February 18, 2026 – Finance Committee – Video & Transcript

February 18, 2026 - Finance Committee

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Recording in progress. So it is 7 o'clock on February 18th, 2026. I'd like to call the Finance Committee meeting in order. Finance are Carl, Bill, Phil, April, and Rob. And I know Iris is planning to join at 7.30. I don't know if I am on the line there or not.
Yeah, I'm not. Okay, I'm expecting her tonight, but we'll see. Thank you. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting is being conducted in person and via remote access. The meeting is being recorded and will be made available afterwards on weight count. And anyone may watch or participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found on the town's website. Anyone wishing to make public comments or attend the meeting may do so, and please limit public comments to two minutes per person. Is there anyone online that wants to make public comments? I'll say, Alyssa would. I'll say, Alyssa, you are now available. Thank you. Alyssa Carter, Sherman Bridge Road. Hi, Alyssa. Hi, how are you? Well, one quick question. Do I need to be here and stay to the end for anything for my XXYY? Super? No. And the other thing is I have sent, CC'd you on an email. I do feel strongly that the Sherman Bridge project renovation of it, which completely changes its usage and uses all new materials, really should be something that is brought to the town for a vote. It is not being so. It is being slid under the rug called a, you know, just a simple repair project. But it's not. It's being changed above and below in so many ways and will change how it is being used. And I don't know that you can do anything about it, but I just wanted to register that stance. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for your perspective in working on this topic. And, yeah, I'm not sure FinCom has a role that's going to address your needs, but I encourage you to continue to try to make them heard by others.
And with that, I'll turn to the agenda. So Next Door Business will be reviewing and approving of the minutes that April sent around, I think, yesterday, maybe the day before. And then we're going to get into two capital projects in particularly, both high school projects. One is the wastewater treatment at the high school, and the other is the fall fields work. Subsequently, we'll discuss further the omnibus budget, and then, as time allows, get into reviewing some of the proposed ATM warrant articles that have been worked by FinCom folks and select board folks to try to move them forward. So, hopefully, we'll be concluding around 7.30. And I see Brian Keveney is on 9.30. That's wishful thinking. And Pam is joining us at 7.04, I think it is. Brian, are you going to lead in the presentation of these two capital projects, or how would you like to? No, I think Tom is going to discuss the wastewater. We have Catherine Berner, Chris Fay, and Heath Rollins from the school. Catherine is the recreation director. I thought Christine Patterson was going to be on the call. She may be. And Tom, is Abby on the call as well? Hi, Brian. And I'm here. Okay. So, I think I think we're on the wastewater, and Catherine Brenner and the folks in the school can talk about the field project. Christine is on, just having problems with her audio. Okay. I'm on Christine. Tom, take it away. Sure. Well, thanks very much for having us tonight. What I'd like to do is just provide a little bit of background on the wastewater system at the high school. I know there was some questions that were posed a number of weeks ago to provide a background. The pump station was designed to treat and dispose of wastewater from the high school. During my tenure here, I've just clicked over nine years. That treatment plant has not operated. There were some failings of it about a decade ago, and it hasn't operated. What we've been doing during that period is simply just pumping the wet well and transporting the wastewater to a certified holding facility and disposing of it there. We've been able to do that. It's cost about $120,000 a year. That line item is held in the facility's budget. Public Works Department manages that facility. We organize, facilitate all of that. We have been in contact and communicating with MassDEP relative to this kind of functionality or lack thereof. They have provided written statements to us that they are not allowing of this to continue, that we have to find a more permanent solution. A number of years ago, it was thought that we would replace the equipment within the building. And that was included in a DPW capital budget, a CIP, the five-year capital plan, a number of years ago. And it was valued at that point in time, about $5.5 million. You may recollect seeing that in our capital budget requests. Since that time, and primarily during the last 12 months, Abby, Joe Rest, the town engineer who was on the call tonight, was successful in coordinating with MassDEP and the Wayland Health Department, the Board of Health, in actually going in a different direction and getting an allowance to have a soil absorption system, which is, as you probably know better, is a septic system with a leaching field. And both the DEP and the local Board of Health and Health Department are supportive of this. So we are now advancing that project by that technology, and the price tag is around $2 million. And that is the request that we've submitted for FY27. A couple of quick questions, Tom, just from my perspective. One, the pump station that was originally designed, where was the wastewater going in that design? Yeah, Abby, do you want to – I don't want to hog the – Sure, no, that's fine. That original treatment plant there, there is an infiltration soil absorption system in the back. It will be smaller than the one that we'll need going forward because the water at the treatment plant was treated to a very high standard. So it could be a smaller infiltration system. Now that we're going to treat it through a more traditional Title V septic system treatment, it won't get treated to such an high level. So we'll need a larger infiltration system. But the ground worked as far as the old system goes? The ground, yes, it did go to the ground. The part that didn't work was the treatment process. The treatment plant was designed for a very high flow that it never saw. Yeah, and there's no flow in the summertime, and it was a very sensitive treatment process. So it just was never really going to be handled by the high school flow. So that's why I worked with DEP and the Board of Health, and we have a better design now. And has the proposed septic field been pertested? It has been. And we have confidence, then, that the ground there will also absorb the material appropriately? We do, and we're working with the Board of Health, and that design will all go through them. Got it. And the DEP, they've obviously said they don't want us to continue just hauling the wastewater. Have they given us a specific deadline, or is it just as soon as you can? They haven't, and as long as we're moving in a positive fashion, and we're staying in communications with them, and we're showing them positive movement from the Board of Health, they've been very compliant, very nice to work with. I think that if we had a different stance where we weren't going to do anything, we would have a different response from them. Other questions from members? I guess just from the field perspective, because we're kind of jumping to the next part, but if there have been issues with drainage on the current fields, why do we feel like actually having the septic, a larger septic system underneath will help with that? Or do we have that confidence? So my understanding is this is not under the big athletic fields at all, the new septic system. Is that right, Abby? I don't know. That's correct. There's sort of a hill up on the other side, and it's kind of in that area, but like I said, the engineers have been working with the Board of Health, with the groundwater levels, and the PERC tests, and the soils. They'll approve all that design work. So that design is separate, and is separate from some of the water issues that are further down in the field. I think it is distinct geographically. It is. But if it's, I don't know, if it's on the hill, doesn't the hill drain down to where the fields are?
You're asking a couple different questions in sort of that question. One, you're sort of, is there like drainage issue problems that we'll have in that area? That won't be an issue. Does it all go to the same groundwater in the same area? Yeah, that is true, but it won't contribute to any of the surface water area, you know, surface water issues that the field has with flooding. I think the surface water is really different than a good. Than the groundwater. Yeah. It'll go down far enough where it reaches the groundwater, and it isn't involved with those flooding or surface water issues. Also, placement of the, which is the second question, but placement of the diamond, and is that the right place? I mean, I'd love to have kids' fields play on a field, but if we're going to have, if it's going to continue to be the same problem. You're talking about the fields. The fields, if it's, right, if the, okay, so not to confuse the two, but. Yeah, that's separate, and it's separate from this wastewater infiltration field, yep. Yeah. The idea was to do it all together because one would interrupt the other, so. So, we'll get to that. Okay. Just on the wastewater treatment, further questions on that?
On the plan itself? No. And I guess, well, I guess just like one quick question. So, you said that looking forward, it had been like roughly $120,000 per year. Are there any other maintenance costs that we should consider that we would have sort of somewhat offset? Don't you have to pump a septic tank? Oh, you mean like every five years or so? Right. So, some maintenance. It's a huge, that'd be not helpful. That'd be excellent. But, Abby, the question is, what kind of maintenance costs will there be for the new wastewater treatment? There will be some maintenance costs. We'll have to do some testing associated with the treatment process, and we will have to do some pumping out of the treatment of, say, the septic tank portion occasionally. It's not so much that we've compared it to the continuation of the pumping out, because DEP says we can't continue that pumping out process, where we essentially have a tight tank. DEP won't allow that. But the difference was, is do we want to go to the $5.5 million plan, where we have a new treatment plant, and we have operation and maintenance associated with the treatment plant? There isn't an option where we're allowed to continue to have a tight tank. Understood. The question was just, so we're saving roughly $120,000, and maybe there's some other cost, so maybe it's like all in $100,000 a year, kind of what the magnitude of savings be, sort of the offset from the $120,000. There's still some maintenance, which, I don't know. I don't know if you could put an estimate on that, sort of a round thing. We could, I mean, I don't think it'll be $20,000, but if you want to say it will save $100,000 a year, that's a safe assumption. Okay, thanks. It's clear to me as the conversation has gone forward, though, there isn't, like, an option. I mean, continuing with the status quo isn't. Right. So we have to find the best. Right, it's either septic or a big wastewater plant. Well, I mean, I've got a much more extensive treatment facility. Right. And it hasn't worked for years. And Phil and Pam, my apologies, because I joined a couple minutes late, just trying to understand the field question, Pam, that you had. So when we say $5 million for the project, was that $5 million including the fields? Or is there an option on the table that just dealing with the wastewater project alone, it could go from the projected two and a half to five and a half? Yeah, so the original five and a half was just wastewater. It was just to do the treatment plant and to do the upgrades at that $5.5 million. It was my assumption as an engineer that that wasn't a great plan, that this new $2 million plan is a better plan. We can include the ball fields in addition to that in a price tag that's less than the original $5.5 million plan. But the first $5.5 million plan did not have the ball fields. Understood. Thank you for clarifying. And so right now, all we've talked about is the $2 million, which includes contingencies and so forth, to do wastewater at the high school. That's correct. And I think that covers any questions that student has around that. Correct? Later, Brian, I wanted your perspectives on why the pros and cons of financing this through excluded debt versus not excluded debt. And now let's turn to the ball fields. What's envisioned there? Or who's going to walk us through that? All right. So I'll just go from my project and then allow them to take on their project. So then as we moved forward with our project, we realized that we could still do a ball field project that we saw in the planning in the next two years under the original $5.5 million project included in our project. And at that point, we would be able to save the money for an overlap in engineering and the contractor and excavation work. I can physically keep the wastewater project separate from the ball field project. But if we do want to combine them, if the ball field project is a real project, I can get that done in the same time frame using the same engineers, and we can save probably $200,000 to $250,000. But my question is, is the ball field a real project?
We share that question. And Abby, thank you for bringing a lower cost solution to the wastewater than what we were looking at before. Anytime. Sounds promising. Who's ready to talk to us about ball fields? I can start us off a little history with what we refer to as phase three of our building project. When we did the master planning for the high school back in 2017 and started construction in 2019, we divided the project into three phases. Phase one and two were able to be complete in 2020. At that point, we were told that in the spring of 2020, they'd bring forward phase three. And the COVID year shut down, they pushed that off to 2021, then 2022, and then 2025. So this is a little bit, we've been waiting for this, and it's been much needed for our facilities. Has it been in the plan each of those years? I somehow remember it being taken out. It got withdrawn without information shared to us. We, Catherine and I, last year thought it was going in 2025. We were not informed that it was withdrawn from the capital projects. So it was a little bit of frustration on our end. The basic scope of the project is the fields behind the bleachers. We put lights on the backside of the bleachers to light that field. And putting light poles on the far side as well, so that we could have two lit grass fields. At the high school, we have the one lit turf field. And with our school start time change in the fall, it's a mess because we really have access to one field when it's dark at 430. And we'll have five teams in the playoffs. It's very difficult to do our job and get everybody on the fields. So lit fields are needed big time for the community, community use and high school use. And as well as our baseball fields, our baseball fields are by far the worst facility we have in our community. Chris Faison, and he can share some more specifics. But they've been neglected over the years. They were put back in that location a long time ago just to put on a field. There's not drainage underneath them, so that's part of the ponding issues that we've had. And it really is at the point where it's hard to keep putting Band-Aid money on it. But it needs to be torn out and rebuilt correctly. And this is envisioned to be a $2.5 million project at this stage? That's what it was when we had it laid out earlier. I have not worked with anybody or heard any new quotes associated with the project. But we asked our engineer today, and they said that that sounded like it was a reasonable cost estimate. What are the Band-Aids that you've mentioned? How have you kept the field operational up until now? Well, we've had to take out sections of the grass and lower. If anybody's familiar with baseball fields, the clay infield on it, you groom it, and it pushes it up. And it actually causes bumps when you groom it enough that the balls launch and cause a safety issue. And then generally across the outfield, the divots and low spots and ponding water in certain sections cause a hazard when they're running for the ball, the thickness of the grass. So we've, you know, DPW has come in and scooped out sections of dirt, put sod on it to try to get those lips manageable for us to mitigate risk. What does the Band-Aids cost us roughly per year, in other words, to do all that? Well, I'm probably $10,000 a year, and it is not what I... It's still not up to par. That's just to keep its safety in mind. So, yeah, and I think if Chris... Yeah, there's another plan. There is a plan to do, I think it's more like $80,000 this year. So it's sizable on an annual basis. Yeah, good evening. My name is Chris Vahe. I'm the head baseball coach. I also teach over at the high school. And I've been in the community for 14 years now. And the high school field has been a topic for, it seems like, that entire time. It has been a real challenge, and it's a huge source of frustration among the players and the families of players. Players currently on the roster and players that have gone through the program before. Many of the times, my meetings with the other coaches before the games revolve a little bit around apologizing because the field is below what we need to be providing, our opponents and our players. Certainly, as Heath mentioned, from a safety standpoint, the other surfaces that we're playing on, the other schools, far, far superior. And just the integrity of the game, you know, where these kids are trying to play, you know, student athletes, and the athletic part is a big part of their experience at the high school. And they're playing a very competitive game on a surface that just isn't plain true, where they're just getting hops. And you can even look at the last four or five years, just the number of runs scored at home versus on the road is astronomical, just because the ball doesn't bounce the right way. And I know that may seem like a small thing for some, but it really is when you have players who have college coaches coming by to look at them, or they just want to play, have as best possible experience. I know we could do better, and it's been a long time coming. And so, this project will just as greatly needed. Can I ask a couple of clarifying questions? So, right now, we're running in operational expenses for the Band-Aids somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 to $80,000 a year. So, $2.5 million to redo the fields, and then there's some minimal ongoing maintenance, but presumably, we recoup those costs. And we think that this full refurb of the fields would last approximately how long? Because I'm assuming it's not forever, right? Yeah, that's a good point to it. I think when you put a new field down, you do have a cost of probably every 10 years to kind of scoop out that clay infield. The silt rises to the top, and then water doesn't infiltrate. So, you scoop off the top several inches, and I think, you know, we've had DPW do their best at doing it. There are companies that come in and do it in a couple hours with 15 guys, and that's all they do. So, there's a specialize that is about $5,000 every 10 years. Got it. Okay. But the $2.5 million, you don't see an additional $2.5 million investment needed in a decade, two decades. Like, this is okay. Yeah, yeah, the phase one, two, and three of the building plans, we just set us up for the long haul to get us in a spot where we can have two lit grass fields down there is a big part. And if you see with the school start time change, it really highlighted that not just for the high school, but for youth to get them out there. So, behind the bleachers, to have two fields out there that were lit is a big part of it that will hit a large number of people. Can someone kind of lay out where the $2.5 million goes? What all does that buy?
I think the original plan from discussions back in 2019-20, that's putting the poles on the other side. So, we have them behind the bleachers facing out. We need to put poles in on the other, drainage, water, to hold water. How much is for electrical? How much is for the lighting? That's not 100,000 oaks. No. And then the grading work is significant as well. That's not a flat surface. And to hold water, I have not seen a breakdown of that plan. Like, how much dirt are we pulling out of there? How much dirt are we bringing in? Do we have any numbers against this? I don't. It was never an engineered to the point of engineered. It just was to the planning point. And Weston and Sampson put the dollar amount to it. So, we were waiting for that to go through. We did fully engineer phase one and two when we got approval. But the engineering part was not complete. Yeah. And how is it that an engineer looked at the numbers today and said it feels like a good number? What did they look at? Well, they looked at the Weston and Sampson plan. They also looked at, they've done similar projects in similar towns. So, they compared this Weston and Sampson plans to similar towns. It wasn't a detailed construction cost. It was just more of a, is that a realistic project? And that's where we were. Does it make sense to do a detailed assessment, an engineering plan, and then come back to actually be able to let folks know what this will cost? I mean, we can still do that. My problem is, is my project needs to move forward at some point. If we know that this project is going to move forward and we can save the engineering and contractor dollars along with the project, I'd like to make it move as quickly as possible. And I think most of the, I think a lot of the dollars are in sort of the earthwork, earth removal and the drainage are the large dollars. If that's some of the things that would be helpful to sort of at least sketch out what's involved. Well, what are the, you know, I know baseball fields as a player, but not as a, you know, creating them. Bill Huss, FinCon member, former baseball player. Sorry. What, what, you know, we have basically two options and that's, you know, at least what I'm hearing, you know, $10,000 a year to have a field that is, you know, minimally playable versus two and a half million to redo the field. Are there other options in the middle? I mean, if you had $1 million, which is a lot of money, would you be able to get the field up to the American standards? Yeah, that would be enough to get a baseball field by far, you know, you're probably spending 200, 250 on the baseball, the one baseball field, the rest of it, the lights and the two grass fields behind the, the stadium field bleachers is a significant part of the, of the project. And so there are different pieces to it that potentially are not that you're recommending or even suggesting that one could break it up into pieces if they wanted to. It would be very difficult to, because I think the whole grading and the, the water issue needs to be done all out there. So it's a flat plane. So that's why that was broken off into a separate project. It's really, it needed to be all done at once. So. Rob, you had a comment or a question? No, I'm just going to make that same point that two and a half million is, I think, the baseball field and a bunch more. Other fields as well. Two baseball fields and two grass fields. And yeah. Grass fields means soccer. Yep. Soccer, lacrosse. Yeah. Field hockey. Someone else is wanting to get in? I just wanted to add that I think that because this project had fallen off the plan, when, when it fell off the capital plan back in 2017, it was estimated to be somewhere like 1.8 million. And I think since that time, because there aren't clear plans, that the cost rose to 2.5 million, one, because it's nearly 10 years later, but that this cost would also include engineering, design, cost estimation, some of the things that you're asking for to do now. But it doesn't, it would be, I think it would, we can't wait another year to do, you know, some of that preliminary work and then come back another. We've already kicked this can down the road for almost 10 years. So, I think that's why the cost went from 1.8 to 2.5, because it's rolling in some of that preliminary work that needs to get done. That's all. Michael McCall mentioned at the last meeting that you've been moving your games to the away fields because our fields are not playable. Has that, I mean, like a whole season or is it like one game or how serious has that been? So, we've had to move some games because of the, especially early in the spring. And what happened was the work that was done was done to alleviate the mound, the bad hop at the infield, outfield line. It took time to seed and grow the sod. So, we did have to move games around last year. And that's, yeah, that's been a practice that's gone on in my 11 years at the high school where we've had to, we've had to get creative. I am curious in regards to the plans that were done and that Catherine mentioned in 2017. Are those plans still workable or feasible in the environment that we have with the changes to the septic system, with everything else? Do we feel confident that those plans can still be implemented with this without the other two phases that they were supposed to be part of?
The plans. Yeah, go ahead. The plans that we had were preliminary. It was just conceptual and that's separate from the wastewater. So, we could go forward conceivably with both projects at the same time. Is that your question here? I just want to make sure, like, the layout and everything else that was part of the phase three of, like, the stadium wouldn't change, wouldn't have any major changes now. Basically, it's the same plan. It's just going to be implemented. And we think that there, Catherine mentioned $800,000 to win out because of design. But if we think Abby can save more, do we think that this project's really $2.5 million? Or do you think that we're going to be, like, more in the ballpark of $2.25? I think we're too preliminary to really give you that precise of a breakdown. I think that we can stay within the original budget. But in order to sort of piece down how much we'd save and things like that, that's getting more detailed than I have right now. But we, the original projects, as they stand and as they were planned, could both proceed and get done the way the existing conditions are. Yes. Sorry, I thought you said earlier that we would save about $200 to $250 in cost. That's right. That's separate from what Catherine was mentioning. Yeah, Catherine was sort of mentioning the reasons why it went from $1.5 to $2. So, yes, if we do both projects at the same time, because I have an engineer and a contractor and heavy equipment out there, we could save, on the order of magnitude, a quarter million dollars. So, and just to be, recap, just to be clear, I think, phase one and phase two were actually done. So, this is phase three. And part of phase one and two, I think, were the expanded tennis courts, basketball court. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's my understanding. So, this isn't a change. But I think you were saying that the change being that these fields hadn't anticipated the septic part. Is that? Yeah. So, the question that we were asking earlier, how close is the septic from the work that would need to be done on the field? Physically, I don't have to overlap the projects. It's more, it's not literally, figuratively, the projects overlap in terms of engineering and contracting and heavy equipment operators. But they're proximate to each other, but they are not overlapping each other. I did go and look at, and thank you, Christine, for sending along. I didn't forward it to everyone. The Weston and Sampson work from 2017 or 18. And it was hard to track against, you know, what has already been done versus what they were mentioning in there and what is being proposed here.
Just from one person who's looking at the materials from 2018 or 17. Other questions?
I guess the only question I have is how fast could we, or when do we think we'll get an actual quote for the fields to be done? So, I don't know that there's money in the budget to hire whoever, Weston and Sampson, or anyone. But to get an engineer to say, based off of the work, because we're going to have to hire someone to do it. I don't know. If we did break this up and we had a chunk of work that was to do the preliminary design work, how long do you think that would take to get done? In order of magnitude, how much would it cost? To me, it feels a little bit like last year, very different projects like last year, just moving forward with the water infrastructure investment, the town water infrastructure investment to do the first phase of design work, which, of course, the town voted in favor of that. And I'm wondering, what's the equivalent here? Is there an equivalent here?
I think it has to do with, is this a schools project or is this a DPW project? This is the DPW project where we're moving forward with the wastewater project and where you have a surveyor going out there. We're going to do final soil testing and we kind of group in this athletics project. There is some original design funding in the wastewater project where we could proceed. I don't want to proceed with doing that part of the wastewater project if the baseball project isn't a real project. I don't know where we're going to be on the baseball field project as to whether we're going to be supportive of it tonight. I'm concerned and I love the idea of going in and doing everything all at once and I can see sort of the economy scale and that makes sense. And this is sort of where we've been with the capital process in the past is that we've kind of looked for that design up front so we have a better sense of what we're getting into and what it entails. So I'd really like to be able to save, you know, an extra $250,000, $250,000, $250,000. I just, I'm a little bit worried about what the costs are. I appreciate the fact that you had another engineer look at it and it sounds like it's in the ballpark. We've just had surprises before. So without seeing the design, it's...
Do folks understand that from schools and found the hesitation? I understand the hesitation, but, you know, again, we've been kind of dragged through with this and it's beyond, not with this... In particular, but it's been an ongoing challenge to get this moving forward and, you know, we've been talking about it. I've been talking about it. My role don't really have the voice to get it out to all the people that make the decisions, but we have been asking for the money to engineer it and haven't got it. Can I just add, Catherine Brennan, Recreation Director, that I think there was a question about the timeline and how quickly we could get, you know, engineering and plans done for this. I think a landscape architect or firm could do this fairly quickly. Shut it! It's a baseball field. So, you know, the only vertical construction is a backstop and maybe some bleachers. To me, it's not a very complicated project. I guess the question gets to be how much dirt do we have to take out of there and how much dirt do we have to bring back in? To me, it might be something needing, I don't know, some test wells or some test pits to determine what are the underlying problems with, like, drainage? And do we have to build a subsurface drainage system to keep the, you know, the water from puddling up on it? But that's just... Well, we have a lot of that. We actually had to do a lot of that originally with the original treatment plant project. We have a lot of the water data and the soils data, soils profiles and groundwater flow and contamination tests. And that had to be done as a part of the original wastewater treatment plant project. I get it for the wastewater, but is it relevant to the same field area, geography, the same soils where the fields are? I think they had to do part of that whole area so they could cite exactly where they were going to put everything. There was some testing, too, for some of the PFAS movement. I don't know, Tom, if you remember some of that groundwater modeling in that area. Yeah, I mean, Weston and Sampson, again, was involved with the facilities department and doing some modeling in that area. I'm not sure if it's at a level to support, you know, a field design, but there certainly was some work on site.
I have a question. It's more of a finance question, maybe for Brian or for people on the committee. But, you know, the current capital plan has a large sum in FY27, and then it drops off a lot after that. How important is it to keep that level? So, in other words, on the one hand, if we really want to levelize it, this, you know, sorry to the baseball folks, this might be a project that could move back a year. But if it, hey, you know, it really doesn't matter and, you know, it's not going to affect the town one way or the other, then, you know, why not move it up? So, anyway, is it important to keep the capital budget level year to year, or is it okay to have a big chunk in one year? No, I think it's important to keep your funding sources available. If you take a look at the capital plan, the average of the free cash, the average of the levy debt is really consistent with each one of the years. Yes, in FY27, as I spoke about before, we had 15 unanticipated projects come in and inject themselves into this plan that were not in the plan last year. We had to do, we had to scramble around and reassign some of these projects to levy debt, to free cash, which, again, forces us to go back to the bank and ask the bank to run amortization schedules for all these projects. We have to, again, map all this into the five-year plan, when really these kind of 15 is really on the very high side. So, to answer your question, do we want to keep things level? Not necessarily, as long as you have available funding and free cash, you're in Prop 2.5, you're using the stabilization fund, your levy debt is manageable, and I always do the five-year average. So, I always wanted to keep free cash around $2 million, sometimes it's less, sometimes it's a little bit more. Same with levy debt, you know, $4 to $5 million a year. You always have those projects that are excluded debt that throw a monkey wrench into your number. Like, for example, you have these two here, $2 million and 2.5. Well, the debt service on that, so you appropriate them in 27, the debt service on these would not hit until 28, so typically it's 10%. If this was by levy debt, you'd be adding $450,000 of tax under levy debt, which would have to be considered in your override number. So, that's why it is so important to do the financial planning over a five-year period, but I do try to always maintain five-year programs for capital stabilization, free cash, ambulance fund, and I always try to keep within my averages of where I need to be. Yes, you're going to have that year, but there's a bump, and clearly in 27 you have a bump, but it's really due to the fact that 15 projects injected themselves into the plan. Thank you. The other component of this, right, is just the anticipated efficiencies of doing it with the septic, right? It's like, we're going to do the fields next year, and we're going to do the septic this year. If we think we can save a couple hundred thousand dollars during the vote in the same year, you know, that would be more so than the finance and the leveling, as Brian's voting would just be the reason to do them both in this year. Or how long is it, like, how much further can we keep the cam down? Do we still together and understand, like, if they haven't given us the time frame, GDW, do we take the time to make sure we get the fields right at the same time? Tom, April's question, which I was thinking as well, could we wait until fiscal year 28 to do the wastewater and then be ready to do the fields at the same time then? I mean, I think Abby can speak more to the conversations that she had with MassDEP, but, you know, they have been patient. The statement that they wrote to us is several years old. They have been prodding us. We've been, you know, obligating ourselves to getting this done, have told them it was going to happen in fiscal year 27. So I would be reticent to prolong the wastewater project another year. Even if it could save us $300,000, $250,000 from a combined project? You're making me sound so selfish. Hi, guys. This is Mike Feha. Just, you have to factor in that those two years that you're waiting to get the ball rolling for everything, you have to pay that $110,000, $120,000 to pump. To pump. So you're taking your savings and you're cutting it in half, basically. Understood. But we won't get those savings at all if we don't do that. Correct. So there's all trade-offs here. Where the DP is concerned is we open up those tanks very frequently and we're pumping in them and the probability of spilling or a public health issue happening on the high school property is a situation that would make us all uncomfortable. Yeah, and is there any work that we could do to start building the lower treatment facility that would give everybody comfort that we're making some progress on the wastewater and still be not having to move the earth until we have better numbers and better plan around the ball fields and do it with the same equipment, same project management, same engineering at that time, and it's a later time. We haven't looked at phasing that yet. Again, we're sort of balancing this anxiety of the DEP. If we were showing good faith and we had a letter from FinCom saying that this was all in place, would I be able to do something? I don't know. But again, we'd also be balancing this probability of something might happen public health-wise. So it's a balancing act. Yeah, totally understood. I think where I feel more confident, I'm fully behind the baseball fields and being able to do that. That project has been sitting for so many years, but it's the estimate that I think is the problem that not having a real number to understand how much it's going to cost without all the work behind it. Like, that's where the, it feels like it's being rushed because there's an opportunity, but do we really know what that cost is going to truly be? If we have that, I would, I personally would feel more comfortable. I share that concern and I appreciate that, you know, it's been 10 years in the works, so it's not rushed outwardly. It's been pushed and pushed where we're rushing wastewater now, it feels like, and it's like they can come together. But if we could have more confidence in that cost of the field. When would you need that number? And what would, what would you really, what would you need, essentially? The board is not the cruiser on March 15th. We just got the budget. Yeah, exactly. This may be a, may be a 19th. So, I think the, I'm sorry, go ahead. Well, if it's the DEP that's pushing this, this, I'm talking wastewater, they might have some sympathy for the fact that we're about to spend $38 million to comply with another different set of DEP regs. I wish they were the same people. They wish they were the same people. The water and the wastewater people are very separate, but yes, no, I mean, again, they're sympathetic to what our plate is. Would we be able to work with them? Again, we're balancing a public health need, so. So, I appreciate that, Abby. I was formerly an energy commissioner for the state and tried to balance some of the competing demands, but I appreciate the suggestion, Carl. Yeah, if I could just throw it in and just be mindful, if you did move both of these projects or even one of them to fiscal 28, keep in mind, you've got almost a $6 million town building excluded debt article in the plan for 28. So, the residents would not only be voting these two or one of these two, they're going to be voting the town building repairs if, indeed, that moves forward. Understood, Brian. Thank you for raising it. We'll see. We have $38 million, though, in the plan this year, right? Not to be funded through water breaks, but yes, yeah, no, there's a lot of companies going on, and it's all coming out of taxpayers' pockets for water users and taxpayers, which happen to be the same. Any other questions? No, but I just want to reiterate a similar comment to Abigail and the others who have spoken up on behalf of the fields and explaining, certainly, I think, the plight that the players are feeling. I think we're incredibly sympathetic. However, given that our conversations here are focused around whether the appropriations are timely and appropriate, for me personally, it would be nice to just see, I think, a definitive plan of how those appropriations are planning to be spent. And just feeling, again, I reiterated, slightly more confident in what that number looks like, I think would help us all be probably more comfortable with feeling like the appropriations are timely. Okay. When would you need that, and what would you want to see? So we do, we have to vote by March 15th in order to make the warrant. And I think what I think I heard from my fellow committee members, and I can certainly say for myself, it sounds like you already forwarded the plans that were originally in place. But I think if it isn't broken down, I think, like, Phil, in hearing sort of your comments, to me, part of that is just seeing how those costs break down, right? So if we have two and a half million, presumably some of it's contingency, some of it's engineering, some of it's design, if we could just see what that looks like, I think having a plan to back up those numbers, I think for me would certainly help me be able to say, okay, this isn't rushed, right? This is a thoughtful plan that now has come due, and we have an opportunity to actually get some ROI out of both that and also some cost savings. That would be very helpful. And to be clear, I think that what we have in terms of ball fields is not acceptable for the town. So, you know, we need to have better ball fields. We're very supportive of that. What we need to understand, what I need to understand from an income perspective is what specifically are we going to get done with the money that we're going to be spending here. I don't know if there was a week's worth of work and that by the end of next week or the following week, you had, you wanted to come back to FinCon on a Monday or Wednesday and say, we have gotten further clarity around what's involved. I'm thinking there may be time for us to have this conversation again then. Okay. All right. I'll come back to the engineers and I'll see what I can do. Yeah. Okay. That'd be great. We'll coordinate with Brian Keveney as to what it looks like from a timing standpoint, and we'll figure out how to get it on the FinCon agenda again. Okay, great. Thank you. And I guess I'm just, I'm thinking if I might just jump in, Abby, is, you know, I know you're going to reach out to the engineer. You're going to need some definitive input and guidance from the baseball group. That's right. We need to know precisely, you know, what the 2017 plan, what we're actually going to implement. So it's, you can't go it alone. You've got to, you've got to have guidance and participation from the baseball group. Yeah. So I guess as long as, you know, you know, Kirsten, are you, you know, interested in putting this forward? Should, is this something we should do? Is there energy from your side? Why don't you guys take that offline and, and you're, you know, coordinate amongst yourselves and let us know where you come out of that. But Carl, you had another comment or question? I just want to make sure that's an actual possibility because don't we have, if we're going to support the excluded debt, don't we have to make a report on the 23rd? So the question of whether this goes into the excluded debt is a separate question. This conceivably could just go with, so then we don't have to put it forward on the 23rd. Okay. But are we going to make that decision tonight? Yes. Even though we don't have a whole budget for the project. Yes. Well, I mean, we're not putting this project forward and excluded debt based on what we have today, based on the sense of the conversation. But I see. Okay. Possibilities it could go into levy debt after we get comfortable with it. That works. And if that proves both projects, there might be a little bit we're generally all on board with the wastewater.
Say again? Extruded debt. But we can turn to that conversation directly after this one. Okay. I think we're all set from the high school ball field standpoint, as well as input on the project of the wastewater. Brian Kevady, I assume you're staying on, though, right? Do you need me to stay? I do need you to stay. All right. But everybody else, thank you for breaking up some of your vacation week time and be with us. I appreciate it. Thank you. I hope you're ready. Good night. Thank you.
So, Brian, anyone sort of weigh in as appropriate. But my sense from the nature of the conversation is there isn't support at this time for the high school ball field work. Perhaps we would be supportive of it in a week or two weeks' time once we got clear numbers. So, let Michael know that what we have been given to be able to consider wasn't sufficient for us to be comfortable with it. Is that fair from everybody's perspective? Should we vote on that? I don't think we need to vote on it. Does everyone have to do a ball around that we don't feel that? Let's just ask. But, Rob, you... There's one thing I kind of want to check. We don't buy the ball field that would be debt versus the student debt. That's what we're going to do next. Okay. But that's fine. You had a question about that. What is it contingent on? I guess it sounds like we're saying we don't support the ball fields right now. We might support the ball fields if we get more data. If we do end up supporting the ball fields, do you think those can be levy debt, not excluded debt? So, there's a timetable on excluded debt that requires us to be in front of the select board on Monday with whatever we might recommend as excluded debt. And currently, the policy, initial policies of the town are that it needs to be about $5 million or bigger to go into a bucket for excluded debt. And I guess the main... The levy debt runs into the prop of $2.5. Yes. Right? So, I guess when we say this plausibly could be a levy debt project, is that really true with our $2.5 exclusion? Yes. Okay. I mean, you know, the debt service always gets covered by, you know, the operating budget of the town. So, the cost of debt is the same under all those... What this does is eat up some of the extra space that's in the levy. But I don't think that having this... There is. There is. Yeah. I don't think having this... Okay. Assuming that this is excluded debt changes the levy calculation that we've seen so far. That's right. We're still, as we were before, what Brian had presented to us, where we have about, what is it? So, 750 or... 750 years. So... And now more because... Yes. So, that's the other factor. Right. The healthcare. The West Suburban numbers came in at 8% instead of 12%. And that frees up another chunk of money. But I don't think, at least Brian, as of yesterday, didn't have all the numbers that drive that. Okay. But in short, we do think that we can stay under a prop 2.5 with this project as levy debt should we choose to. I just want to make sure we're not saying, oh, we can decide later and then we're going to... The answer is, this is hitting fiscal 28, not 27. So, you got to, you got to yell a year out.
Or fiscal 28. We've already got an issue. Yeah, we're going to get credit. We're pretty much out of that. So, we're going to have to... And just... Right. We're not... And Brian, if we... Obviously, as we just did with DPW, if we voted to put this project or even both of these projects into levy debt in fiscal year 28, we could decide and we would need whatever, a majority vote or two-thirds vote from the town to change those two projects and move them into excluded debt. Is that correct, Brian? You mean if you originally appropriated them as a levy and then go back and change them just like the DPW? Yes. That's the question. Yeah, you could do that. Yeah, that's possible. Was that the question, Phil? That was it. The majority vote, though, not a two-thirds vote. Okay. Fairly passed. Yeah. Mark Lewis is already. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Brian. But that matters. Right. Right. So, that strategy is useful to us just to make sure. It's a possibility. It's useful to us because it removes the 23rd of the pressure from this committee to need to support those baseball fields with inadequate information at this time. It gives us a little bit of breathing room to see, hopefully, a more holistic plan with more accurate numbers that are forecast, how those numbers break out, and then come to a decision before the 15th. And then, you know, then there's an opportunity in the future to readjust that levy debt into excluded debt if that is helpful to the future budget. So, that's what we're all saying. That's what we're all saying. Further, and, Brian, this is for you to weigh in as well, the $2 million worth of wastewater work for the high school, which you and a town manager, McCall, proposed as excluded debt could actually be put into levy debt at this stage. I mean, the answer is yes, but then you would have to take a look at the impact on fiscal 28 in the override number that would need to be raised to fund the budget. That, you know, $2 million is $200,000 of levy debt that would be impacting town services. So, it would clearly be impacting the 28 levy number. It would be obviously considered with that. It would either impact it or at that point we could move it to excluded debt if we chose to. Yeah, but then you'd have to go back to the polls and re-vote it. Is it similar to DBW? Yeah. You know, a similar product. You know, we had the... Could we vote it at town meetings so it didn't require a new ballot?
I don't think so. You mean what we did with DBW, vote it at town meeting? No, I think the residents need to do that at a ballot. In a ballot and, yeah. So, now let's turn to the $2 million for wastewater. Before we go there, I'd just like to... I think there was a good reason for moving the DBW debt from levy to excluded. I don't like the idea of setting this up in one way with the expectation or hope that we can move it later. That just seems like we're adding work. Yeah, it's a shell game. I also feel like $2 million doesn't reach the hurdle for excluded debt. So, that's... I felt like for other reasons that they could do them together and their efficiencies to do that, but also because we put them together and almost $5 million. I feel like, independently, that the wastewater probably should be a levy debt candidate. It's not an excluded debt. But are people prepared to vote on those two together? Like, are we all... Okay, all right. I'm just making sure that we all agree with that. Okay, all right. So, then in that case... The conversation right now is, should we pursue excluded debt for the high school wastewater? Right. So, I guess, is everyone... Carl, to your point, which I think is a reasonable point of like, hey, let's not make an assumption that we will change this. Later in the future, right? You're saying, essentially, if this is the path we're on, we need to all be comfortable with both of these projects, essentially, becoming levy debt, right? Am I understanding you correctly, Carl? Like, that's your point, is in choosing not to move forward in this moment, right? We are essentially saying, as these projects move forward, they're levy debt projects. Yes. But, the point is really that I wouldn't want to be sitting here a year from now saying, hey, let's move this to excluded debt. Or even, like, rehashing this conversation that, you know, like, oh, I remember we had thought about that as a thing we could do. It doesn't feel like a good practice. And I think, Rob, you brought up the fact that $2 million doesn't feel like it's enough above the threshold to make sense to go to excluded debt. We have town bylaws. Well, they've just put in new policies. We have some policies. It's not a bylaw. It's a financial policy. But, I mean, just to be that far from the policy just says the policies. Yeah, but let me speak to that. I was part of that whole conversation, and we did talk about the fact that the town needs to be flexible. A lot of those numbers came from DOR, and we did talk about the need for the town to be flexible in managing their override issue of where if it was set in stone and it's only going to be $5 million. Well, many, many projects were appropriated with excluded debt. You had the first borrowing of the fire station. You had the local roof. There were other projects that were well below the $5 million threshold. But Wayland, you know, it's a town that really doesn't have a lot of $5 million products rolling in. We had the COA. We had the DPW. Even a new school roof is far less than that. If we were going to take the position that everything had to have a $5 million threshold, well, we'd be an override city for the next 30 years. So you have to manage your override expectations to what you can manage through excluded debt. And Moody's does encourage using excluded debt and encourages towns to maintain their buildings and services by issuing excluded debt. They don't put a threshold or a number. It's simply they encourage towns to do that through excluded debt and large projects. And in Wayland's case, a $2 million project is a large project for Wayland. Thanks for bringing that up, because I thought the policy had been on for FinCom. I thought it was around $2.5 million, which had been sort of the hurdle we used for excluded debt. So when I heard the five, it just seemed like a big jump. But I think that's helpful commentary and definitely agree. You know, Moody's does, when you look at their reports, they repeatedly say use of excluded debt is preferable and supports the AAA rating and blah, blah, blah, blah. Let me complicate things a little bit more. So I looked at those guidelines or whatever it's called. Policies. Policies. Policies. And the language says any major capital project with a cost exceeding $5 billion should be funded through capital or debt exclusions. That's a direct quote. It doesn't say anything about the smaller projects. But they should. Right. It doesn't say that they should or shouldn't. Right. That's true. So I think that we have flexibility, actually. Sorry, but we do. No, that's good. That's good to hear. That's great.
Flexibility is complexity. Yeah, the reality, of course, is if we didn't go excluded debt and we need to do an override for any number of reasons, we just need to do an override. And we have to get the votes behind it to pass it. But, I mean, we're not saying the project doesn't make sense. It's really just a question of how to finance it. Keeping it in an operating levy means that, you know, it doesn't retire when it's over. That's the one thing about excluded projects. When they're paid off, it goes back down. Right. So, I mean, I guess. Go ahead, Pam, please. Okay. So we could potentially have, just kind of looking at our decision tree going forward, an excluded debt for this $2 million. And if we won't have time, likely it'll be another, at least after our 23rd deadline, before we hear anything on the field's estimate. But we could, if we feel comfortable with that, go forward with that and look at that as levy debt. Because that's really the only choice we have at that point. Yes, I think that lays out cleanly. I mean, the question on the table is, and I think we should do a vote, is to, based on what we know, do we support doing the high school wastewater project as excluded debt? People in favor, raise their hands. You have to take a roll call. I'm sorry, Phil. I'm on the Zoom. My apologies. Oh, sorry. We need a motion. Yeah, so. I'll read that motion. Is there a call? I think you can. Oh, I can't vote. Yeah, so I'll, I, um, I move that we, um, recommend that the $2 million for the high school wastewater, um, septic project, um, go forward as excluded debt. Can I second that? Carl seconds. Carl, your vote? Yes. Pam? Yes. Bill? Yes. April? Yes. Iris? Yes. And I will vote yes as well. I think you forgot, Rob. It just means some, who's going to make a presentation to, uh, select the word for Monday? Did you say yes? Sorry. Yeah, Rob said yes. I apologize. All good.
Brian, can you draft a presentation for us to consider here? Select the word on Monday. No, I don't have one, Phil. I sent you the four from previous years. I know you did. Can you update it with? No. What was needed for? No is the answer.
It's your report. Well, thanks for the help, Gordon. I'll remember this. All right. It's, you only need about five slides, Carl.
I'll talk to you more about it. Okay. Thank you. And, um, so select board has held time for us for Monday to have this conversation. We also have a scheduled meeting for FinCon. I don't know what the timing of select board's meeting is. I assume it's in this building. Do you know, Carl, are they, are we in this room? I know there's going to be switching rooms. Okay. I don't know what either of us for next week. Okay. We'll email around once we know logistics and everything. Um, and if I think about it, wherever we get to at the end of the night tonight, as far as, uh, you're all welcome to come and be at the select board meeting. It's a joint meeting.
Conceivably, if you wanted to crank through more, more articles. Do we have, we have a, sorry, we have a scheduled meeting on Monday. We do, we do. And it's, it's not, the select board presentation is not part of our meeting, technically or officially. I don't know. I think in the past we've done it so that it is. Okay. Got it. I mean, it doesn't have to be, but. I was just thinking from a, getting through Warren article standpoint, maybe FinCon could continue to continue. Maybe. I would just go and do the five pages. That makes sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. But you're right. I hope select board and if you'd come have a meeting on my page. Okay, good.
Next order of business. Oh, we haven't done minutes yet. We have not. We have not. We have not. We have not done. Sorry. I didn't know if we.
Um, so next, well, before, let's do minutes or a little bit, do minutes later. We, Brian, the next conversation item was the omnibus budget. And can you give us what, any updates? I know that you haven't gotten final numbers yet based on the, uh, um, new healthcare costs. Well, apparently West Suburban did agree to have an increase in health insurance of 8.03. But we have to apply that to our own rates that we have in Whelan. And so we're still working on that number. So the actual decrease in the health insurance, it will either be 8.03 or something less than that. So we're still running the numbers and coming up with that number. So I'm being told I'm going to have the number by the end of the week. So I'll get that out to you on Friday as soon as I get it. The only other one that's becoming a problem in the budget is Minuteman. I'm sorry, the Vogue. When we appropriated the budget last year, we had one kid, one student at Minuteman, another family moved into town, I believe, in January or February. That student went to Assabit Valley. So we so at the time we had we had heard that the the student that moved into town that went to Assabit Valley may in fact end up going to Whelan Public. So we only had one student in the budget for 26 at Minuteman. Lord and behold, two other two other students, eighth graders entered Minuteman. So now there's three at Minuteman. There is now two at Keefe. So now we have we went from one student in 25 to having five in 26. So that budget is sort of exploded. I have two hundred fifty thousand dollars in the budget. I'm still running the numbers with Minuteman and Keefe. I may have to bring that up a little bit. So that's an open item at this point. The other one is that we're hearing that the arbitrator has made a settlement on the fire contract. So the path in that would be that the fire union would have to either agree or not disagree with the contract. I believe the select one also have to do a vote. If that goes through, then what we'll do is we'll make a change in the budget by moving a certain amount of money from the salary reserve up to the fire budget. So the budget overall won't change. We'll have there there is already an article at town meeting to fund to move money from the salary reserve into the fire contract. One of the articles that was pending, and I'm not sure who has it, but there's an also another article moving five hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars by free cash into the capital stabilization. That will be removed from the warrant because we will not need that with the pending settlement of the contract. There's a lot of moving parts here as other unions may settle. The same sort of thing would happen. We would move money from the salary reserve into the respective budgetary lines with the budget not overall changing. So in the next three weeks, there may be a lot of movement in some of these numbers. But overall, I'm expecting the budget to come down. My quick math on the budget is that if an eight point zero percent decrease increase in health insurance means that the year over tax would be four point nine nine. I believe the number was five and change a little in the last report, it would come down to four point nine nine. But again, I don't have a final number on health insurance tax increase down below five percent. And then I want to talk about that one, too, that estimate, because I think you're just looking at the tax work paper, your twenty six approved budget tax line was not what we stated last year. It wasn't the right base. You had ninety one eight twenty and I think it was ninety two five twenty nine. That was in the warrants. So I think. It was on the tax recap. Then it was in twenty six would be what was on the tax recap.
So the. I thought the tax workbook sheet wasn't working correctly when I went through it, I thought it normally would be what we had. No, we should be true that up to actually the the tax recap.
OK, but Brian will give us a firmer numbers. So the levy capacity goes up by at least several hundred thousand dollars in one. Is that fair, Brian? You know, right now we're running, you know, a little over seven hundred thousand. You add in another three hundred thousand or four or four hundred or over a million.
So we're probably in that ballpark at this point. I'm not seeing any other budgets that would be affected. I know the teachers are negotiating. I would suspect by the time it's just my guess, if you by the time they do the warrant, they may settle. And if they if they don't, then I think they'll settle by the time we get to town meeting and they'll be moving on the floor to move budgets around. We've done that in the past. But the reserve accounts that we'll be moving from. That's right. That's right. Sorry, just to go back and ask them on the fire. That's for the 24 to 26 contract. So that doesn't change anything with with the reserve looking at 27. So there's two reserves. That's right. OK, it's the reserve from it was still outstanding. Looking back at the 26 numbers. Got it. Just wanted to confirm. And not for saying anything that's not available, but does this send a signal to how the other next fire contract is going to be settled and some of the other bargaining unit contracts at all? Do you have a sense, Brian? No, I think I don't I don't have a sense. I think this latest contract with the fire may be less than the previous contract they had. And so I think I think Michael has not settled into the existing contracts. You know, as soon as one gets settled, it sort of sets the tone. Usually it's either the police or the teachers that do settle first. And then I know they're working on it. So clearly the fire department have to vote to accept what they're ever triggered as determined. And that's right. Yeah. It's any other questions about the operating budget at this time? I guess my other question. Sorry.
Is that the fire department said contains COLA and steps and lanes? No. It can include COLA only. OK. OK. Great. Because that. I may have missed misspoke, but steps are in the budget right now. OK. COLA is in the reserve. Right. Yeah. And then just the follow up on that, there were some sort of bigger increases in personnel. And I was wondering if some of that came out of I know last year we had a wage and classification study that was done. So I don't know if any there were any adjustments based on that or if it's all steps and lanes. No, with the steps and the wage study, there was been nothing put in the budget. The company that did that program, I was told today is going to be banking a presentation to the town administration, but the fiscal 27 budget does not include anything that came out of the wage and compensation study.
Thank you. One other question I remember just triggered that you raised, Pam, was the $30,000 increase cost for a town clerk, I think. It is related to the fact that 2026 is an election. Is it an election year? And so that's an every whatever point we are. I got that, but I just, I think you've broken that out in the file, too. It's more people and something else, equipment or something like that. But that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it was a postage. I don't think it was a postage. I had one clarifying question, Brian, and I'm not 100% sure. For the SPED reserve, we had Dr. Fleischman last week come talk to us and he suggested or I think said that they're not anticipating using any of the SPED reserve, but I think the memo that you had shared with me said that you anticipated they would use all of it by end of fiscal year. Do you know, like, are you aware whether or not that SPED reserve will get used? The latest conversation I had with Dr. Fleischman and Christine Patterson was that in fiscal 26, we put $500,000 in there. Correct. They're planning on only using $250,000, rolling $250,000 into fiscal 27. You add $300,000 in there, that would bring them to $550,000, and hopefully that stabilizes the fund. The fund isn't there to be constantly depleted. For the last couple of years, it's really turned into an arm of their budget. And the hope is that, you know, we put money in there for that year when SPED goes sideways. Right. We need to tap into it to pay some of their bills. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. So I appreciate that. Anything else on the budget at this time?
Hearing nothing, we'll turn to Warren articles. But first, maybe minutes. Brian.
I have one question. On the school budget book, did anybody, was anybody able to print that? Did you get that email to you? I got the email. I could not print it. You know, it's an electronic booklet form. I couldn't. Did you physically get a budget book? Well, we got the, not a physical book, just the electronic. Yeah. And some of the numbers on the back, too, on the appendices are kind of jumbled. They're too blurry. I couldn't make out some of the numbers in it. Yeah. I'll try to get a book printed and given to you guys for Monday. Okay. That would be great. That would be great. Thank you. Thank you, Brian.
Turning to minutes. Do you need to be filled? No, I do not. I think we're all set. And thank you, Brian, for sticking with us. All right. Talk to you tomorrow. Yep. Thanks, Brian.
I sent April some comments on the minutes. I think I heard Carl did as well. Yep. Those have been. Thanks, Carl, for calling out the votes. One question I wondered, there was seven, and it was on the top of page two, there was one unexpected HHN. I took that out. Okay. But it was a comment that was made that there was a happy, a hollow MWRA 200,000 expense that hit FY26 that was unplanned. Okay. I took it out. Yeah.
And I also took out a couple of other notes that Carl had flagged that were more, they're really just notes. And, um, you know, I don't find them.
Yeah.
It changed the, I pulled the paragraph that I was talking about, this, and put it in with the rest of the CIPC and moved the town manager's ask up front. So I just sort of changed some of the order there and some of the wording. Um, the things that I removed was that in FY27, capital moving to enterprise fund articles, sorry, where it was on page top of page three in FY27, capital moving to the enterprise fund article versus I just eliminated that they were more notes. So I just took them that, and the next line town building was a separate article last year. It's more of, they were talking to it. It is fact, but it's not, I guess, somewhat. Material. Yes. To the conversation. I just had one comment looking at the paragraph that had notable differences from the CIPC recommendation. That would change completely. Okay. Okay, good. I didn't have that too as a, um, and then I did have also just, just because I'm working on this one, um, on page three, um, the transfer station.
So I think that would be the first paragraph now because you took out the. Transfer station fund is a $300. So it's, I think it should be transfer station retained earnings. Okay. And then there's studying being done to assess transfer station operations and potential for curbside pickup. I don't know that it's looking to see if it's solvent enough to keep going. If that's what it's for, it's not. So it depends on the study. So, so I, I, I can study being done to assess transfer station operations and potential for curbside pickup. Study being done to assess, um, transfer station operations. And potential for curbside pickup.
Okay. Right. It was transfer station retained earnings fund. That was a $300,000 balance. Is that what you want me to change? Yeah, I think I can say that. I don't know if that's technically the right term, but that's essentially what it is. Okay. Cool. Anything else? Minutes? Anybody want to propose? Move the acceptance as modified? We have to accept that. Second. Second. Bill got the second. Brock, what are you going to do? April? Yep. Phil, yes. Bill? Yes. Yes. Carl? Yes. Iris? Yes. All good. It's approved. Thank you, April. It's modified. Yeah, thank you.
Articles. How is best to walk through these? I have a couple of generic article-related questions. Oh, okay. That's okay. Yeah, please. The one... Actually, there's another stage setting question as well. That comes to mind. Yeah. So this is just a topic that I would say a lot of articles about the Sherman's Bridge Road. There's genuine constituent feedback about the Sherman's Bridge project in general. But I understand it really is the only input that the Finance Committee has on the Sherman's Bridge project as such would be to basically, like, not vote for the budget because it presumably in some way funds that project, right? That would seem odd. It seems odd. Yeah. It's like, there's been a lot of feedback, certainly. The town budget. Yeah, the town budget. I know that the folks look at the committee as a critical path to the warrant and the warrant articles. And so they have four or six articles related. I don't think those are material. They're not material to that project, right? And I guess that's kind of where I've been sitting and sort of feels like, as the Finance Committee, whether we agree with the perspective of the people who collect their payments or not, we aren't really in a position to meaningfully approve or not approve this project and how it is being handled. I mean, we're not being asked that question as FinCon. I mean, I think as a resident, as you're- As a resident, you can have opinions. Yeah. But we have- Okay. And that was kind of the only lever I could imagine for us saying we don't approve the town budget, which seems like a very extreme reaction to that. We vote on the articles, right? We vote on the articles, but- There are no articles. Like, plausibly someone could have submitted an article saying the town should not do this project, in which case we would have input on that article. Right. Since there is no such article submitted, we vote on those articles, but none of those articles seem to impact the core of the concerns about what's happening with the bridge. I agree. I agree.
You know, the select board liaisons have opinions on this. And, you know, in the email trail like today, I mean, there's been several comments about Sudbury did a better job at connecting with their community than we did. And that feels very, you know, doable, like, why it doesn't, I don't have a planning session with any and all of the folks, but that's not fair. You know, as finance, and that was what I thought, but I just wanted to make sure, especially since I'm responsible for some of the articles related. And has town council, so I, I don't know if you heard from Doug at all, for being conceived, like the way he's on for me for the other four Sherman's Bridge ones. And I asked him, he's on vacation, but he said that there was supposed to be an answer from town council this week on if those articles will even move forward. So, I'm kind of like, who's the select board person on yours?
I'm just sent out to his side of the show.
It's Doug. Yeah.
Okay, so that answers that question. But I would send a note to Doug, you know, next week or whatever, and just have a brainstorm conversation with him about it. And maybe there will be some information on council, you know, as a new FinCon member, get his perspective and stuff. Yeah, I mean, I think my understanding is that we voted, the articles that I'm in the South of the Board did not have a financial impact as such. There's not a lot. And that's, I guess, part of where I'm at, right? I understand there's not a lot of a role for us to weigh in on this, and I just want to make sure that there's not something I'm... You're not missing. You do, to my knowledge. And that flags, you okay with that? Yeah. That flags the issue of what do we do about negligible articles that have negligible financial impact? Good on this. So, it has been raised that potentially our town code doesn't allow us to have any comments, either proposer comments or FinCon comments on articles that don't have any. Well, I don't, I don't, I don't, I didn't read it like that, but maybe I need to read it again, and I might defer to our lawyer on board here. But I thought if we are, we don't need to do, we can use 150 words or less, and then we don't need to do pros or cons. Okay. I'll just call arguments in favor against, I'm going to call pros or cons. So that we could do up to 150 words. My thought was, you know, if, and if, so technically. Let me just step back just for a second. There's a number of the articles that have no negligible impact, and there is no need for FinCon to weigh in on, you know, recognize employees, hearing reports, and so forth. And that, I think, is the vast majority. There's 23 total articles that we determine as FinCon that have no negligible financial impact. And I think the vast majority of those are of that category, but there may be a handful that, that we, FinCon folks, and potentially select board liaisons, would like to write something up to 150 words. And my proposal is, go for it. And that goes in FinCon comments. It's, it's, no, it's not called proposer's comments because proposer doesn't get to make comments if FinCon isn't doing a full report. And do we have, is that the 150 word, like that's the word, so there's 150 word limit on FinCon comments as well? It would be, it's 150 word limit on FinCon comments if you're not writing up pros and cons. Okay. And if you do 150 or less, then you don't have to do arguments in favor or opposed. And if that happens, then the proposer also does not get to make comments. So my thought was sort of, you know, you work with the proposer and those are, those are the FinCon comments.
Before we were looking at it, the proposer could do up to 150 or, and I think that's how we had interpreted it. And that's how we went forward with last year, 150 for the proposers. And then we did the FinCon blurb saying we weren't taking an opinion, but someone brought up technically, if you read the code, that it, it's FinCon comments that are limited to 150 words or less, and then you don't have to do pros and cons. But in that case, the proposer doesn't get any comments either.
So. But the FinCon comments, I thought FinCon comments were, we don't have a position. So now. So we would scratch that and we'd kind of go with what the proposer's comments are. So that, that, that was my thought too, is the, the people town meeting doesn't really know that that's why we didn't write up. It would be nice to have a little asterisk or some, some, some, some, something so that people recognize that we reviewed all of these articles and we determined they, they don't have their financial impact. And therefore we didn't write a full report. So that's something you maybe just agreed to as a committee is basically like of your 150 words, 10 of them are, you know, FinCon assess this to have no financial, you know, inevitable financial impact. There's no reason that can't be part of your 150 words. Well, it could, but it's kind of repetitive potentially. I think that we could put it in the FinCon report up front and just state it that, you know, 23 of these articles that FinCon has determined have no financial impact. You know, and a handful of those have, I don't know, it seems like if I'm going to each one, like that was, that was what we're going to do anyway, right? Before every article was going to have those part of the certificate that had no financial impact, you know, well, we'll notice it said, you know, do you think this article had no financial impact? I guess I don't see a reason we can still include that in our 150 words. I think you could do that. That's another way to approach it. Just say, yeah, I mean, I basically, however many words that takes. One sentence, probably at the end or something. Then everyone else is here. Yeah. 140 words of what this is about, and then 10 words of FinCon assess this tab. Right. Financial impact or something. So plan is any article that FinCon with select board wants to say, let's write something up on this. We'll use up to 150 words to describe whatever view we want with the proposer and we'll include five words or whatever it is to say, you know, negligible financial impact. Okay. So I did send in, as a little tracker shows, several of those and people, I think it was Carl, Bill, and Iris, maybe, had sent me the negligible financial impact ones. So I guess on those. You sent them into a template. I sent, well, I just handed them off to the, the select board. The work sponsored by the select board. Yeah. So you have to figure out how to. Did they have, I mean, was it just no comments or? I used the boilerplate there. Right. I think everyone used, had used the boilerplate for FinCon and I don't recall if anyone also had, some may have had some proposer's comments. So I have to look back at those and see if there were proposer's comments.
I'll link back up with you. If there were proposer's comments and we'll figure it out. I have two articles that are ready. Do we have a plan? It doesn't make sense to everyone.
So we'll go. Are you looking at yours? The article on a baiting up to $25 of pass-through taxes, which one that has, that is cute. That has submitted as proposer's comments. Right. It matters. It's, it's 119 words. And the only FinCon comments are that we don't, it has, you know, the standard language. So, so what we'd have to do there is, I think we just cut and paste, put that in FinCon comments and then add our one sentence, finance committee has determined, finance committee in conversation with. Yes. I presume and have, um, oh, this is by select group proposer have, if we label it FinCon comments, not a problem. I would be shocked if it is. Me too. Um, most of them were background and information for FinCon. Yeah. For our comments, so. Yeah. I think that's where those. Yeah. That writer came from. Yeah. So do you want to redo this or we'll let them figure it out? I have no problem asking Kelsey and Jalen to, well, what do you suggest through this? I don't know. It just, um, cause I felt I was sort of sending, sending them on everyone else's behalf to whoever it was. So now I'm getting involved again. Um, I guess if you, if we did the handoff to your select board person and I CC'd everyone who was originally assigned to those articles, if you want to go back and just fix them in terms of moving proposers, comments, making those FinCon comments, and then we'll have to come up with our, our one sentence, you know, we tend to have it in queue and we don't need all of that. Yeah. I think that's probably more than what we had in the warrant last year. Yeah. Why? It's like, so that itself is, you know, to the labor of this, but are we saying, are we saying what we did, are we saying what we did last year is just non-kosher? Like we can't do that. Correct. Right. Apparently. Okay. All right. The thing is, if the proposer, if you wanted to have any, if, if you want to go back to the proposer and they want whatever little word that you might've written already, whatever was in proposer's comments, there was 150 words or less. Now that has to be in FinCon comments. So if we could shorten our, our little sentence here. Um, Pam, do you want to propose wording and just send it around? Yeah, I'll do that. Okay. Yeah. So mine, um, the green burial just didn't have anything. So I had sent it back, um, to Doug and then you also sent it to Doug to be like, Doug, you gotta write something up here. And, and I think we sort of assumed that they would handle it from there. But I think what I'm hearing is he actually needs to write something, send it to me. I need to, I don't know, I'd say if there's no proposer's comments, I think we just keep it as is and we do the whole thing for FinCon, FinCon comments. If there are proposer's comments, I think we kind of shorten our little disclaimer and then a few words for the proposer and we'll put those in FinCon comments with that shorter sentence. Okay. Makes sense. It makes sense. Yeah. Article. Yeah. That's the first one on my list. Would we like to start with the SPED? Um, as that one we've all seen before, I made just a very minor updates and actually the truth is that I'll have to make one more, um, based on that's article in article M. Yes. If everyone wants to see that, um, I'll have to make one more update to it because I, obviously we all heard Brian Kevney say that it'll, the final number projected of spending out of the reserves, 250, not all of it. Um, but otherwise I think I took into account everyone's feedback from our first review of that article. Um, Bill, I added the first full sentence for you and based on your feedback. Um, so feel free to take a couple minutes to read back through it. Let me know if anyone has any questions or comments. And we have an, an amount for the special education reserve fund. Is it supposed to be 250? 300, 300. So it's listed. Yeah. It's listed in the actual, my writeup. It's not listed in the, my understanding is that top part, like we don't touch, right? Like. Right. Yeah. So I, I just. Yeah. And then the cost. We don't. Okay. Okay. Fine. From my perspective. Yeah. But in the arguments. Yeah. Two references to schools as S C H O O L apostrophe S where it should be. I think the apostrophe is after the S. Okay. Thank you. Let me look at that. Capitalize because it's for the budget. They're budget department. Yeah. Iris suggests capitalizing the word school. Okay. In the arguments in favor. Yes. Yeah. And the variability makes it different for the schools. Yep. Yep. It's capital. Yeah. I wish through them that I see right now. Right. Well, so hold on, Carl. I believe you, but. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Real quick. Let's just stress test that. Is it. It's. Is it the schools committee or is it the school committee? And therefore it's the schools budget. Singular because it's a proper down as opposed to all of the schools. I'm concerned about this. Okay. Okay. Having written that in the past. Um, and I don't know what we did last year, but in past years, it's been schools because it's plural. Okay. We have six. Um, capitalized schools. Excellent. Okay. Fair enough. All right. Thank you all. But just to be consistent. I get it. I get it. Do we want to take a vote on this? Someone moved to accept as drafted or modified or whatever. So moved. Second. Sure. Rob. Second. Rob. You're in favor. I am. Yes. Phil. Yes. Yes. Carl. Yes. Iris. You're in favor. Yes. Yes, I am in favor. Check the box. Next one. Awesome. I'll. I'll. Sorry, real quick. Just making a note on that. Although I suppose we all just voted in favor. Part of me voting in favor. This is. I agree. With Brian Kevin's comment that my hope is that this reserve fund is used truly as a reserve and less so as an operational fund. And so I think it's nice to see that they did leave some slash. And so hopefully they can continue to build that as a reserve. So. Point noted. Next. Thank you. I've got G. G. This was one that Cal Martin asked that we vote on tonight. And she wants to have it for Monday's select board meeting. It's a fairly straightforward article. It's a surface water quality budget for the surface water quality committee. And it basically just allows them to spend money before or after the fiscal year. They have certain expenses that come up like during the summer. And so sometimes, you know, something from fiscal 27 gets moved to 28 and it just gives them that flexibility to go back and forth. So it's a fairly straightforward, I think, article. It does have a financial impact as it's about a $30,000 budget that could float, you know, to one side of the fiscal year or the other. Has that amount changed from last year to this year? Same as last year. In fact, the write up is basically the same as last year. It's sort of a standard article, it seems like. Any comments? Discussion? I guess my only comment on the argument opposed. Expenses are operating expenses and included, or I think it should be and should be included in the end of this budget. Right. And Carol pointed that out too. Oh, okay. I made that change in the meantime, but that's pretty right. We want to move to? Move to approve. Article G. Second. As the number. Carol? Yes. Pam? Yes. Bill? Yes. April? Yes. Yes. Rob? Yes. Iris? Iris, your vote? Yes. I voted yes. I voted yes. Okay. Cruz, what do we got next? If I'm on, I've got why, it's the only other one I have, which is the acquisition of the permanent easement for the Massachusetts Central Rail Trail. Basically, the idea was that this easement would complete a trail or help complete a trail from Northampton to Boston. It would help, of course, economically bring people into the town and so forth. You know, the only really against is that, you know, they think it's $100 for the amount, for the easement, you know, that hasn't been finalized. And it's also, they also think the state is paying for all the legal costs. If that didn't happen, Tom faced that he would probably pull the article. So it's conditional on that. But basically, it seems to bring people into the town and help us economically for modest cost. Two things that are noted. One, I'd take the map out. Okay. I think it's fine. That's fine. Yeah. And then the articles oppose this last sentence, I would just take it out. Okay. What else? I was stretching to try to come up with some content. Yeah. Okay. Deal. So take out the map, take out the last sentence, easy. Those are my two comments. Other comments? Questions? I think the map is awesome. I like seeing it. I like seeing it. I agree. It's kind of cool. Like you can just see how far it is. I went to life together. Yeah. Yeah. I figured that probably would go, but I liked it. Do you think maybe there's a typo, like an extra period in the first sentence of the last paragraph of the comments? Oh, the comments? Just west of Russell's period, Garden Center period. There is. I saw that. One bonus period. Okay. Just when I'm looking. I'm now on the comments page where you said, what sentence? The first sentence is the last paragraph. The work will include the installation bridge over the Sudbury River just west of Russell. Oh, yes. You're right. An extra period. Thank you. Got it. Anyone want to move to accept this? I move to accept as amended the article Y. Second. Second. All in favor. Oh, Carl. I'm in favor. Yes. Bill. Yes. April. Yep. Iris. Yes. Thank you. This is progress. My favorite part of the meeting. I've got to be welcome. Cover our foot is at the end. Anybody want to give us an article? Or how about our, I don't know this one is. Article K is all set, right? Your reports. Yeah. That's fine. Yeah. There's L. F, L, and Y. I don't know why they stopped that. Or F and L together. F. F was circulated. Who's doing this? Iris. Iris, you're the lead on F? Yes. So I had two articles that I circulated that at this moment I don't have final numbers for. So the first is the revolving funds and the second is seller trade vehicles. For seller trade vehicles, I'm not aware of any vehicles yet that are on the docket to seller trade. This was one that we went back and forth on whether or not, frankly, to do a finance committee write up. I sent what we had previously basically written up, and I did this last year, just to give people a sense of what would be in it. I think if we end up honestly very squeezed for time, I may put forth a movement that we are a motion that we update it as no financial impact. I mean, I think I'm a little concerned about time, but if there isn't much feedback, I will do my best to stay abreast of any vehicles that need to be sold or traded and bring this back before, obviously, the 15th. And if there's no vehicles in the 15th? If they don't have anything by the 15th. They'll pull it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just worried about like, it's a small article. I'm just worried about like waiting until the last minute to bring this in front of you guys. So I wanted to show you all sort of what we had last year. That would be fine. I think we've seen it now. So when you come back with it with the specific numbers, if we get them. I'm just confused. I will ask Brian tomorrow. Why? What's the status? I mean, it's not like they're going to find a new vehicle next week. Right. Yeah. And then the same applies to after evolving fund. I have gotten no numbers on what their revolving fund numbers would be. I will reach back out and just ask. But no one has. So if you we look at Article F, which is certainly more involved. And I encourage everyone to take a look at it. Article F, I also believe I read wrote last year. So what you see here in this article, the way I sent it out is you see the revolving funds. You see the numbers. Those numbers were last year's numbers. They're not this year's numbers. And then you sort of see the structure of how we wrote the article last year, where we went through each revolving fund and explained sort of how the funds changed, what the funds were used on. Anything in red is certainly, I think, subject to change. And I, unfortunately, again, yet don't have any final numbers. Also, isn't there a new revolving fund that we set up last year for the energy projects? Okay. That will need to get added. I recall that we did. I don't know if it's gotten funding that was going to have, like, rebates or the like in it. It doesn't seem like it's in the article. That sounds right. Which it would probably need to be. That's right. That's why I'm raising it. But I'm sorry. That was the right comments, right? It would be one of the articles. I mean, one of the revolving funds that we need to report on. Correct. Right. So they should. Someone should send me an updated one. And instead of there only being six revolving funds listed in the top part of the article, there would be seven. And then to your point. So I would then also do a write up for that one. I would add that in my comments. Yeah. Understood. I just. So on both of those, I'll get with Brian. Okay. Much appreciated. Thank you, Phil. Yeah. And then I had one more article that I'm still working on. I mean, I think I technically to OPEB. I had asked for updated numbers from Brian. He provided those to me. So those I did receive. So I'm hoping to have that for you all next week. And then the other one is the one related to the issuance of bonds. And I also am going to try to take a first pass at that. And Pam, probably send it to you, frankly, first by early next week. I might talk with Brian just because it it sounded like that one is a little bit tentative. Oh, really? Okay. All right. Let me ask. Just before you put a lot of time into it. Yes. That would be good to know. Okay. Thank you for that. Which article was that again? Okay. Give me one second, please. Is she running this pension bond bond? W? Got it. Yeah. So this is why I don't use a computer. They're so slow. That was a complicated one, too. Yeah, it was. It was complicated. So it certainly, yeah, it would be good to know before we do that whole write up. Yeah. Spend a little time on it. Okay. Those are questions for Brian for tomorrow. Will you ask? I'm waiting for Enterprise Fund's information from him and from the Enterprise Fund people, but if you can just ask him about that. Which article? E. Got it. Carl, should we move to HH? Let's do HH. This is the $38 million. No, no. $6 million question. Rounding errors in something. So the good news is I don't think there's any new information in here that we haven't talked about in, you know, dozens of times. Yeah, sure. $38.6 million to fund the permanent connection to the MWRA and a very serious upgrade to the Happy Hollow Well, singular. The current plan, I think, is to borrow that money from the State Revolving Fund over 20 years. No interest. No look at that. And the repayment, most importantly, will come from water rates. The holes in this article right now are that Tom Holder is going to, is double checking with their consultants about the percentage increases I cited in the water rates. Both for the already committed projects as well as the new? Yeah. Okay. Definitely. Yep. Okay. I don't think that will have changed, but one never knows. And I'm going to ask him, Phil had a really good idea. We talk about new capacity, three and a half million gallons per day. And Phil asked me to find out what percentage of the town's daily requirement that is. I think it's good information. For context. Yeah. For context. There's been a question about the last argument of pose. We've talked about this a couple of times. And the idea is the concern that, I'm sorry, the second part of pose, that higher water rates will lead to reductions in demand. And therefore you would have to then raise rates again, which will have a vicious circle effect. Neither Carol Martin nor George Peggis, who's the chair of the VPW, thinks that's a real risk. In part because we have so curtailed water usage already that what's left is not discretionary. So, Carol suggested I check in with Tom Holder on his view. I have not been able to do that yet, but I will probably end up eliminating that as an argument against, unless people feel strongly that we want to warn people. I think it's, I mean, maybe you can make it the third point, but it seems like it is. I mean, it's a conditional, it's an if, right? If higher water rates lead to reductions in demand. I mean, you're not saying there's any likelihood, much likelihood, putting any probability on it, but it's saying that it could happen. It's not impossible. It just seems like it, it's, it's, it's a reason to question the funding. I also, I also think Tom was the one who brought this up. Like what I recollect from some of those BPW conversations with the select board is that Tom was the one who brought this up of that they do in fact see, at least I thought he was the one who brought up the fact that the town's water usage is variable and they do in fact see large swings based on when they put in enforcements around no, you know, watering bands and et cetera. And that they, they, that is real, right? There is actual, a tangible impact on people pull back on water usage responsibly, right? When they're asked to do so. So I actually thought that comment came from him. So I'd be curious to see what he says, Carl. Well, chat GPT says 10% increase in water rates drops consumption by approximately 1%. For what chat GPT is. This chat GPT. 10%. So I need to. They're not. Chat GPT isn't good at math. So, you know, we have to. I'm not oriented for the answer. I hear the question. It almost doesn't matter. In my mind. We'll just have to increase. I don't think it is a, a, a vicious circle that just keeps getting worse. I think there is pain to be had with these kinds of water rate increases and people might adjust and consequently our water rates will have to be adjusted again and there will be more pain with that. But, but is that a reason to vote against the article? No. I'm not so sure. Yeah. I don't think we know it well enough is the answer. Some maybe a compromise. There are some articles in at least last year's warrant where the phrasing something more like some voters may believe or some people may worry that something like that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's a way to get in on it. To me, and it's not necessarily for this, but if that was the case, if we weren't covering our debt, we would have to have, you know, immediate addressing of that issue because of the magnitude of debt that we're talking about here. And, and that's clearly something as it sounds, we haven't done well. So we, you know, my suggestions a number of times have been put in an automatic rate adjuster in this. And if a quarter or two comes that were below necessary revenue that we don't even take a vote, it's already been voted on. But I mean, that's BPW and that's setting water rates. Right now, the article itself doesn't say anything about how we run them, right? There's nothing about it. It says it in the way. Yeah. Yeah, it does. Yeah. Death services funded through the water rates collected by the town. It's the third paragraph on the second page. But that's in the finance committee comments, right? And maybe that's just there. Oh, in the article. The article itself, right? Like people aren't voting for the finance committee comments. Well, but. But there isn't what's going on. Yeah. Carl, one question I had in the arguments against. So, obviously, when we had all those conversations, right, with Board of Public Works and the select board, I think what I recollect, and I know we've sort of moved past it, but I am just wondering sort of what the thought process was on whether or not to include something of this. I know there were a lot of comments and considerations around whether this approach was the right approach, right? Before we talked about the funding. And is there something to be noted in the arguments against there that some people might still think that this is not the right approach? I don't think so. Okay. I mean. It's it. And the third argument is sort of like, you know, opposed is the one. I meant more so with the sorry, the third argument post talks about relying on increases in water rates. Right. I was saying more so along, there might be people who are still confused or maybe not fully sold on the hybrid approach. I guess that was more so my point. But this is the plan. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Other plans might have been considered. I don't think are relevant. But I mean, but I think to Rob's point, it's not listed in the article description as to how it's being funded. Yeah. It's like two separate. There's one thing which is, I think, like basically as I understand this, and I might not just not understand this, right? Like if you're voting on the article, the article is binding, we can say whatever we want the finance committee comments, though they're not actually like what is being voted on. Right. So I- It's informing the vote. It's informing the vote. Okay. I guess I'm saying that if this article passes, the town has to do what it says in the article. The town has latitude to change whatever they want about what we said. That would be in bad faith. But what are you talking about? He's saying because the article language doesn't say how it's funded. Okay. Yeah. If it passes, and the water rates are insufficient, the town can pay for it in taxes. The town could change its plan and pay for it in taxes. The town will pay for it in taxes. If we have no choice. They will. Yeah. Yeah. So that's sort of the role of the select board to determine. Yeah. But I guess I'm just saying like in context, the arguments opposed, right? When we say relying on water rates rather than the taxation group that, um, the service the debt eliminates taxpayers option. Like, I don't know. I guess it's sort of weird because like the article, um, sort of strange, right? Correct. So people are essentially voting for the whole plan, but the article itself doesn't meaningfully be. Identified. Identified. Identified. We can certainly recommend to the Board of Public Works and the select board that they put the funding source in the, in the article, but we can't do that. Yeah. No, I know we can. Right. I think there, because it's their recommendation, right? The select board is the one that voted on what your comments as to how it's being funded now. Yeah. I'm not sure it follows. So the select board voted to pay for it in water rates, which is what all your comments are supporting. Yes, that is true. And that's not listed in the article. So it's almost like finance comments is saying how it's going to be funded, but select forward in the small portion that they've given did not put like onus that that's how they decided to put it in there. So I guess my, to Rob's point is, is the article language from the select board and the DPW, the Board of Public Works sufficient to not put onus on us? Because could they change the funding? The funding you're making comments about how the funding is going to be, but could they change it later on? Yeah. They can. And so that I would, if I was on select board, I wouldn't want it in the article. I would want to have the town vote on raising the money to do the capital project. And the intention is to try to fund it through water rates. But if it's not successful, there's going to be actively consideration of putting it into property taxes. I think that's something I've wrestled a little bit with. Because that's not something that they can explain at this stage. You know, what's the probability of this not being successful? Well, I guess this is something I've wrestled a little bit with, like, the article E, right? The holiday finance level of trust in the select board, right? Which is basically like, this article, to some extent, this is an awfully short article for a $40 million expense. And the finance committee comments are quite lengthy because they're explaining what I would think that is a lot of context that maybe should be in the article, if that makes sense. I'm not sure it's needed. Yeah. But, I mean, that's my goal. I guess the question I have, right, like, and maybe it's just that it requires a lot of trust in the town, right? The less content there is in the article, the more trust we're asking voters to put in the town. I don't think it does. I mean, we collectively, the town, needs to do the project. And we have to figure out how to fund it. And we've got a select board, the Board of Public Works has a tactic on how to fund it. But it may not, you know, succeed. And then we'll have to figure out a different way to fund it. So then should the article write-up be a little bit different so it's not as detailed on how it's going to be? I think that's the plan. And I think people need to know that their water rates are on the order going up by 30% and then 40%. It's possible that they could change the article language itself. I mean, we can't change that, but it's, I don't know, is it DPW or slide boards? It's really slide boards. Okay. Together. I mean, I guess that's a fair question to bring to them. And then I think your articles, the write-up is pretty thorough. I mean, it provides that detail that I think people would be interested in me to hear in order to... Sorry. Go ahead. The other alternatives in my mind is like having an argument against, it is, right, like this plan might not work, right? Because, well, the water will work. That's the, that's what we're funding here. Yeah. But I guess like the, an argument against would, could be, right, that this commits the town to spend $38.6 million and, you know, and I guess maybe this just be, and maybe that's kind of what we're trying to frame here, right? And I'm trying to kind of gather my thoughts on this, right? That the plans for funding in terms of water rates might not work. And then, I sort of, I guess it's just that idea that like, we, we could vote for this article and the plan could change significantly with the expense already having kind of been authorized in terms of the funding, but probably that's not really something we need to address. So, I do have a question. I think that we've been talking literally for a year and a half about how to fund it. The Board of Public Works has already approved this five, vote five, nothing. Karl Martin is on tonight and I think they will be, either have voted or will be voting very soon on this very same article. I don't think anything's going to change. I don't know that, but I don't think anything's going to change between now and town meeting. And I think that to throw something in here that says the select board reserves its rights to do anything they want, which is just, which is really what your essay, is that we'll just blow it all up. I mean, nobody will know what to do. Well, I think it's like the, I feel like the select board is somewhat implicitly reserving the right to granting it once by putting so little information in the article, right? Well. Which maybe is just something to be right. Yeah. I'm not sure. I mean, I think that, you know, the core of the article is we need to raise this amount of money. We need to get these kind of projects done. Right. Mm-hmm. I don't disagree. Okay. But I also wonder, should there be more detail about what that 38.6, right? Like, Karl's putting it all in the article. There's no description of like what that 38.6, besides a permanent high treatment facility. So where Karl has it in the article, should that be part of, or in the comment, should that actually be part of the article? I don't think it needed. I mean, I think it's useful context, but it doesn't, it doesn't really contain to the article. I mean, the article is to get the $38 million appropriated so that we can do the project. But for some of our other articles, don't we actually specify in the article language the funding source, or is that always traditionally only then in FinCom Commons? I mean, just to like, just to like draw a comparison, right? Like I think of SPED, right? SPED historically has come from free cash, and I thought. I don't think we often make it explicit in the article. Yeah, I don't think a lot of times we list like a bunch of things so they have the option of choosing. Okay. A bunch of funding sources, I should say, not just things. Further discussion? I think there's a typo in the third paragraph of the Finance Committee comments. I think it should be aging, water feeding, treatment systems that have negatively impacted water availability. That comment, I agree with. Thank you. One for two. One for two. So last year when we did the environmental cleanup at 193, 195 on the street, there was a lot more detail. In the article. In the article. It talked about transfer of funds. So I feel like there. Can be more. More. Yeah. Like, I'm not downplaying, I think you're right up, but I feel like you did more of the selling on here of like what is needed than for this kind of amount of money. It feels like there should be more. Personally, I feel like there should be more of a write out. In the article. In the actual. Yes. The article. We can suggest it and that's all we can do. Is that sufficient for folks? Are we ready to vote on this tonight? I'll be honest. No, I think I would like to hear back. Great. Cause it does not change the article language. I, I mean, like it doesn't change. Look, it doesn't, I guess fundamentally change my position, but. Let's say just out of. Uh, hypothetical that. Board of public works select board does not want to change the article description. Are we, if that was the case, would we be okay voting on this tonight? I would. I would. Yeah. I think we need to do the 38 million. We have to fix the water. I want to make a motion. Assuming that no change is possible for the vertical. I vote to recommend article. HH. Wayland long term supply construction funding for 30. Is there a second? We'll second it. Carl. I'm in favor? Yes. Bill. Yes. Bill. Yes. April. Yes. Iris. Yes. And Carl do that. Select board and public works. If they can modify. Well, but that we're supportive as modified already. Thank you. Any other articles ready? No, it's not. I've submitted a couple of my articles to the select release on one of them was capital. Sorry. I'm looking for him spreadsheets on here. Sorry. Capital stabilization fund. Yes. Cast stabilization fund. Thank you. All right. I did submit that. It's all done, but I'm just waiting to hear back from and translate on that. And then on article, oh, I did not article article, the one about through 20. Oh, oh. Thank you. Oh, oh. That was close. Um, I did submit that to Bill, um, Whitney as well. I know that they were doing a call on that. So I'm waiting to hear back along those. And then Pam, I sent you the visible house numbers and the town code amendment. Um, those were both, um, negligible. So we can select boards already submitted them and then recognize citizens. There's no detail in that yet. So it's negligible, but sorry. Which, sorry. Which ones? So, um, the one I. A visible house. Okay. Yeah. Visible house numbers. And then the other one was town code with Carol. Um, and then town codes are like the mode, uh, CC. All right. Sorry. I won't check on this. Great. And then sure. Uh, Sherman's bridge. All those. We're waiting for. More town council. I haven't done any work on them because I need the town council to weigh in. And hopefully that will be by. Thank you. Thank you. I have two remaining ones. So the fire thing now that that's been settled, I'll work with Carol on that. And then the ground mountain solar may disappear because two groups are getting together and talking. So. Do you know what timing is on that? As far as when the playing board needs to vote on that? I know. I know. They're planning to send me pros and cons anyway. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and write it as if it's staying. Okay. It may disappear at the last minute. Yeah. I'm compelled by the reasons to have it disappear. Yeah. Right. Me too. We'll see. And do we know if the, who's got an article JJ accepting gifts of land? I think that was mine and it's already in. Oh, it is. Do we have any land? Not as a. Yeah. Okay. Then. So it's, it may be full as well. I've got CPC articles that are just, they're kind of finalizing some stuff. And then, um, enterprise funds, which is I think mostly finished, but I need some just numbers. Well, I have numbers. I just need some explanation of numbers. Okay. Anything else for tonight? Okay. One quick question. Are there any rules about like sharing drafts and language with people? So, so for article DD, there are obviously some very interested parties. A holiday rule. A holiday rule. Yeah. Sorry. Are there any rules about sharing drafts or does this actively represent your viewpoint? I'm doing. In the past, I've gone back and forth with the proposer and throughout the process. Cool. No, I'm not talking about the proposer. I'm talking about people who could perhaps share with Sarah's opposers. But I'm going to make a judgment call. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But there's no. No. There's no public. Period. Yeah. Okay. I did learn something from Carol Martin. Because in some of the drafts that we put in, you know, the finance committee recommends approval, XXX, and it's like you can't say recommends approval because that's an opinion, even though it's a filler. Right. Right. That needs to get pulled out. Yeah. Thank you, Bill, for sharing that with me. So just a FYI for everyone. Ironically, those came from the town. Right. Correct. It did come from the town. No one was adding that. But that needs to all get stripped out. So. And same applies if you're in your draft. The school board recommends the select board. Like all that needs to get pulled out. So. All right. I guess. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Just trying to make sure I understand. So like for the Holiday Road article, it is controlled by the school committee. And now, being able to say in the comments that the school committee, you know, supports this plan, the select boards, seems important. Are you saying I can't say that? No. No. I'm saying there's a part of the article, the school, where like it very formally says the finance committee recommends approval. The finance committee is in favor of this article, right? Like there's a, and right next to where the vote is, that you have to take out. You cannot have that circulating. And that applies not just to the finance committee part, because whatever you got from the town could also say like some of my articles also say the select board recommends approval. You have to strip that out, which I learned from Bill as well. Makes sense. It's all about not creating a problem. Right. We've got enough potential problems in front of it. All right. Motion to adjourn. Second. Bill seconds. All in favor? Aye. You have to do a roll call. I'm so sorry. Hi. Sam. Yes. Bill. Bill. Yes. April. And Iris. Yes. Okay. Thank you all.