March 16, 2026 – Finance Committee – Video & Transcript

March 16, 2026 - Finance Committee

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Okay. Good evening. And welcome to what I count to be the 22nd meeting of this fiscal year. Not the last, I assure you. Before we convene, I'll read the usual notice. This meeting is being recorded and will be made available to the public on WACAN as soon as possible after the meeting. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, the meeting will be conducted in person and via remote access in accordance with applicable law. One may watch participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found at www.wayland.ma.us slash public body meeting information, virtual, in-person, and hybrid. All of those after the slash are hyphenated. And you can find that URL by clicking on the calendar tab on the town's homepage, clicking on today's date, and then clicking on finance committee. When required by law or allowed by the chair, a person wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in a meeting may do so at the meeting location, in-person or through remote access, and public comment should be limited to two minutes per person. You'll note that Phil is on. I'm still in his chair. That was my prearrangement. I tried to get out of this job, but you're stuck with me one more night, at least. We'll see. We'll see how you're doing, Phil. Thanks. Okay, so I called the meeting to order. We have a quorum. Our agenda tonight is to listen to any public comments, to vote on the meeting minutes from March 11th, to continue to discuss and vote on the fiscal year 2027 capital budget, and then to take further comments on the draft report of the finance committee, followed by a view and vote on what I hope to be all the remaining talent meeting articles. We shall see what happens, but that's the plan. With that, Jim, do you have public comments? I do. Welcome. All right. I'm kind of bad at this. Thank you. I'm part of a 12 to 15 person working group that has been studying Article DD. We meet regularly to discuss the article. We try to follow the article's progress through the various committees. We email a newsletter to a larger community of roughly 30 people in the area, 30 people and growing in the area. We as a group want to thank Rob Quimby very much for working with us on the writing of the pros and cons for this article. It was a very thoughtful discussion where we felt we were really hurt. Thank you, Rob Quimby.
I believe you have not yet voted on Article DD. Is that correct? It was a preliminary vote last week. I'm sorry. This one was terrible. I can't hear very well. I'm sorry. We did a preliminary vote last week with the discussion that we knew the article text was not final. Okay. So I sent out the final version today and we'll discuss if we wanted to re-vote it or not based on the changes from the prior version. Okay. Then I do have comments to make. And I also have a favor to ask. Could you email me? I think you have my email, the final version of the article? Sure. I'd greatly appreciate that. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Okay. As you probably know, the school committee voted 3-1 this past Friday to add their name to this article. However, when you, the finance committee, vote your opinion on this article, I would like you to consider it primarily as a select board land development article. Why? The school committee decision was rushed, inadequately considered, and made without public comment nor input. It was made at approximately 5 p.m. this past Friday when there were only seven people in the town building, one of whom was the custodian. I was present at the decision, but due to meeting rules, which I agree and comply with, only a select board member was allowed to speak persuasively for its adoption. The select board argument to the school committee was effectively, and I'm paraphrasing greatly, you will get something for free, which you may or may not need, but do not have to put any effort into. The select board member forcibly argued this by noting that they had already put aside the $200,000 for the study, thus reducing the school committee burden to zero. To further this argument, I will point out that the school committee has relied entirely on the select board's assertion that the site study targeted towards low or medium density housing will also provide enough information to build a school. The school committee was not given enough time to consult their architect to see if this assertion is true. At an earlier meeting, when the school committee was speaking to the entire select board, they commented, they being the school committee, that starting a study now was putting the cart before the horse because the timing did not fit into their planning process. The reality is that the school committee does not need this study at this time. If you look at the facility planning documents, you'll see that the most likely short-term construction work will involve facility consolidation, not expansion, into the site. This really is a select board land development article. In my opinion, the only reason why the select board has added the school to this article is to guarantee its passage. We all love and support our schools. That's why we moved to Wayland. What I predict is that at the next town meeting, the select board will make three persuasive arguments to take control of the school committee land. The first is some cost. We have already spent the money, so we must proceed with the development. The second is necessity. The town badly needs taxable revenue. We must build as fast as possible. The third... I'm going to have to ask you to wrap up, please. Yes, I'm going to move fast. I'm almost done. Third is utilization. I'm going to continue at this pace, but I'm almost done. The schools do not need this fallow land. Let's make it productive. These three arguments have flaws. This study is a bad use of the town's money. This is our conclusion of our group that we came to at our last meeting. We have made arguments to this effect before your committee, enough of which Rob has captured in his writing. We ask you to not support this article. Thank you. Thank you. Is anybody else on you from the public? I'm going to have Melissa.
Is her hand up? Yes, I did. Okay. Hi. Hi. Thank you for letting me join briefly. I just wanted to note that I was expecting to hear from the representative on your board for my articles since the last meeting with the select board, I believe. And I didn't. No, actually, since the last meeting with you guys. And I didn't. And so... Sorry about that. I've been meeting with Doug, and I thought he was passing a lot of that on to you. No, I thought I explained that. He is not working with me. He does not want to. Doug, the select board number? Doug, the select board number? Oh, no. Doug, the select board number. Because I don't know. He forwarded me to email. No, he has not. He did not come back with a write-up either. I thought you were going to do that with a suggestion. But anyway, the point is that the select board is voting against it in part. And then what is placed here is arguments saying that, from you guys, actually, that it's not clear the road would meet the criteria MassDOT has their 20-mile-an-hour speed limit, which it may not be clear to you. It is clear to me. But putting that in there, I think, will bias people to make their own decision. And secondly, as with the other article about the weight limit, the commercial truck, heavy truck limit, or barring them, which is not likely to be allowed, it sounds like. And my intent was always that this request for this article, not the barring of heavy vehicles, was that the select board would work within their power and in cooperation with the state, if necessary. But it sounds like the interpretation is that I'm telling them to do it without consulting the state, which they may not be able to do. And therefore, the whole article gets thrown out. And Doug's over there in the other meeting, the other Doug, getting permission from the select board to go ahead and fix things down by the bridge. And so nothing is going to happen up here, you know, and so my article is not going to be allowed or, you know, it's just very concerning that the whole road has some problems. And they're very serious up here by Concord Road. Excuse me. Yeah. I thank you, but we need to move on. I appreciate the comments. And I, but we've, we've listened and we will act accordingly. Okay. And the article will be in the warrant. The article will be in the warrant. I thought you said that she moved.
Thank you so much. Moving on.
Minutes. March 11th. April. Thank you once again.
I added Carl's updates and Iris's updates. Maybe you got this one. It was on page two, on the top of the page.
CIPC recommendation on reducing the warrant. It's down from 400,000 for a single year. I think you've got the utilize thing twice. So just, I just crossed out utilize funds most effectively. And then, so it remains to utilize unused funds that have been rolling forward. I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm going to move to the minutes of March 11th, as amended.
All in favor? We have a roll call. We have a roll call. We have a full wants to abstain. I don't know if you've looked at it, but we do need a roll call. So Rob? We have abstain. Pam? Yes. Would you abstain? Is that your abstain? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Iris? Yes. I'm a yes. And I'll abstain. Okay. Excellent. Thank you.
Next item is continued discussion and vote on the capital budget. We talked about the capital budget last week. All of the changes we suggested to Brian and to Michael were made. The one open item, I think, was what happened to the school fields money. They had taken it out of a five-year capital plan altogether, and I confirmed with Brian today that that would go back in as debt by article in fiscal 29. So basically, everything we had proposed there were an agreement with, and so I think we have ourselves an article that I do. Go ahead. I also got a response from Nick, who's the IT director, around just confirming that we weren't double counting. From his estimation, he's not double counting. The $100,000 addition in the operational budget represents a 5% expected increase in certainly licensing costs, but essentially everything that's in the operational budget, and he sent me a copy of his operational budget. I do think based on what I saw in there, I had many questions, of course, which we are pretty late, but I think it is worth next year. In my mind, it would be lovely to have an opportunity next year to meet with each director and essentially have them walk us through their operational impact, what actually goes into their operational, because first off, his number that he was working off was significantly higher than what's actually listed in the operational budget, and I also noticed that there was what appeared to me as an amount, maybe excess amount within the operational, so maybe that's how he's getting to a higher number than what we're appropriating, but I just had numerous questions, I guess, along those lines where the numbers aren't exactly the same. However, based on what I can tell, it does not seem like we are, at any rate, double-counting the money. So with that in mind, and I'm sure given some of the things that have happened this past week, I do think cybersecurity is important, and I do think that was one of the changes from CIPSI's recommendation, and I do personally feel like that's probably important to move forward with.
Thank you, Paul. Yeah, no, that's good to know. Thank you. Any further discussion of the capital budget?
Did we want to go over the descriptions that I sent out on the CIP write-up? No. Is that part of the budget itself? Part of the warrant for the article. Yeah. That's part of the article? Then we should do that when we go, then. Thank you. Unfortunately. So I did one of the big things that you had called out. I can't remember who did it, Pam or Carl. But in the history, that's usually where I put the big change. So in the first one for DPW, I put reduce from $400,000 from the FY26, 30 approved budget to apply unexpected authorizations in FY27 only. We can change how that worded, but I just adjusted it to make sure. Adjusted it. Yeah. And then the redundancy, it's – so in a lot of these CIPs, because description is one thing and justification is like two different boxes they fill out, there's a lot of redundancies in those, and then it's combined into this report. So, yes, it happens all the time. So thank you for calling those out. I'll go back to the form. But that's why you see redundancies is because it's merging two requirements that they're requested to fill out for the forms. And if you don't have time to make those types of changes, I can certainly live with them as they were drafted.
I can go through them. I just want to let you know, like, I looked for errors, like, in how things were spelled or formatting and that kind of stuff first, but I didn't go through. I tried to read through them all to make sure that they made sense, but once they combine, then sometimes it goes through wire. And I know you had given me some comments to get those well. I did. You did? You did? I did. Okay. Do you want to discuss those? I mean, sorry, most of what I had were just, I mean, it was just nits and kind of a little bit of cleanup in the write-ups, and it wasn't anything substantive. I'm trying to go back. I think there may have been a couple where there was, like, sort of the information was thin. It wasn't much. I think you'd pointed those out also. The JCC, yeah, but item 14, Joint Communication Center, 200,000 for radio equipment, system equipment upgrades. That was what was in the warrant last year. So, because I didn't get a CIP form. So, I just copied what was in the warrant last year, and it was redundant, and it said the ongoing upgrades of our radio systems, the ongoing, like, it was listed twice. So, I should have took out the second one that's from, yeah, I didn't have much more that was notable, but you've got my impressions, right? Yeah. So, I'll go three of these. I have to submit them tomorrow by what time? Four? Yes.
I think it was this one, or it was something that we actually posted to the FinCom website on Capital. I don't recall if it was the blurbs. You cannot find that. I looked last night to see, it's the five-year project plan of just a listing of all the items. I don't know that we, like, will that be on CIPCs moving forward? Because they're looking at all of that. And I know that we approved five-year long-term budget, right? But I was looking for it last night, and I couldn't find it. So, it may have been something that Kelly did. And I don't think there's any requirement. I think we had started doing it as a matter of practice. So, that's only for the ones that we're obligated to do if we don't have it. But I just, if it was something we had, I sent it to John and Kelsey. But I have to recreate it right now. I don't have it because... We're going to have everything else that has been publicly available. And looking at Kelly's write-up, or, like, their write-up, they actually have, I mean, the unexpended balances is what they have in their write-up. Like, they have, like, a full focus in CIPC, and then five-year, and, like, moving forward.
A couple months ago, we started a discussion about how to make that website more useful. And I think when the dust settles, we might want to pick that up again. To picking up what? Pick up that discussion about how to, you know, what information should be on our website, on our page. Yes. And, you know, there is a tab. It took me a long time to find it. There's a tab on the left side that has data in it. We really ought to look at that and see what we want to put in there, hook up on the site.
A lot of information on that site, not just ours, but the whole town's site, is predated. Yes. Definitely. Should be cleaned up.
Any further thoughts on these? I will tell you, I was very excited. I'm easily pleased these days that the total dollar amounts added up to what was in the budget and in the draft report. So, it's always a good thing.
Celebrate the wins. Absolutely. Okay, I think we're done with this. Okay.
Okay. And do we need to put this on the listing? Yeah. Or like the CIP write-ups. Both of the pages, because they both go into the warrant. I don't know the answer to that. I don't think so. I don't think we've done it as a, like, a vote. If you'd like to, good. Just curious. Me too. I mean, I think the important part is, well, it's the numbers add up. Right. You know, right? And it's not inconsistent with what we are voting on, which is the overall budget. So, I don't feel strongly to. I just didn't know if it goes in the warrant, if we always have to approve anything. That's why I've asked the question. We don't have any recollection one way or the other from last year. I don't think, I don't think we've voted it. I don't know what it has to be. I mean, I think we've got, we've got the committee to review it.
I don't know if they reviewed that. You know, once it's submitted as well. Okay, then. You have, I hope you have in front of you, Article H, which is the fiscal year, still says 2026 omnibus budget, but I'm sure you'll catch that, and Enterprise Capital Fund budgets. We voted on the first motion last week, or maybe it was 10 days ago. So, that's the operating budget, and I'd now like to call for a vote on the capital budget, which is motion two.
Pam, you had put this motion, at least for the operating budget, into a specific form. Can you remind me what that was?
How we voted it? You know, how you speak the motion. So, for the operating? For the capital. You had also. Oh, it's on Brian's model.
What the motion says is, comes up with a total amount, the amount to be authorized through borrowing, and then four or five other sources of funds. And basically, that is the motion, right?
The motion as it's written up is, I'm sorry, I'm just opening this. You're asking if this matches what we, I think he just needs help making the motion. That's exactly what it is. I can give it, I can give it a try. Okay. So, for the capital budget? Oh, for the, because we never voted the capital budget. We did vote it, we all voted no, right? We all have to re-vote. Sorry, that's okay. I thought we did such a great job. Okay. So, you're going to do it just a second. I can try. I can try. Okay. I thought we re-voted capital last week. No, we did not. I think, yeah, I thought that was, I was recollecting, but I think we voted, we voted, what we voted, we just approved, we left our preferences on what should be in the capital, so we voted it down, and then we just got everything, but we didn't have it on the agenda. Right, we didn't take a formal vote, right, we just, we agreed that that was okay, but we didn't actually vote. Okay, so motion to approve article H, well, it's not our question, it'll be the capital budget, okay. Do you want me to do it? Yes. Okay. So, I'm just going to go to the capital. Yep. Okay, I have it open, okay, so, vote to approve the fiscal 27 capital budget, a total of, this is the 9,148? 9,418, yep. It's like, $9,418,550 to be funded by levy taxation, $6,331,507, by free cash, $2,189,766, by ambulance fund, $105,000, capital closeout, $692,277, capital stabilization, $100,000, and that sums to our 9,418,550. It does. Okay, thank you. Is there a second? Second. For the discussion?
All in favor? I'll see you. I'll call. I'll call you Rob. Yes. Yeah. Yes. April. Yes. Yes. Carl is a yes. Phil? Yes. All right. Thank you, all. Nice to have that one by us.
Next item on the agenda is to give me further feedback, criticism, hats on back, whatever is appropriate, for the work that we all have done on the report. I got visual comments from Pam and from Rob and from Iris today. I'm in the process of trying to process those. I'm going to ask you to trust me to get them what I can between now and four o'clock tomorrow. But if I'm happy to discuss anything, either that you already have sent me or that you would like to talk about. I just wanted to admit that the budget drivers, the reserve for salary adjustments, so that table four needs to be updated. That increase, the $1.876 million didn't reflect properly the movement of the salary reserve for the buyer contract when you were part of it, so that the delta now is $1.599. Your email had that precise data. Right. Yeah. Okay. But that's just a high-level one that I must be corrected.
Good catch. And then this is, I don't know if anyone else feels strongly, but there's a lot. I think that's that budget drivers chart. There's a lot in there. There's a lot in the footnotes about all about the COLA and what the increases would be if the salary reserves were allocated. I think that should be in the write-up itself, not in the footnote.
Footnote one. There's footnote one through six. I think it's all important information. Right. I think it should just be part of, not part of, I think you could keep the, go up to COLA for 2027 on the third line. And I think you can almost just repeat, you know, just the intro sentence and that the rest of that section could be part of the, you know, the paragraph under budget drivers and not part of the footnotes. And the same with the school information. It just, there's a lot of information in the footnotes. And if someone doesn't look at the tables, you're missing a lot of relevant information. Yeah, I hear you. I, I, I like the idea of the footnotes precisely because it was telling you what to look at for the, you know, when you, when you looked at a line item, you know exactly where to go for the information. Um, I can certainly do it. But I think it becomes much more disjointed if we have a series of paragraphs without reference back to the table. Um, I'm not saying no, I'm just trying to figure out how well. And then I almost feel like I'd repeat it. And it's, I mean, it's, it's redundant, but if this is going to be, and I don't know, this is, it appears now that it's, that it's all the same size text, but sometimes the tables are kind of scrunched up and it's, um, the information's there. I think that's the most important factor, but we're just like to, you know, my preference would be to have more of the, especially the, the end of that footnote talking about the allocation, um, be part of the, the general. So you would have to record a note on a table that whatever we move out of the footnotes and immediately before the table, is that where you would want it? It doesn't matter if it's before or after the table, but it's in that paragraph of, um, budget drivers.
Well, it's not a paragraph, but it's like three or four paragraphs. Right. It will be. It is. So, and I'm not saying we can't have more paragraphs, but I, but I need your guidance on where it'd be most useful. I want precision. So I don't make it not do what you want me to do. Um, I think I would put it ahead of total payroll, the next. So when I look at the table, the next paragraph below that is, although total payroll, not including benefits accounts for blah, blah, blah. I did it right ahead of that.
So that's, that's helpful. I can, I, um, it's, I mean, it's, it's not an absolute, I just feel like the, there's the footnotes are dense with that much information and with that much there, it might be just a little bit clearer if it's in the body of the write-up. Okay. Okay. I'll do my best. Anybody else? Um, I already sent you some comments, but one specific thing, um, we, I think when you talk about the septic project, um, um, could be wrong, but you mentioned it used to be 5.5 and now it's two, and that's a $2.5 million reduction. Um, and that was since we had $3.5 million reduction on a eight. Um, it's hard to argue with you on that. Oh, and it's, they've been, you know, I've heard those numbers so many times. It is a, I'm not, it is a $3.5 million reduction, um, nobody has ever said, when they were talking about this, they never said, well, we want to take two and a half million dollars and put it into the fields and we still have a million dollars left over. So, okay. I think you are right about that. Um, so that was one thing. I had some other kind of nits that I, I feel like we're kind of in that bucket of if you get them, you get them and you don't, you don't, but that one seemed like something we should change. Um, one other thing that I thought covered and said, we were discussing in the group in the recommendations, um, you have a comment on how the school budget is presented. Um, I personally felt it was a little, potentially kind of misleading people. Cause it says that the school, school's budget should be presented with detailed comparable to the town budget, rather than it's a single line item, the operating budget. And I think that a little bit makes it sound like we never saw the school budget and all we ever saw was a single line item, but like we did be like a 60 page budget book from them. Um, yeah, I hear you. Um, I'm not sure if that's like a, I mean, even that, that recommendation is that, that schools is one line or not. That's a, you know, Massachusetts thing, or if it's a town bylaw or, I mean, we can make the recommendation, but I'm not even sure that that's something that is a negotiable at this point. I mean, it's something that could possibly change, but, um, my sense is it's probably been done that way for all these years. That's my reason as well. And I believe, I actually don't know, but I, I believe I asked something somewhere in this, well, that that's Massachusetts state law. They are not required to provide more, but it's exactly that. They are not required to provide more, but they can, if you ask, right. It's like, that is what I understood. And I think I understood interpreted it as we're just asking, even, even what's coming down the pipeline, that there'd be more transparency because it will help form a clear picture for the public. Um, here's how everything's being used. We are the consequences of an override versus no. Right. I mean, there always is a school budget with detail. Um, oftentimes it's on their website or the school committee website. Or wherever they place it. And we do see it. There there's, there is quite a bit of detail to go through. It's just not presented. I've definitely, personally made a warrant. I've striked the finance committee part. Cause I think we, before we had to finalize everything, had a lot of access and got a lot of clarity. I do think the warrant piece of it, the town, what they see is like a bunch of detail on 30% of the budget and it's a little black box for the rest. Um, so I just write the finance committee part, cause, but I'd hate the rest of the person. But I think it makes sense, right? That like, we're still asking for essentially just like close partnership and understanding and getting to a more clear picture of details that can be shared. Right. Because the reality is, I think it's going to take everyone coming together to get an override.
Um, on the last recommendation about reviewing town operations and processes for efficiencies.
Personally, I would add some kind of caveat for like note that like, this is not exactly uncrawed ground by, I think the current, I don't want people to read that and think, oh, somebody just needs to go, go through the town budget and millions of dollars will come out. Like we don't continue to read. That's why, that's why the word continue. Yeah. I'm flexible on it. I, and this might just be my reaction to people's perception that government is often wasteful. Um, I don't want people to read that and come away with the impression that, you know, the town is full of wasteful spending and we just need to be more efficient next year and we can avoid an override. Um, but I, it's not. Yeah. What do you think about adding the word additional before efficiencies? Um, that drives home the fact that they've been doing this because we just want them to let, we don't want them to stop. Yeah. It's not working. Um, and one other, like I said, there's more comments, but one other general thing, the overview of the budget process, we have to have that there. Nope. I just, it feels like a very big, dense paragraph. It's like right at the top and try to place where I prefer something people I suspect care about more. So I, I don't disagree with you, but I wanted in there some, because what makes that dense is a series of statements to say, we got the budget really late in the game. I didn't have the time we would have liked, and I'd like that to be on the record, you know? So, um, and logically, I think an overview of the process comes first. Um, but if I can, I guess. Just break it up into a couple of paragraphs. Maybe also just swapping it with the recommendations. I guess for me, the executive summary feels like step one. Trust you, Carl, to come to a great decision about what to do with that. Um, but I hear you suggest, I, I will come back to you on that later, but, but did, um, did I hear you suggest maybe moving the recommendations up? Yeah, so taking the summary of budget recommendations before table one, this part, and taking this overview, and just literally swapping them. Because what he's saying, which makes sense to me is, hey, if I look up in executive report, the first thing I want to see is, what's your recommendation? I'm sure you can tell me about the process you took to achieve that recommendation. Okay, that's not what I understood. Right, same thing with like, when I write an email, the first thing I write is my understanding. And then I'll explain myself a lot. Because you've already lost interest. The fifth thing I do is write my ask. And then when I proofread it, I'm like, oh, that should be at the top. Right. So, I think that's a really good idea. And the one other thing related to the process, I guess relates to the efficiency thing, I haven't thought deeply about how to incorporate this, but just some sentence or nod to the fact that the initial town budget, as I understand it was like an 8-10% increase before we saw it. As I recall in our conversation with Michael and Ryan, as I recall in our conversation, there was a larger number that came down a lot before we saw it. Are you talking about the operation budget? I thought the omnibus. Yeah, the operating budget, like five and a half, right? And we got a down below five. That was the first one presented to us. It was like five and a half, five and a quarter. I'm sorry. I'm thinking before we saw it. Because I think it's one of this process. Based on what departments? Yeah. My impression was, yeah, the initial draft for months before we saw it. I'm not sure that was the case, and I participated in the summer meetings, and they were always sort of focused on not having an override and making sure we didn't grow it any significantly. So there may have been individual departments that had gone in asking for more, but I think the overall budget was always in the five-ish percent, a half up or a half down. Okay. That's my recollection. All right. Yeah, I think the main thing I was saying about there, and maybe I'm off on this, was that there were significant efforts to contain costs before we even saw anything. That's right. Which didn't, and I don't know if we want to sort of nod at that in here somewhere. I think we kind of mentioned the need to bring the FY27 budget within the two-and-a-half guidelines, and maybe that's enough. I just, again, I don't want people to sort of see a five-percent number and think, you know, that efforts were not, efforts were not and are not being made to contain those costs. And it just, it starts with the working group that started, you know, in the summer to review and assess the forecast of 27. So, yeah. And I kind of consider means to manage the budget, considering the likelihood of over-rise. I mean, I don't know. That, to me, says that they did start early to try to manage what they could.
And I guess, I feel like manage the budget, maybe even just kind of framing that as a, like, you know, reduce increases. I feel like managing the budget is a very abstract term, and just something more precise about, you know, contain increases or, I don't know, not a big deal. I just, like I said, I think a lot of effort went into getting the budget as low as what we got. I agree. That was definitely a focus, an intention all the way through.
Thank you for listening to my opinions. So, in the next sentence, and maybe they can be combined, ideally shortened, but the next sentence says that the time manager told the department heads, you know, basically to, you know, bring things in within the two and a half guidelines. Yeah. And we'll disrupt the services. I mean, I think that, I think that's what you're saying. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth and combine them that way. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll, maybe I'll think about, I can just propose some language and you can kind of feel like it or not. I think you won't, everything you are saying makes sense to someone on the finance committee, that that was what happened. I just don't know that our average voter is going to read, you know, within probably two and a half guidelines and like, well, I don't know, I don't know if the average voter will fully internalize what that means in terms of focuses on reduction and yada, yada, but anyway. Does it make sense that they, because if they use level funded was one of the things that like, I remember the channels, it was like a level funded as opposed to level services. I think they were using level services as opposed to level funded here. Amounts have increased the same as the services fit or like the services have to fit within the funding amounts. They're saying it's level service. They have not cut any services and they've made the funding match.
I'll send you, I think it sounds like we're all spiritually aligned and we're people's preferences. So I'll send you some words and you can tell me if you think that's good or not. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate all the work you did. I just had a question because I saw that you deleted it. I'm just curious in the like last sentence of the budget process, in the last sentence of the budget process, that paragraph, why you wrote out five yes votes, zero obsessions, one no vote. I'm just wondering why you wrote it out rather than five zero one, because I see it all over the warrant. So I was just wondering why it was written out. I didn't know if it was a reason. That was a suggestion by a very wise man.
I don't know that everybody knows it's, it's yes, abstention and no. So I thought in the report to have it written out, but that's why.
And let's step back a second. I mean, wait, but just to, it's usually yes, no abstention. So is this, we wrote. That was part of my reason to wanting it. It's. Well, I mean, that's. Did you have the same? No. I voted him. So I think. So I got the. That's right. Really be five to one to zero. Right. You're correct. And that's an easy fix. But let's step back. Or just in that order, just to keep. I put this in here. I think. As a. I think this was your suggestion. To say that. That it wasn't. Do I have that right? I mean. I don't, I don't recollect this, but I, but I'm appreciative. Like, let me say this. I, I read that part. And I, I. Think honestly, I think that line goes in the baby in the summary of budget recommendations and the separate line under me. Right. And then you take the overview and you put that under me. Like. I, I think that that makes sense. The long and the short of it is, I think that line where you say. After careful review. Right. Yeah, you can move that down. I, I think that moves down into the summary of the budget recommendations. Right. And then that, that whole piece becomes the first thing you read. Because if that's all you read, if that is all you read, you've got the big numbers. You know what voting court is going to do to your personal tax rate. We've called out pay. This doesn't include a very large amount of money set aside in excess. And here's how we voted. Good. And, and you've got some good pieces of information there. If you read nothing else.
I think that's a really good idea. Yeah. We can work with this. And I think it's all there. I think a couple of strategic moves around and I think we'll be there.
Useful stuff. And Carl, do we need to break out the operating budget vote separate from the capital budget vote? I think, especially if we're going to move it into the summary. Yes. Because otherwise it's back in line. Correct. That's what I thought. Yeah.
But I think that's okay, too. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's adding a few words to each of those two bullet points. It works in a couple of numbers. Yeah. And I also think the other place it could go, the capital, again, this is depending on how you read this. Again, if the thought is someone might come in and only read the first blur, put it there, because then they get probably the best information right there. But you talk, when we get to the capital element, right? On page, you walk through the new process, right? For SIPC? Yes. So you could also put it there. That would also be the capital vote.
Depending on how you wanted to do it. It's just an option as well. I think just because it's a parallel presentation that we put it right up front. Okay. Sounds good. That's good.
By the way, Jen, do we have more time to talk about this? I guess one other, well, if you have more time, the next most important comment, I think, towards the bottom of page four, you say the tax levy, i.e. the revenue of the town can raise through real and personal property taxes. And that's not strictly speaking accurate. It shouldn't be personal. It shouldn't. It should just be raise. Yeah. The town plans to raise, maybe? Oh, yeah. I kind of adjust the balance sheet. It's expected to, right? Because you're- The can raise is the limit, not the- Not the tax. Not the tax levy. It's expected to raise property taxes, because it's not real. Yeah, the town. That's right, taxes. So you've already, the draft you sent me back today has corrected this? Yes. Thank you.
It's way more efficient than just adding comments.
While we're here, I had a question for anyone who knows. On page four, speaking on page four, when I was reading this, does total payroll include pension payouts for retirees? So that number, there was a double count, so it should be 59%. And it was like not including. Okay. Because I saw that number and I was like, that's very, from what I recollect. I think you had payroll in there. Where are we now? I'm sorry. So this was, although total payroll, and then you have the 76.1% number of operating budget on page four, right? It should be 59%. So payroll not including benefits accounts for 59% rate of the operating budget. Thanks, Pam. And that's exactly what I was wondering. Thank you. And where did your 59% come from? I took total town payroll, total schools payroll, and the salary reserve, and added that up and divided it by the total budget. Now, does that include benefits?
It does not include benefits. What's the more meaningful number for people?
Because I've been fixing it in the other direction, to say what payroll and benefits are. Okay. I mean, it's like where, what, I think that's, so both are true, just decide what we want to present. So, here's what I would say, just because this is due tomorrow, I think presenting a payroll number feels a bit more definitive than a benefits number where people can get to it. Yeah, because I would say the benefits number, in my whole estimation, is a more important number, because, you know, it's a full cost. It's a full cost, right? But if you can't, I would say, don't turn yourself crazy trying to get to that number. So, payroll is an easier number to present at this moment in time, to present that number, because if that's a number that is, has greater accuracy, we feel more confident about presenting, I guess, right? We're estimating the cost of benefits on top of payroll. So, that's a deal. I lean the other way. I would very much like to have benefits in there. I think it's not, I mean, I think you can, I mean, it's not that hard to, okay. I agree, I agree. I just want to make sure the number is accurate. That's a little health insurance. And then. Today, I got, I got. Medicare, unemployment. The answer is 70%. Yeah. And I think that's a more useful number. Okay, great. Seems great. If you read that number, then that's great. I think that is a move for sure. Assuming someone else caught this on page nine in the first paragraph underneath the table, you write first, second, and then finally. It would potentially be third. It's probably better. I can do either way from that. It's a small one. I'm going to take it. Finally, you're a third of that. I was always taught once you started, no number of them. You had to keep going. Sorry. That's a very, very small one. My name, please. You don't have to take that. You don't have to take that. And then you got my note about OPUD, what the OPUD actually, because I saw you comment your question about what it includes the OPUD cost. Yes. Okay, that made fun.
That was separate from your three comments you made, right? Yeah. Okay. Honestly, I didn't focus on it. What's the answer? So the answer is that OPUD funds future retirees' healthcare. So today, we paid for current retirees' healthcare premiums. And in addition to that, we're funding essentially a trust fund for future employees' retirees. For current employees who will become future retirees and their health benefits. So it's not for active retirees. Active retirees, we pay those premiums. And then you're also basically putting on top of that to fund for future employees and their health benefits. That's why the argument against it essentially, it's a double dip. Right. It's a double dip. That's part of one of the arguments against it is like you are essentially asking this generation of taxpayers to both pay for previous people and pay for future.
Does someone else? Is that not correct? No, I think that's true. Where were you? Yeah. Yeah. Carl had a comment on page 10 asking if OPED includes the cost for retirees or only for current employees. And I clarified to him that it's not being tapped into. We're literally putting money on a trust fund that is to be used in the future for potentially current employees who become retirees in the future and future employees as well. It'll, it'll essentially grow to an amount that is expected to cover the cost of future retiree health benefits. Okay. I'm with you. Okay. I'm trying to rationalize what Brian told me by email today with what you just said. Sure. I think you're consistent. Okay. Okay, great. All right. Good. I got a note to come back. All right. That was all for me. Everything else. Appreciate it. Do people want to read it more or else I'll make a motion, but I want to go focus.
Do we have to make a motion to approve this? Mm-hmm. This we take a vote on. And then allowing just, you know, we put it in the hands of Carl to make final changes.
If somebody would make that motion, I'd be very grateful. And then that we, do you want to move? That we accept the report as amended and give Brian authority to make our, I'm sorry. But obviously Brian's. I think I'm honored. I think I'm honored. Give it for all authority today.
Any final changes? All in favor? All in favor? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. April. Yes. Yes. Iris. Yes. Yes. Reluctive. Bill is yes. Yes. All right. It's 6-0-0. Thank you. And I do need to answer that. I can't believe it. It's... You're welcome. All right. You know, really, you guys have all been chipping in on this. So if people like it, it's our work. If they don't, you can blame me. That's okay. That's okay. I'm just in territory.
We have a few more articles, I think, to vote on for the first time and maybe some to look at again. We seem to be doing okay on time. I know that's a dangerous thing to say. But I would... I think we all start with the ones we haven't voted on yet.
Which, to my knowledge, are H, O, and that might be it. Who has the article tracker? I'm sorry? Who has the article tracker? Yeah. H we just voted on. We're all done with H. We voted on the... We voted on the... We didn't... We voted on the... We didn't vote on the article. We voted on the... Oh, I see.
I hope that's a really easy one. Okay. So that should be easy. But then, oh, we have not. And then, I think, yes, that is...
Voted on all the others. So I can report then. I'll just jump in. Article H, which you have and you've seen, is completely consistent with the votes we've already taken. It is otherwise the completely standard article, which is, in fact, drafted by Brian. It falls for an omnibus budget of $122,382,803, broken out between the operating budget, as we discussed, and the capital budget that we discussed. Arguments in favor are that the budget reflects the operating costs of the town in an efficient manner to maintain delivery of services at current levels. And that's the argument, the main argument against, really, the only arguments against here are that some residents think that the rate of growth in the town spending is unsustainable. And that others might feel the level of services should be reduced. And there are others in third, there are actually three sentences here. Other residents may believe that insufficient funds have been budgeted to provide all desired services. Shorthand, you can't please everybody. All right. So, that is, that is the article. On a reminder that on motion one, we voted 5-1-0. on motion two um just frozen to my six six zero zero so with that may i have a motion on the on article page so i should clarify so this is just to where if you vote yes it's to support the inclusion of the article actually you know what i mean looking at this i think we right like we have since we're we need to we need to do what we just did which is to review the article but we have already made our recommendation we have already voted our recommendations right because it's the motions one and two right so that's why is there the last yeah let me just look back like how would we represent this third vote yeah recommend approval of the article we already recommended approval in the motion sorry for me folks same to us girl um it's either redundant or it's necessary um right if we need it we should do it and if we don't need it we need it i think i'm just looking at last year's um warrant and there were four motions but recommendation was on each motion the vote on each motion so we only have two motions we voted on both so i think we're done all in favor yes i'm in favor that we're done um that was a joke but yes yes two things one um should the arguments opposed to be on three lines because we always separated the arguments opposed out and mostly not always either way well we can dance trust me i don't know um i guess the other question i don't know we want to go into this we have three arguments opposed and one argument in favor do we want to add any arguments in favor like sure's town employees are fairly compensated or i don't okay um i mean that's i think i didn't let you look but i think this is exactly the wording from last year or from several years that's i i get it right this this violates some of our theoretical guidelines but if that's the way it's done that's the way it's done on article i think it was an article though but it doesn't doesn't matter the the arguments are asymmetrical and asymmetrical meaning you know more pro or con than fewer on the other i talked to um carl martin about that specifically because i was had the same concern you did and she said that rule which is more of a guideline is to prevent there from being six arguments in one direction one in another so as long as we're all comfortable with it i'm not yeah
so you've got me convinced we don't need to do anything more than add in the vote and um very happy about that thank you um the next one i don't think we've touched at all although we've talked about it forever is article o uh the wage classification um by now i suspect the select board has voted on it but i'm really at a loss because i think what we can do on just as not to jump in but question is in the past we have deferred to town meeting the the finance committee can defer until because we don't have all the information that we would want at this point so yeah i don't feel we can vote yeah i was going to say if if i'm forced to provide a vote it's going to be able to know because i don't have enough information and that's how could i possibly support something when i don't understand i'm going to go a little bit further we don't have the information there's a blank in there they could add 15 if they will but right right i we don't know um and so i think it's if that's an option to defer great um if we're if for whatever reason we have to have a vote tonight and just in full transparency that i i wouldn't feel comfortable uh being able to provide any level of support um just because so is that how we voted down and when you go to town meeting i'm just looking at that i don't see it just we definitely didn't do it last year he's in 24. okay
the next committee voted to defer a recommendation to annual town meeting and then we do the vote vote count okay what does that mean sorry if we defer um that we we recommend our finance committee voted to defer recommendation to annual town meeting and then and then we would we would meet prior to the meeting with whatever information and intake of ice okay thank you okay okay um would somebody make that motion um i move that the finance committee defer a recommendation to atm for article sorry we get up here article article o uh update personnel bylaws and wage and classification plan thank you all in favor yes pam yes yes yes carl is a yes yes bill zero thank you two down um on article hh the the water supply project i just got through looking at the minutes that said we um deferred a vote from last week um i thought we had voted on it but um we didn't we voted on it two weeks ago when you had initially presented it last week we we discussed it and we did not take a vote and i thought where we landed is that tonight even if we all felt that there were substantive changes to the article we could revote but not that it was necessary that's right i kind of i kind of as i recall from the dialogue there was the whole thing with like 18 different financing options and 25 different potential costs and i think we deferred it and said you were going to make it better which i think you have
thank you for that have other people had a chance to read that yes those changes the only substantive change is to distill the work that george biggie's done had done to take what is their calling it preferred might be too strong but they're but but the most maybe the most likely source of funding or structure of the funding if it's not going to be an srf loan which they say would would raise water rates um about somewhere between 35 and 40 percent we were looking for some better direction than somebody say substantially they've come up with that so that's what the article now says we want to source that to the uh board of public works yeah it's a good idea i think we should because it's not our estimate we haven't looked at those numbers it it kind of feels just like looking at the enterprise fund article that i worked on and we had increased debt they raised eight million dollars of debt and rates are going to be up i think this is estimated 30 so this seems like a low estimate kind of feels like that to me but but i'm not i haven't i didn't do that calculation so i if i think if we're going if we plan to include it we should source who's made the estimate as estimated by it well this is the first time people wanted that kind of information in here i don't know the percentage in case yeah if we don't feel strongly about it i'm happy to take it out i um i feel strongly that it's good i think the idea of just adding uh perm assessment for the department works yeah that's all it means let let me ensure that folks know what's coming from us that those aren't estimations coming from us okay just a question is uh carl did i understand that someone thinks that there's going to be less expensive funding than s rf funding no that's not what i meant um okay um i think you can't get less than zero yeah i was going to say yeah and and this does qualify for as to the best of our knowledge for srf funding right well srf turned us down oh i didn't hear that i'm guessing i'm not up to speed oh my goodness that's a big blow yes okay we are we are appealing that but you know yeah you know they score i think it's like many grant applications they score each each application and i think they're looking for 500 points whatever those might mean and we came in at about half of that so they are appealing but meanwhile they're beginning to start looking at alternatives got it okay thanks for the heads up um do we feel a need to revote and maybe equally important would it change anybody's vote to do that the first version of the last version being you have two abstentions on the list yeah four zero two oops yes april and i are here and i can speak for myself if i forced the remote it might push me further in the answer i just think the same thing so i would take carl like this is the best vote you're gonna get i'm not trying to force it i know no i know but i but i i i'm i'm sure you're hearing feedback from people and if we force the revote i would probably actually remove the direction no given the addition position
that's not that we don't think it's like it's not that we don't think we need water we need water correct it just feels unclear what we're actually authorizing um and and i guess i'll speak for myself like i i understand i appreciate that puts everyone in a tough spot but i think it should be very clear before before we are asked for 38 million so projects that's going to be 100 million dollars at the end of the day feels like it's not something if it is it'll have to come back to town meeting because the authorization is only for 38.6 um then at the funding so if they get a four percent interest loan does it have to go back to town meeting because it does but again so that's still costing another what do they say that's like another it was a ridiculous number when i had done the map on it um the actual cost is yeah he's authorizing to borrow 38 or 6 million in fairness show me a budget article i mean i'm sorry the appropriations article like this that has the interest paid payable factored in correct that's the way it works but if the interest rate goes like is there a cap on up to four percent or is it to come down to get the best example of the last time the town asked for 38 million dollars i guess it's just a large amount and and sometimes i think the total cost you know you can you can kind of get away with four percent on a million dollar two million dollar project but it is the large amount of money and again i can always speak for myself i abstain the first time but mostly out of appreciating that this project i don't have any ethical moral concerns with what the project's trying to push forward but i do have concerns around just the payment of it um and i think unfortunately at this time there's still a lot of unknowns regarding payment yeah or and so i didn't mean to put anybody on the spot with the question but honestly i was wondering did i abstain the question of should we re-vote for me comes down to would anyone change their vote yeah yeah would you a it's a it's a fair question to you as well rob would you change your i would not
in this realm we have phil we don't have true bill so i don't know if phil would like to cast a vote if it's going to be different yeah it's a lot of sex but i'd say not recast the vote just let it be as recorded okay perfectly okay with that but i will add the source of that information yep or that example i should say okay thank you that's that's what i have for articles um tg i sent around um like it was a minor addendum just to so as an athlete tg tg was the um the cpa appropriations and it was just um i think going way back someone that asked her part of it was if um there were projects that hadn't been completed after three years um that that those funds go back to the committed funds so someone asked about the number and size so i think it was nine projects for 150 000. um so i included that so that's i'm just reporting back i don't think we need to re-vote but i would agree with that as an fyi um for my part i sent around three articles because a lot of articles that are changing right in the game um may we start with db sorry sorry not try to speak up um i so dd has the updated article text uh to reflect oh i'm sorry i have the wrong version uh should have the updated article text to reflect that this is the study will now be done under the joint direction of the select board and the school committee um if you recall when we voted this we did a preliminary vote i told everyone that that was what i expected the article to say but that the select board and the school board had not agreed on language yet um so it now has that language i feel the language does not differ substantively from what i introduced at the time it's a joint joint study between the select board and the school committee um to study housing schools or other uses of the land um i did not change any of my comments based on the new article uh the one thing i will mention is there was a question uh of whether specific funds have already been identified for the 200 000 and it turns out they have there's some money can be sale of the real estate fund that has been earmarked for this purpose um for my part i don't see a need to revoke this but you all have the updated article and you're welcome to to change your perspective this was another close vote right this was another close vote yep so and we now have phil four to two so when did you send this rob uh i sent it today five o'clock so you didn't get a lot of meantime so fortunately the changes are just in the article so if you want to just read that that's probably sufficient i just i dropped it to the top here no i have it i um i just saw that the first two and it's changing anything and select to select board photos they did uh and school committee was also
three to one i was just asking about the select board and the school committee votes
i think select one might be voting tonight uh i think last i think they did on the article text but i don't know if they formally voted i think they voted tonight because last week it was still school committee they had invited school committee and they only meet on mondays right now i think they were voting tonight just adding to your right up the the school committee vote as well right under the works so select board where cabins
a lot of the discussion from my understanding or what i heard last week was previously it was proposed by the select board and there were they wanted school committee to joint beyond like to join them in this study rather than expending twice the amount of salary i think to your point there was some question about whether select board was merely seeking school committee's approval and i think school committee asked that it be a joint study in which they you know had a more active part and i think they ended up with it being under the joint direction of the two as opposed to just being a select board study that school committee is you know along for the ride on anyone feel strongly about re-voting this yes the two people that said no would be the or anybody saying we have additional perspective as well in context you know um i'm okay with the vote as it stands i'm fine with my vote don't seem need to read but sounds good
yeah the vote was four four four two against thank you everybody very much thank you really hard thank you appreciate your participation in the process thank you all right so he was disposed of um probably had a couple others yes uh and having april can share the fun um so there are two uh sherman's road articles um yy and zz uh both of them have changed uh both of them have the write-ups have changed significantly based on a lot of feedback from town council and the town manager's office and the select board um there is still some ongoing discussion with the select board and town council um how exactly some of these things should be framed from sort of a legal perspective um um i i see you laughing i think you're the same everybody's editing it and i'm like i'm just kind of like this like just tell me what to there's what needs to go in and so i feel the same way rob
so i don't i'm sort of raising that we we did take votes on these already um i don't know that there is that there is again the the articles themselves and our expectations for what the results of the articles would be have not changed significantly it's really just how they're being presented um trying to find the right balance between framing the legalities of what will what is and is not likely to happen and not drowning people in the legalities of what is and is not likely to happen um i guess really just from a process perspective i'm expecting feedback from the select board meeting tonight on these write-ups
where do we go from there there are changes or well i unless we have really substantive changes i think we voted yeah i agree with that i think that's fair as a practical matter we don't we don't have a meeting on the agenda sorry we don't have a meeting on the calendar for wednesday right now um so i don't see how we could read all these yeah i like i said i don't think any of this changes the meat of the matter what the article is about and how it is going to impact the town it's really just the write-up so i i think that's probably fine but i just want to make sure we're dotting our t's and crossing our i's appreciate it and and just out of curiosity i thought at one point these might both be articles we don't actually take a position on because they're not financially material like for that um in spite of us believing that we should write it up anyway because otherwise there were things that would be unclear to the town okay um so elisa if you're still there um i sent you an email already tonight apologies for the potential gaps in communication um this there's been a lot of back and forth on this uh and there was no intent to keep anyone out of out of that fun um yeah if you're still there i sent you an email and welcome your comments so yeah i guess i i'll keep refining the um refining the write-ups and based on select force guidance uh if they are suggesting things that i think may ever revoke i'll surface that by email and we'll figure it out i would just say thank you to you to april for tackling these articles i know they're assigned but it was tough and i know there were so many moving parts and trying to you know be sensitive to the residents and those petitioners needs and understanding select boards the laws and just there was a lot to juggle so thank you for for taking those on that you're saying that it's really true and um i thought i was doing you a favor i guess i really did that paper was very nice nice on one of my carol about this over the weekend she asked how it was the newest number of the finance committee got these articles i told her that i missed the meeting where the articles are so that'll teach her that i knew that i knew that april had some other duties that were
really busy and when i read the articles i thought i thought i thought i thought also you were brand new so i really wanted to i apologize i appreciate some friendly hazing over here i know a lot more about how one can and cannot change fields that's well that is kind of one of i mean beside those specific articles aside that's this is part of the process i really actually enjoy like getting like getting to know more about whatever it might be you know adus for example i just
you know the cane that we yes five thousand dollars to help preserve last year not this year anyway um do we have other articles to either vote or revisit i think we had so i would say april i mean you're welcome to present and yours are in a similar spot right of i have one that i want i wasn't going to bring up any of that no one's bridge because i'm in the same boat that's what i was just going to make not substantial i was i don't know that i was going to make the same comment that like i don't think it's going to change anything you don't believe that i think i trust you and i don't think it requires any vote i agree the one that i was going to bring up is the planning board article for the multi-zone multi-zoning for 20 west so what letters up um oh oh oh okay we already voted on this this was the one where we were changing building height from 35 to 50 oh yes because well there is and oh yeah well we don't suggest that i reach out to becky cenizzi um and there is going to be a additional insight that goes to planning board tomorrow i don't have that additional insight but there's basically something like an argument that's going to go on the floor so i told her i'm like i can't share i don't have the information to share with the team so how should we do this right now so her suggestion was like we could potentially take no position and defer until town meeting because we'd want to talk to planning board before we make another vote but as far as planning board knows because i had copied her on our final approval she sees it as being passed because we would have voted and approved for the original write-up but there is other things that have come to light yeah on that zoning board appeals that may change our mind i mean i think just from the conversation we had last week i think that one might be worthy of a revote because i think we had those open questions about how to interpret the height limits right and and i think if if they're a unable to answer that question because they're still having conversations about it then yes i personally would like a revote on that um because i think as i've expressed earlier tonight generally in the absence of information and the ability to appreciate impact i would like to either not take a position defer or i'm going to vote them yeah i agree just i think that based on our discussion last week there was more information that came to light that i think would warrant another vote so i i think question is do we want to defer or do we want to vote i would prefer to defer if we think there's there's more information yeah i think i'd like i'd like to get planning boards and like i don't want to brush it go based off of like what it is deferential town meeting to vote on it it's how i would prefer it as well because i would like to get information from planning board before we make a final well i agree with that um the article itself is very clear right just a bunch of numbers and it tells you what you can do what you can't do but it sounds like working behind this is a zoning board appeal that's going to give people rights that are not obvious to us right right is that yeah yeah so without knowing what that looks like i i don't want to vote on it now do we do we need to include anything i'm just wondering um in our in our write-up but why we defer to term in i we did this for the last one um we didn't um the different recommendation on the update personnel viral so that that is like there's there's a blank in the in the oh i mean well i mean i guess please tell me can we actually it goes to warrant it'll be right but it goes to print it will be filled in so i guess we don't have to give a reason um it's other than saying we think there's more information to be had right which is always true and i feel like we can't say anything precise enough that i want to commit ourselves and so should i move to make the motion i move to um fincom defer vote move the fincom to defer a recommendation until annual town meeting for article o o multi-housing zoning route 20 west in the motion all in favor rob yes yes yes bill yes yes yes yes um question did we have a vote on yy and zz yeah okay and yeah i guess we didn't i didn't get your opinion so we did vote on yy and zz i think we were one i didn't see it in the drafts but yeah sorry no that and i was actually realizing i hadn't filled that in feeling we were one five zero on yy okay zero six zero on zz that's fine thanks of course and if you would like to be part of those we should be welcome no it's fine no need you're really missing out back to the party we still can't get to more than six yeah why don't we do that and uh oops i'll just submit one okay thank you so oh and any other articles i don't think this one requires a any input actually from bitcoin but it was just pam sent me for article f the revolving funds none of the numbers have changed but if you all recollect last year we actually voted to create a revolving fund for the energy projects remember that where the grant money goes in yes um so there was just a little bit added into the write-up around that revolving fund just that it was created at the 25 annual town meeting um and there was no spending cap requested for fiscal year 27 so there's no money requested for that revolving fund there's nothing in it no money's being spent nobody's being asked um i don't think that necessitates another vote none of the numbers have changed it's just an additional line that i just sounded to me i was like well it's your article so i'll let you yeah no it's all it's but it's just an fyi i think it's totally fine yeah i think we can accept that just it's all good it works for me sounds good by the way i have no information on this but there apparently have been two more vehicles identified oh yes yes they did let us know i do not bring it back because i labored under the assumption that it doesn't change i didn't hear any i guess i didn't hear anyone get feedback that they were concerned about the number of vehicles being sold etc and frankly they could still identify vehicles tomorrow right so um i was made aware and i just want them to add yes thank you yep i did yeah let's use some the article a i know that they're still filling it all but you don't have anything for it i have a pdf version right so i'll just let them know that we never got anything and our little blurb is worth not taking i had given that to doug okay in advance so i think even the one that he had just took that one today exactly i think we missed any articles just going through the list it was o dd to gph h so you can get that things from t-u-u-v-v-dot-dumb y-y-z-z so i think we are finishing all the articles good work team nice job everybody said it couldn't be done i said it could be done okay um we are unbelievably out of schedule and i'm not going to stop that now um as i said a minute ago we don't have any meetings scheduled we have rooms we have zoom links but we don't have any specific specific plans i think we ought to plan a meeting in the next couple of weeks um just to talk about what just happened and talk about you know what went right what went wrong what we can ask to change in the future um there will be and i don't know the date um but there will be you know kind of all what i'm going to call it all hands meeting with the select board and also the schools i'm not sure and with the town manager and uh finance director to talk about this and i think it'd be nice to go into that meeting having thought about it and raise a group should we keep that first monday of the month like the 6th of april that would be one two three weeks from now to me that feels that sounds pretty good to me um anybody think they won't be available on that first monday or or maybe folks were hoping further out but to me that feels like it feels like a nice sex yeah that's what i was thinking
that's not a school vacation week or anything like that okay so personally i think that's a good amount of time to kind of digest things and you know take the victory lap and what we've just accomplished and then start thinking about things one thing i might do between now and then um i feel that i learned a lot through this process i feel that i wish that i had a guide for new fincom members for how to write articles the start of this process i might start consolidating some of my thoughts into a guide for future fincom members on how to write articles that would be wonderful um let me see if that um i mean if there is such a thing and i just didn't get it before i'm not getting the effort right one thing i can tell you though is that if you had had one when you started it would change three times during the process so that should not be the case but yep you know if we can all agree on what that says at some point maybe not by april 6th yeah no yeah no i'm not i'm not i think that's you know something for over the course of the year but my hope to your point would also be that maybe we can get some of that in writing now it'll change less in future years
on articles because there's still some outstanding so you'll i know you guys are still in all flux and they're still being reworked so i guess you'll send those db i think it's good and i'll send that to you now um okay the other two i sent you i thought were final okay based off of okay everything that i all the feedback i got but i know rob and i hate some similar language that you have similar articles and different very different one right ups right now i what i guess in terms of like kind of logistical timelines you need final things but are there changes that that you guys need to make or is it stuff that select for i mean my question ultimately is if you want to send them to me and i send them to the town manager's office if the final changes are something that select board is making on the article well they can't really change the article language but no it's it's in the write-up at least for me there i was on a couple of calls with doug and carol over the weekend and there's questions about from a legal perspective what we can and can't and should and shouldn't say in the write-up okay so do you want to let me know so which articles should i just continue to wait for and be patient on for me yy and zz okay kind of a similar topic for both of them ct uu vb ww i'm sorry why it's it's all is there an xx i think it got killed right maybe i think there's another is mine's tt uu vb ww uh xx is long-term facilities planning okay so it's not a part of that yeah the one non-sherman's bridge in the middle of a bunch of sherman's bridge okay so all all the sherman's bridge ones are still tbd yeah so i'm assuming after tonight's meeting we'll probably get more insight and i'm hoping that doug levine is the liaison for all the six of those articles okay great and then for the others hhs um do you have any final change you just you're going to track changes to do the final hh for me yes um and oh we will do you want to you sent me the latest oh and i'll just put the votes in oh is the deferred the wage that we did plan that we deferred um so that was i just want to make sure that i've got i doubt i doubt anything that happens with select board meeting will change that text tonight you know tonight but i'll confirm that because they have not voted is that correct right they're voting right tonight okay all right um and i guess logistically is there like a final final you must have it by date for time something i don't know i've heard today but like i know it i think it was tomorrow the next thing on the town calendar is like 48 hours later so i don't know what that really means so it's hard to believe they would turn it down at five o'clock or nine o'clock but i guess on a related topic if by that point i don't have alignment with the select board on exactly what things should say should i just go with what i think things should say or i assume right because i think it's still going to be changed by does it still review that we use it um i think it's someone for just like board it's usually the chair who kind of just the final read-through of the whole thing as well um probably be asked to do another final read-through of everything um so there there will be more eyes i think my sense would be if you are at the point where you feel like you've got everything that you're going to get tables my dad there was a specific topic that was going to be discussed further at this lifeboard meeting today so hopefully they'll have a decision tonight and i'll just do it tomorrow and i'm just trying to make sure i understand if not what happens or doug will do all the write-ups figure it out and then submit them because our our in case that you can our like votes already on there we're not unless we plan to change that we'll end up we'll end up that's all about our votes too let me i'll fix it up
speaking of people who drew the short straw exactly
any other topics not anticipated yeah wants to make the motion question two journey okay go ahead sorry all second which is with jared um all in favor oh yeah april yes all right all yes bill yes okay awesome