing time because things can change. But you can see that when we say level debt payment, that's like a mortgage that you would get. We pay the same amount principally every year, 30 years or 20 years. And the equal principal amount is where you have the same amount of principal paid each year, then the interest is on the unpaid principal. So you can see, for example, that in 29, if you did a 30-year debt service payment at 4%, it saves you about $1.2 million versus the equal principal. And it evens out as you go forward because, again, your equal principal, the amount goes down where your level payment stays basically the same. So if you take a look, for example, at 44, the level debt principal payment would be $2.250,000, whereas the 30-year equal payment would be $2,030,000. So you can see that's about when you start to get the switch over. So that just kind of gives you a feel of the impact of the debt level and the various options. Now, the other thing to keep in mind is they ran all these scenarios at 4% interest rate. In communication from them, the comment was made that if you go to the 30-year timetable, it would be more expensive, most likely, than the 25 or 20 because people want to get a better return for going out farther. And then there's always the issue of what the market is like when you go out and to see whether or not that level debt payment is even available. The other point that they made is that it also has an impact in terms of the town borrowings and the amount that's outstanding because, obviously, in the level debt, your amount of debt outstanding is higher than the equal principal. The other thing to keep in mind is that the interest in $27,000 for debt service that we already have is $2.4 million, which is $1.7 principal and $700,000 of interest expense. So that kind of gives you a flavor. Now, one of the issues that the board will need to take a look at going forward, and Brian can give us some feedback on this, is that if you remember, we have a fund balance and cash balance. The fund balance at the end of $25 was $1.4 million, and the cash balance was $1.2 million. Well, as you get this large debt out there that's going to be due in November, for example, of $29,000, I'm sorry, $28,000, which is physical year $29,000, you have to have enough cash on hand to make that payment. So you've got to look at not only the expense for the year, but also the cash flow in terms of making the debt service. Brian, you want to chime in on that? Yeah. So George is, uh, George is correct. If you take a look at the top line straight across, no matter which plane you go with, uh, it would appear that you don't have enough cash to make the payment. Um, we don't know how to solve this problem yet. You know, some of the things we could do is do what we did this fiscal year with a general fund, loans money to another fund to cover its expenses for a period of time. The money has to be returned by June 30th. I mean, that's something that we might be able to do with this. We did it this particular year with capital items. I don't know if we can do it with an enterprise fund, but you can clearly see that the value of the fund needs to increase between 27 and 28, heading into 29 to at least try to get to that cash balance point. You're going to have other things going on by the time you get to November, you're going to have payrolls being paid. You're going to be collecting money. So there are other things going on. However, when you look at this, you do see that there's a significant shortfall in cash, no matter which option you go with. So it's an unsolved problem right now. And remember, it's not only the amount that you show there, but also the additional debt service that we have on existing debt that we've already issued. So that's about 2.4 million, of which probably 2 million is due in November, on top of what's going to be here. So as we set the rates, we need to keep an eye on that. Any questions? For context, can you provide info on who Hilltop Securities is? They're the investment banker that the town uses that floats and negotiates all the debt.
Thank you. My pleasure. Any other questions?
Yeah, I think the payments are, these are the payments. So level debt payments, 30-year and 20-year on the left side. And so if we choose, let's say we chose to go with the equal principal, we'd have to pony up a lot more cash in year one. That is correct. Yeah. Okay. Now, the issue is, again, what's the difference in rate between the, not only the term, but also the type of loan? And then what is the availability in the market? Would there be, or what would the appetite be for a $36 million loan, roughly, on a level debt payment over 30 years? And if the appetite is low, the cost is higher, assuming you can get it.
Got it. So we might say, hey, we want to do level debt service for 30 years, but need to see. And then the other thing that we were warned about from Hilltop is that the term for the borrowing has got to be related to the, whatever the funds were used for. So it has to have at least that much life. So they may, the underwriter or the people that are looking at the bonds may say, hey, this doesn't have that much, a 30-year life, for example, even though we may think it does. Right. Good questions. Anything else?
Judy? Mike Spelman? Ed? No.
Okay. So that's kind of a look-see at the impact. Everybody got in it. Thank you. Got a copy of Article HH.
And just curious, anybody have any changes, questions on the article that went out?
FinCom is doing an excellent job, Carl. We appreciate that. And thank you for your first draft, which we incorporated liberally from. I did get some comments in the last 24 hours from, I believe, either Tom or Mike or both. I don't think they require a re-vote. I'm going to be looking, I wanted to look at them today. Life got away from me. But we will certainly take those into consideration. But I think we're very close, if not done. Okay. We'll assume for our vote that they're very minor. Mike, is that a truism? Absolutely. That's my view, too. Okay. So, Tom, we need a vote on that?
I am uncertain as to whether you need. I mean, it wouldn't hurt. It can't hurt. If we're not certain, then we'll take a vote. Can I get a motion to accept Article HH as drafted in principle?
Somebody?
That's not in our packet, right? Yes, it was. It was. So moved.
It was that it went out after a separate item. I don't remember which. Okay. Yeah, I don't see it. But while you're depending on the motion, Carl, do we have a vote listed for the Board of Public Works in the write-up already?
I'll have to look, Carl. I'm not 100% sure, but I'll look right now. Well, I would have included one.
It's not listed on the article. I believe you took one, but go ahead. Well, it's just so we're getting a vote on the final form in principle. Judy made a motion. Can I get a second? Second. Ed seconds. Roll call vote. Judy? Yes. Ed? Yes. Just a quick discussion. I think we really should have an article to reference, at least share it on the screen if you have it separately, but it's not in the packet. So we should have an article that we're referencing to vote on. It went out to you on Monday, by the way. So to answer Carol's question, the latest version I've seen and the one that FinCom approved says that BPW has approved 5-0, as has the select board. Yeah. Point of order, Mr. Chair, is that you don't vote the write-up. You vote to support the article. Okay. The finance committee, as you know, has full control, editorial control over the comments, the pros and the cons. The select board has over the title, the estimate costs, and the article description. Okay. I see it on page two where it's 5-0-0 that we voted. So I assume that we don't need to do anything with this. I don't think so. But if you'd like to vote supporting the article again, that's fine. Just not the write-up. I think you're good. Right, Carol? Okay, I got you. Okay, thanks. But if it's done and we supported the article before, then the wording changes really are moot. Right. Okay. So let's move on, then, to Article E, which I believe was in your package.
Yes. On Friday. Yeah. Okay. A couple things that I noticed is, first of all, there's an article, question, question in the fourth line on top. So I assume somebody will fill that in.
What was the question, George? I'm sorry, Carol Martin, Lake Grove, member of the select board. Sorry. No problem. The Article E draft, fourth line, says, article, question, question, as printed. Oh, that's the select board. That's in the text. Then what happens is we'll reference the, Brian, we referenced the budget article there, right? I'm looking at it now. That's, he's in the text where it says, because these numbers, once they get voted, then end up in the omnibus budget. So last year was like Article 10. Yes, George. Okay. As soon as Brian confirms what I'm saying, we'll take care of that.
Okay. Water, where it says, number one, water revenue, the $6,246,000. Again, we've talked about the $200,000 that is going to be from retained earnings. So, Brian, I'm not sure that that number is before or after the $200,000, but that $200,000 should be noted.
And I believe the revenue number should be $6,046,000. Well, the way it works, George, is that this is the board of selectmen article. And town management gave the select board our recommendation on the use of retained earnings. We do not support the use of retained earnings. It's been a position we've had for a bunch of years now. As we've talked about before, your fund balance has gone from $4 million in 2013 down to $1.4 million. You don't know how the results are going to be for 26, but you just saw on a debt schedule that you have debt payments coming in at 29, greater than the amount of money you have in the fund. So, it's town management's position that retained earnings cannot be used for any reason within the water budget, whether it's a capital or for operating expenses. But the, I happen to agree, but as chairman, the board voted to use that $200,000. But that's not binding, George. This is the board of selectmen's article. Well, wait a minute. You've told us before that we can't use retained earnings unless it's in the warrant. And now you're telling us, even though we've voted to include it in the warrant, that you're not going to allow it. So, that's our recommendation to the selectmen, yes.
Carol?
Yes. Please enlighten me on why the board, who is in charge with setting rates, and has said they want to set the rates without the $200,000. Oh, and by the way, that doesn't mean that, as part of the rate setting, that one of the expenses is to put in X dollars for the MWRA project to build the reserve. But the question is, how to fund the contingency?
Does the select board really want to go to town meeting with the comment that they have overruled the Board of Public Works, who's in charge of setting rates? I believe that the select board voted last night to support the recommendation of the town manager and the finance director. We did have a discussion about this, and I had said back in the fall that I know that you do this, I know you take a vote on this, and I had personally recommended let you do it through this year. But come May, as we've said umpteen times during the discussions of Article HH, we need to have a major serious discussion about the rate setting come May. We have huge tsunami bells coming, and we really need to look at this. If the Water Fund, as Brian has told us, a number of times defaults, and there's not enough funding in your retained earnings, the general fund will be on the hook for that. That will throw our budgeting completely out of whack. If you have to use retained earnings above and beyond and dip into your retained earnings, that affects our fund balance, which will affect our ability to borrow money. We have a AAA community. We're required to keep a minimum of 20, and now they would like 25% of our budgets. Right, Brian, is that the right word? And that's fund balance set aside. So I personally, I personally tried, I spoke for your decision, but the select board voted last night to not include retained earnings as a funding source. If you'd like to come and appeal at Monday night, we're meeting Monday night, you're welcome to do it. Okay, just for a point of clarity. It's our purview to recommend revolving fund article budgets, skimp pending caps, and enterprise fund budgets to the town meeting. That is our encode. I'll let that Brian find it because I don't see it in the article. Okay. The thing to keep in mind, by the way, is the difference is not in the ability to pay it in the year. It's a cash flow timing issue, as Brian said. So it's not a matter of not having the money built into the rates. So the interesting thing, though, George, is this year you're going to use your 200, about 160 already of, I think Brian reported, 160 of the contingency will be used to fund the connections to the emergency. I'm sorry, I've got it backwards. For the water, excess water we had to have. That's true. So you're using 200 of retainers. I think that's what swayed the board. No. But that's not a truism. That's not true. It isn't? Well, it's true in terms of contingency is going to be there and use a good part of that 200. But the issue is that the revenue is going to be higher than forecasted to offset a lot of that. I don't have the proposal that Tom worked on right here in front of me. But is my memory right, Tom? So in some of the recent spreadsheets that we've been discussing, we are including the $85,000 that's been predicted that would be an increase in revenue based upon converting to quarterly billing. You know, so we'll know better on that as we get closer to the fiscal year, but in some of our discussions we've been including that, but that has yet to be, you know, experienced. So I think the risk is we'll continue to set the rates for what we think is reasonable to get to the target that the board sets. So we'll continue to do that. That may put Brian in a little hot water with DOR, though. Again, this was intended to make sure that we end up with more revenue than expected and cover our costs. And as a historical note, we've hit those targets, those retained earning targets, almost without fail and very close in the years where we haven't. And I think Tom can attest to that. So we're very careful about how we set our rates. And regardless of whether or not you put this in, we're going to set the rates the way we set the rates. But keep in mind, Mike, you can only use retained earnings if Tom Ening approves it. Nope. You've told us differently. And we've followed that. If we end up with a shortfall, then we end up with a shortfall and retained earnings covers that.
That's true. It's not retained earnings that covers it. It's fund balance. But for you to set your rates with the use of an amount of money that you refer to as retained earnings can only be used if Tom Ening votes that. If, for example, your budget for fiscal 26 is $4.8 million, let's assume that you set the rates to bring in $4.8 million and you actually spend $4.8 million. But in reality, you bring in $4.6 million. You have a $200,000 shortfall. That $200,000 shortfall comes out of fund balance, not retained earnings. Retained earnings, the C is a DUR certified number. So any shortfall of revenue to expenses comes out of your fund balance. Fund balance is really your historical revenues received against your historical expenses paid. Just like in private accounting, which is retained earnings, it's the same thing. There's no difference. So any shortfall in revenue to expenses automatically comes out of fund balance. But to set the rates by using retained earnings can only be used if Tom Ening votes it. And DUR was clear with that when they met with us in the summer. We'll set the rates the way we determine. We're going to set the rates to hit the target retained earnings. Retained earnings is a subset of the fund balance, right? Correct. So you've got your fund balance, then you've got your subset, which is retained earnings. I think we understand this pretty well. I think we've been through this a number of times. I understand your recommendation. We'll set the rates the way we decide to set the rates. Whether or not you're working in coordination with us to make sure that we don't get in trouble with DUR, that's your decision. But please don't complain to us. Mike, with all... Well, I think your issue is going to be with the Select Board, not with DUR. DUR won't get involved. If you use retained earnings to set your rates next year and it's not approved at Tom Ening, I mean, that's an issue the Select Board is going to have to deal with. Yes. Mike, with all due respect, one of your comments about the expenses that ignores is the continued revenue shortfall, that that contingency does not only cover expenses, but also revenue shortfall? Yes. Okay, and that revenue shortfall has reduced so you don't have the $200,000, but you also have the encumbrances. So, you know, this is the major reason that I decided not to rerun for the board because I did not want to be party to what I consider financial lack of due diligence or whatever you want to call it. So, I think we know what the play is. We know why it's here now. And so, you know, the board next year when they set the rates are going to have to deal with it.
And one other thing, when we come and talk, we don't want to have, you know, an adversarial conversation. We're here to give our best advice and be helpful. If the water fund continues to use retained earnings, it's going to probably get to the point where the general fund is going to have to step in and use free cash. So, we'd be drawn into this irregardless. We're only trying to give everybody here some sound advice on how to manage the budget. We don't want to have an adversarial conversation. It's the facts of what they are. You're at $1.4 million right now, as George said, at the end of the year. We're only trying to give sound advice to get that balance back up and growing north instead of south. You may have a shortfall in fiscal 26. Your fund balance would yet drop again. So, when we come and give advice, and we've done it in the past, Louise and myself have come in the past. I wrote a letter to Nam Balmer and Chris Brown when he was the chair about the depletion of free cash back in 2016. When the Board of Public Works wanted to use 1.3 of retained earnings for the water meters, we again, Louise and I, spoke out and said that was not a good sound idea. You're depleting your fund balance. So, when we come with these things, we're doing it only because we're trying to help. We're not trying to have an argument with you folks. We're just trying to give you the facts as we see them. Thank you.
Enterprise fund, the first line, check your math because I think it's 27.8 versus 27.9. It's probably rounding, but you just may want to have somebody check on that, Carl. And then on the transfer station one, on the second line, it says salaries should be a dollar sign before the $37,000. And where it says, for an assessment of, I know EF is enterprise fund, but it probably should read transfer station enterprise fund. So, it's clear as to what it relates to. Where do you see the dollar sign, George? Transfer station on page three, second line, in salaries, and it says $37,000, but there's no dollar sign, at least on my copy. Yeah, George, there's a, I think, might be a later version of that. I saw one today, didn't we? It's page six. But we should check for that. Second line down.
And then in the fourth line, where it says assessment of EF operations, you might want to say transfer station enterprise fund or EF operations. So, it's clear, even though the section is transfer station.
How recent is that version that you have? Has it been in the packet a few days? It came out Friday. Yeah. So, Carl, we saw one earlier. Sorry, Mr. Chair, popping in here. Sorry. I think I saw one today, and it did speak a little bit more clearly. I think, Michael, you'll like this, is that it talked about that $50,000 as not a subsidy, but as a payment. And then it, on the line, speaks about it as a payment for services provided by the transfer station to the town. Pam and I have worked on this and feel strongly. I'm sure Mr. Wiggabaya will join me on this one. Definitely. That, you know, we're receiving $50,000, but we're pretty sure the cost is closer to $60,000. And so, I think there was some, some of the select board comments include that. Okay. With all due respect to the select board, Carol, giving us $50,000 and then hitting us with $81,000 is not a positive result. No, I don't, I don't blame, I don't think this, I agree. Sorry, I have the wrong sentence. And one of the things I don't understand is that if we're contributing about $60,000 worth of labor for the town, I don't know what percent that is of the total salaries, but I would think that that portion of the indirects belongs to the town, not to the transfer station. So, just my two cents for today on that.
Yeah, but, you know, coming up with charges you'd never hit the transfer station before, when we've got a consulting study going on and trying to figure out what to do, to me is, let us say, less than desirable and leave it at that. Understood. Let the minutes show. Don't just worry. Is the consulting study funded by General Fund as well? Or is that the sticker holders are paying for that study? That's General Fund. That was what they gave us the $50,000 for last year.
I thought that was the subsidy, and they asked that we use that subsidy for a study. Well, they weren't going to give us a subsidy, and then we talked about the consulting project. They agreed to continue it for one more year. Well, it's a break-even, so there's no point in that. I think he used them $58,000 of retained earnings in 2006 to fund that study.
Well, just for clarity, the use of retained earnings is a net result of revenue versus expenses. And that revenue included $50,000 from the town as a subsidy that, when it was made last year, was in recognition of doing the consulting study. If we had not agreed to do the consulting study, I have no support that says we would have gotten the $50,000 subsidy. But the cost of the study is $50,000, so it's not really a subsidy. It's just asking us to do a study.
Come on. Give me a break. Well, isn't that the case? No, because the $50,000 was a break-even, but the $50,000 was because we were going to do the study. It's not paid by users of the transfer station. Okay, so we didn't get a subsidy last year for the amount the town cost. That would be correct. Okay.
Okay. Anybody have anything else on Article E?
Okay, and this is not our article, so there's no vote or anything else on that. Yeah, I'd make a motion that vote of no support for the article unless it includes the $200,000 for retained earnings for the Water Enterprise Fund. That's only an internal vote, Mike. It won't show up in the article. Okay, so you're not looking for our support for this article? No, I just think Mr. Uvigis is showing that to you because that's what's going forth on the warrant. There's no vote of the Board of Public Works on that. It is purely a town article. Okay, next, anything else on the articles or we'll move on to the supply forum and town meeting coordination?
Okay. Tom, you want to walk us through that, please? Yes, so as I mentioned before, we have the Council on Aging Community Center reserved for April 7th at 7 p.m. to host this forum. It will be the Board of Public Works members. We will post this as a meeting. Klinefelter will also join us with their team to make a presentation. I anticipate having a version of that presentation available to the Board of Public Works later next week, so we'll have time for your review suggestions prior to being able to craft a final version that will be given on that particular night. So I will be sending that out to the Board later next week. We will have outreach materials. We have that letter developed by Mr. Chang, Board of Public Works member. We'll have that. We'll have, obviously, hard copies of the presentation that folks can take that home with them. And I'm open to suggestions of anything additional that you feel that you want to have or other suggestions. You know, we've done a forum in the past about this time last year to support the request for design funds. Klinefelter gave a presentation. We then opened it up to the participants for questions and answers, and then we concluded the forum. So I was imagining we would do something similar, but I'm open to suggestions if you think otherwise. Tom, will Matt be given a presentation on the financing and the effect of rates based upon one of these options? So right now, that was not the intent. I'm not sure on April 7th whether we're going to know the funding mechanism for this. Not only that, Brian, but I'm not sure we could make a decision now because until we get closer to the actual bond date, I mean, we could put a range in, but we have no idea of what the interest rate differential will be. And how much of the savings between 20 and 25 years, 30 and 25 years, for example, would eat up by a higher interest rate. Or even if the market has a appetite for some of that and the impact on the town.
Unless you think you're in a position to know what we can do to come up with the lowest rate. Obviously, from our standpoint, the 30-year fixed payment, the first option there, saves us a significant amount of money built into the water rates. But whether that is even doable at 4% or not, we don't know. And won't know until probably right before the bond issuing. Yeah, so when we've done this before with other projects like the library, high school field, you know, COA, Hilltop has always used the 4% figure. Right now, if we issue bonds today, we'll probably be around 3.5%. So it's worked out well in the past, I think. Coming up with a 4% number and using these is probably doable. I don't think if you did a 3% and it was the other way once you issued the debt, it would be not a good thing. But I think the goal here is that you want to bring the article to town meeting and have the residents fund it. It's going to be funded by the authorization. The motion will be to authorize the selectmen to issue debt, whether that's being in debt with the state or being in debt with bondholders. I think the window of time between town meeting and when we issue this will be November 28. You know, maybe we'll get some relief from the state. Maybe we'll get all of it or part of it. We don't know. But I was just thinking maybe residents would be thirsty to understand financially what it means. Sounds like, you know, there's too many moving parts to do that. I would think that we could give them in our presentation because we'll have two more months of information and know more about the SRF loan. We could say that these are the options that we're going to be looking at and which option is going to be used is going to depend on what the market will allow us to do at what rate. And that our preference is, and I'm just going to pick one. And I don't, well, the board would have to decide the 30, and I assume it's a board decision, our board, not select board, the 30-year fixed payment option, the one on the far left. Am I correct that that, since it's going to be hitting our revenue stream, it's our decision? Ultimately, it's the select men that sign the notes, so you'd have to make a presentation to them, and they would have to support that. But the select board signs the notes, so they would have to be involved in that conversation.
It will be an interesting discussion since they won't use property taxes to pay any of it, and it's got to be paid by the water users. And there's no vote required if it's not by taxation that we went through. It's purely on the water board, or the Board of Public Works. You still need the authorization to tell me to issue the debt. I understand the authorization. That's different than who makes the decision. Generally speaking, Mr. Chair, the select board does not work unilaterally. Basically, we get a recommendation from the finance team, which is Mr. Coveney and Mr. McCall, and then it comes before us, and then we authorize, we sign the contracts. We saw how well the recommendation worked with property taxes.
I think I need to add some context. When we understood that the debt would be funded from the SRF with a 0% loan, FinCom voted unanimously to support it. When that disappeared, perhaps tentatively, let's hope tentatively, and the prospect of going to the market and floating bonds was front and center, the vote changed dramatically. We did support it, but with dissent, and I think you need to consider the FinCom as a microcosm of the town, and I'm not suggesting that you're not doing everything you can as a fiscal matter, but I really urge you as strongly as I possibly can to communicate as much information as you can and to get people involved. Holding a public forum that nobody attends is not going to help the matter. You've got to get the information out there, whatever it is, because otherwise, I think you're going to get the town meeting, and people are going to have a lot of issues with this. It's a big number, and we can't tell them right now how we're going to finance it. Hopefully, and I agree with you, hopefully prior to the town meeting, we'll have information out to the public that at least outlines the various alternatives and have a discussion with the select board and the finance committee in terms of what our thought process and recommendation will be, and communicate that clearly to the public. And even at the forum, we might want to say, we're looking at a number of different options, using this as an example, while it is not a firm number, this shows you the disparity in terms of the cost to the tax, to the water users.
So there are two aspects of that, one of which is you only have the information you have, and I think you can only give them what you have. But the other is, posting a public forum on the town website is not sufficient. Nobody's paying attention. You've got to get their attention. You've got to get their engagement, and let them understand that, A, there's no alternative, and B, this is what we know today. Because otherwise, I'm worried that you're not going to get a vote at town meeting. It's going to be very close if it passes. And again, I'm basing this on seven people. Who are probably the more informed versus the average town person, yes. What would you suggest, Carl, you know, in addition to a forum, what type of outlets do you feel would be successful to get this word out to folks? Well, I think the forum is the right outlet. It's attracting the attention of people to get them there. So between, you know, Mr. McCall's biweekly email, the Whelan Post, maybe a letter. I don't know if that's appropriate or not. But just, you know, I was not a professional marketer when I was in law practice. But, you know, the rule of thumb is you've got to have seven or eight engagements before anybody pays attention. And this is really important. I mean, I, for one, and the FinCom as a whole, supports it. But I, based on the change in our own sentiment between the two votes, I think we have an uphill battle. So I would, you know, the more engagement, the better. It's not so much the message. It's the attraction of the people to pay attention. Getting it out. Tom, do we have some mailings in the water bills that we could put a little note in? And I assume this will also be televised, right, on Wacom? The forum will be televised. It will be recorded. We can advertise the link. The only thing with the water bills is that between now and town meeting, there's only, you know, there's, you know, three, three bills that are going out.
So you're not going to, you're not going to capture a lot with that. But, you know, that we do have the April newsletter. I'm not even sure if that, I think that that would, our forum is going to be before that April newsletter goes out. But, yeah, something to think about as to how, I mean, there were recent forums. I think, I mean, we had a forum about the South 20 landfill, you know, that was moderately attended. I don't think it's nearly as large of an issue as this. There was also a forum that was held. I'm trying to think of what the topic was just two weeks ago. Maybe somebody on, in the meeting, Carol, or somebody else remembers. 212 constituent? Was it 212? There was another forum, and I remember walking down the hall to the town manager's office, and there was a flyer that was posted or whatever. So we could craft a, you know, get a flyer and just advertise the heck out of this forum. So I have no idea whether this is appropriate for the town. But I will say that I am a member, a proud member of First Parish, right in the town center. And there is a social email alias that goes out to 100 or so people, maybe more. They're very careful, as you might imagine, about not advocating political positions, but alerting people to stuff that's going on is something that they do frequently. And I won't speak for that one church, but I think that going to centers of influence and saying, get your people involved. Letting them know that way is something you really ought to, you, we really ought to do. Because I have no idea how many people look at the town website and how often they do it, but that's only one outlet. Or can find anything on the website. Well, that's another problem, but yes. Is it possible, Carol, to have Mike send out just a little note about this because of the importance of it? And then also get a poster put up at like the senior center, the library, town building, police station, anywhere that, you know, that people may go into. I think, absolutely, there is that newsletter that goes out. I agree. The post is terrific. See if we can get them to run an article on that this is coming and then maybe they could do a recap of what happened. So then that reaches people who missed it. Oh, I couldn't go, but they could even say next week we'll have a recap or whatever. Tom, why don't you check with, I don't want to duplicate what people are doing here, but I would check with Jalen. Jalen, she'll help you with the monthly newsletter that goes out. There's press releases that go out. The town clerk often will post events on the Wayland Community Forum. So that might be another avenue. Those are things. I mean, I was suggesting some of these, Mike, the other Mike, for the transportation. The survey. Yeah, for the survey.
I think those are great ideas, Carol. And if and when we get through Monday, I will be more than happy to help with the dispersal of information because I am in your corner solidly. And I worry not about the substance. I worry about the messaging and getting to people. So I'm more than happy to help with that. Perfect. And we know from past experience, you have to tell them more than once. Absolutely. Well, you have to tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell them, and then tell them what you just told them. Well, I've already announced in my announcement section at the Select Board meetings a couple of times, and I plan to do it again Monday night that we are holding that. I think, Tom, you were there one night when I was waiting to be come on, if you will. When I spoke about it, I do it right at the beginning, not at the end. People are listening. So anyway, one of the concerns I have is the message as well. Although my thought is a little different. We need to go forward and we're focusing on the financing and the financing is big. It's a big issue and we have had a hiccup. But the fact of the matter is what we're asking town people to do, town meeting to do, is to support the dual source option for a long-term water supply. That's the message we're going to be giving to the residents. That's the message, basically, that's in the write-up. And, yep, we've got to know how we're going to find, we've got to know what it's going to cost us. We know we're going to borrow money because that's what the article says, but I think we really need people to understand this is crucial that we pass this to stay on, as Tom said earlier, on track. And I'm a little concerned that all the conversation will go to the financing. To Carl's point, I think that may not help the forward progression. Well, it seems like the key is that if we don't do it this year, we may well lose out on the $7 million waiver. Bam. On any financing terms, that's a really big number. Well, I heard Tom Hurt say it earlier, that no, so now we're probably not going to be able to provide potable water. Here is the whole water thing, yeah. And our resiliency is dropping, percent is dropping every year. So I think those are the key issues we need to drive home to get this through. And then if we get asked about the financing, say we've had a hiccup, we're working on it, we've got a lot of brains on this. We've got Tom working on it, we've got Brian working on it, we've got Hilltop working on it, we've got Michael working on it. And then we have the select board helping them. That was a joke.
I do think the message really is we've got to pass this period. Yeah. And the additional cost is very small compared to what the cost is if we have a failure and can't provide water. There it is right there. Thank you.
Okay. So, Tommy, do you want, should we get somebody from the board to help you with this project? With planning the forum? And communication program. Yeah, I'll take any input, you know, because obviously the board is involved. You know, so any participation that the board wants to provide, that sounds great. Judy, can you do that?
I'm a really bad writer. Well, you know, when I talk, you're a great idea person. Okay, I'll help. I'll get in touch with you, Tom. Yeah, just like a sounding board more. Can I ask a question? When we had the water fail, gosh, five years ago now, and we had to buy water to give people, remember that? Yeah, that was the PFOS. That was the beginning of PFOS, yes. How much did it cost the town to do that? Because that, like, when we have the forum, it might be like, if they say, oh, we don't want to do this, it's like, the alternative is we have to buy bottled water. It was well over $200,000. A week? No, we did that for about five or six weeks. Okay, so about $4,000 a week then. $40,000. I'm sorry, $40,000 a week. That's real money. Yeah, I mean, it's just good to give people real-life examples. Yeah, and it's not only the cost. You know, you've got regulators that will not be pleased to understand that Whalen just decided not to upgrade its water system. Yeah, it's not an option. It's not like we can say, oh, everybody buy their own water. We're just not doing this. I think a lot of people bought their, I know I did, bought my own water. I didn't try and get water from the town. And so if this goes out for an extended period, that number will increase significantly. Right. Yeah, and it just, logistically, it was just not sustainable. Right. It just, it was a complete circus. It was managed chaos. Yeah. So, Tom, I'm not a member of this board, of course, but if I can be of help, I'm more than happy to help in helping the, you know, scope out communication. All right. I appreciate that. I probably will reach out. I'll leave it to you to reach out, but I'm happy to do it. And if anybody else on the board can help, please let Tom know. All the help he can get is beneficial.
I know it's not particularly on the agenda, but I wonder if anybody is open to talking about May 4th. What the, what the intent, the plan, who will speak to this. You know, last year, George, I know you did it. Um, so I, I, it would be good probably to start thinking about who, what, where, what they're going to say, all of those things, because it'll, it'll be coming up very quickly. You know, it should be somebody that's continuing on the board. There's any of the emphasis from, from me not going forward. So. I recommend Mike Wegerbauer. I'll trade it for, uh, retained earnings in the, uh, enterprise fund budget. Good try. I think three years ago when we, uh, we're asking town meeting to authorize the town going forward with MWA and, um, admission, uh, Mr. Lewis was the chair and he was intended to speak. And then about what, a week before Mike, we found out he was not going to be able to, and Mike actually spoke and the board of public works. You can think about this as well. Um, because the select board is a co-sponsor. She had a couple of last couple of minutes of this, seven minutes with the select board. And at that time it was me. And I think it probably would be me again. So it's something for you to think about, um, as you go forward.
Yeah. I did it for Mike last year. So my guess is that it'll be Mike going for this year.
Okay.
I mean, we're talking about public outreach being important. I think that seven minutes on May 4th will be the most important thing that we can do to convince voters. So we need to focus on that. Do we think our article will make it to the first night? I believe, I guess, Carol, I'm probably jumping on your, uh, topic, but I, I think that, uh, the select board did, uh, schedule articles such that this will be discussed on the first night. Okay. Um, we're trying not to do things like first night, second night, just in case we run along quickly. We're putting more and more articles into the consent calendar, the abbreviated format. So we've listed them, but I believe that the, uh, the MWA is the, the second most article on the agenda. No offense to anyone else, but the budget and that. So we will do all the budget articles, probably have a couple of little articles in between. And then I believe the, the, um, the long-term water supply construction fund article is on the, um, right, Carl, right around the article 12 or so, 14, somewhere around there. I, I, I don't know what the order is, but I, I applaud the idea of doing it up front. Yeah, that's, um, that's where we are with that. So.
Okay. Anything else on that section?
Okay. Next one is transfer station evaluation update. Um, yeah, so we met with our consultant last week. Um, we went through the, the plan, uh, and timeline. I think we're a little bit behind, uh, we're putting together, they were going to put together a draft survey. Carol actually forwarded, forwarded that to me, Carol, I, for some reason didn't receive that message. Um, so I'm going to have to figure out why that's the case. Um, but that draft survey, we're going to provide comments on and try, uh, to Kelsey, um, to try and shore up. Um, and once that has been, um, finalized, uh, they'll begin to get that out to the community, uh, with the goal of getting, I think about 10% returns, hopefully higher. Um, but that's, um, that's where we're at is the, the first stage of evaluating, um, where the community stands on a number of things related to municipal and residential trash disposal and recycling. Is that going to be a mailing to the total town?
Yeah, I think it's all electronic. So it's going to be a survey monkey type thing. Is that something we can piggyback with some information on the, uh, water MWRA and long-term water supply? I'm not saying put it with it, but can we use that same mechanism to send a note out on the forum? Oh, sure. Yeah, I think, I think Kelsey is arranging, uh, most of that, um, uh, of those avenues, uh, for outreach. So, um, yeah, we would, we would plan to use those, we could plan to use those types of outreach methods as well for the water. Yeah, that's one time. That's one way to make sure at least everybody gets a notice of it and include a link so that they can watch it on their computer or where to go to, to be there and ask questions.
Yeah. Yeah, and if we can work, you know, like it's going to cover why the project, where we stand on, on financing alternatives, timeline, you know, just four or five major bullets of what we'll cover, trying to pique people's interest.
Understood.
Okay. Mike, anything else? Um, anything else I'm missing, Carol? That's the general overview. Yeah, I think they were also working on a marketing plan and I think we're kind of holding up for a couple of days where we kind of get all that in place rather than just rush the survey out, you know, because that was the timeline. But, you know, maybe take a few days to make sure we have something in the newsletter, the same thing, so that we reach, we'd like to get about, was, but Tom and Joe were there, it was about 500. We'd really like 500. She said minimum three is what they're looking for, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good. And then they'd put together different scenarios, budgeting sources for a few different scenarios is kind of what the focus group was looking for. Are they also looking at the difference between, I'll call it single family homes and condos, where the condos already have trash collection? Well, there might be a consideration of including pickup from condos as part of the program. Uh, so the, the disposal, not, not from individual condos, of course, but from the, the, uh, containers there. So, yeah, I think that's part of the potential, uh, one of the potential scenarios. Well, not, not, not all condos have containers. Like ours are all individual pickup, just like a single home would be. Oh, okay. Well, then of course. Yeah. So the only reason I'm talking about that is if you get it, get the response back, you need to let the condo people know that this is not just single family homes. This, this will be looking at more of the condos as well as single family homes. Doesn't mean that that's going to be the end result, but this study is going to do be looking at both. Yeah. We're looking at all scenarios. Yeah. And, and kind of some hybrid scenarios. Okay. Anybody have questions for Mike?
Okay.
Board member concerns. Do we have any time? I think you told me that somebody had taken out a petition for, uh, the open seat. I understood that there was an individual that was interested, um, in running for the open seat. I am not aware of the status. I think today might've been the deadline to get signatures in. I don't have any, uh, intel on, on how that went. Yeah. That's today was supposedly deadline from what I saw. Is anybody on the board have any information on that? I just know that the town website shows that one person took out papers. Um, not sure whether or not that person got them in. Okay. We can check. It should be posted on the town website in the next couple of days. Yeah. Okay. Any other concerns? All right. Meeting dates are listed on the agenda. Um, I might add one. Um, so I understand that on April 8th at 11 in the morning, there's going to be what I believe is considered a motions meeting and it's hosted by town council. Um, and I think there's an expectation of, um, any board chair that is introducing an article, um, along with staff would appear and discuss their article. So I'm happy and planning on attending that George. I'm not sure if that's something that you could fit in. It is it's, I'm sure it's going to be a, uh, well, I can't say it's, I would think it would be a hybrid meeting, but, uh, if we wanted to put that on the calendar, April 8th at 11 AM is what I understand it to be right now. So, Mr. Chair, go ahead. Thank you. Recognize Carol. Actually, that's a select board meeting and I'm glad to hear the date's been set. So what did you say? April 8th? April. As I heard this from Kelsey, uh, this afternoon, April 8th at 11 AM is what they were shooting for. Okay. So I hadn't heard about this. I'm glad to hear it get booked. So technically what you would like to do or should probably do is have the person who's going to be introducing the motion at town meeting attend the meeting because what town council has once now, all the book is done. Now we look at the motions we're going to make at town meeting. So we read them. We find out who the presenter is going to be of the motion. And that's what, that's what that is for every one of the articles going forward. So if Mike is going to, um, be the main presenter, then he would be the one presenting it or, or, or something, but I mean, I think that's what you might want to do to sort of talk amongst yourselves and figure out that. Thank you, Carol. That's helpful. Tom, can I ask any update on snow and ice where you stand based on the most recent events? I know today was beautiful, but any idea where it stands? Yeah. So I, I know that I introduced a figure of, um, being, um, in the ballpark of 700,000, um, in the, you know, that being, uh, overage on the, uh, deficit spend budget. Although we dodged a bullet, which was, you know, thought to be about a $50,000 expense, uh, the other day when we didn't get that event. Um, I think it's as a conservative figure, I would still say with that 700,000 versus what was the budget? Five and a quarter. So we're going to spend a million too. Yeah. It was where, yes. Yep. Oh, so the 700 is the overage. The overage. Whoa. Ouch. Well, they did a good job, but. Yeah. We had, we had 18 events, uh, this season. All but two were either overnight during holidays, uh, extensive periods of time, long duration. So it, uh, it was, it was a tough, a tough season. Yeah. I remember you told me somebody had got four hours sleep over two days. Yeah. That was the guy on the screen. The guy, Joe, just said, I know I'm just giving him a cat a boy. How are you doing there, Joe?
Okay. Um, something else I just forgot.
Okay. Anything else on the dates? Okay. Can I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Judy moved. Can I have a second?
Yeah. I seconded that. Okay. I had second. Uh, roll call vote. Ed? Yes. Judy? Yes. Mike Spelman? Yes. Mike Wegerbauer? Yes. George? Yes. So five, zero, zero. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks to the moderator.