December 4, 2025 – Capital Improvement Planning Committee – Video & Transcript
December 4, 2025 - Capital Improvement Planning Committee
call the meeting of the capital improvement planning committee to order um at 5 3 p.m on
thursday december 4th here in the select board meeting room at town building and this is an
in-person meeting um the meeting is being recorded and we may be able to be public on my hand
because the meeting is practical hired by law are allowed by a chair a person's mission to provide
public comment otherwise the meeting may do so by any person intent we request public comment
be limited so move over the agenda and five five o'clock call the order with announcements
vital five public comment on 510 discuss potential content for the draft to town manager
550 review discuss and file any question building departmental capital requests submitted this year
which are not limited to department public works fire national quality recreation schools including
uh we will be by review and vote to print 19. 635 topics not reasonably anticipate by the chair
48 hours prior posting money and setting time of our next meeting after this meeting we are going to
set summer 640 is our approximate journey i don't see any here so i'll comment any announcements all right
see none we can move on to discussion and content of cipc report and i will say a few things out there
right now and some that i haven't sent on and so um brian has put together a summary of outstanding
capital very good brian so far i only have a couple comments on it that are nits and mats but i didn't have a
chance to check it because we're sitting on so i will do that this weekend um but i don't know if we
can we plug into that screen if you don't mind john if you want to plug into it and i'll forward you
that's just the bio card you might have to move
oh the table close yeah very high touch yeah you just slide on so you know what i think uh chart because this is really the crux of what you put together so we'll start here just because i think what you put together is really good brian because it really outlines two things it outlines the cadence of everything right old that isn't hasn't been done but it also um some of your narrative gets at progress right and that there has been progress made which i think my only net 50 comments in the report itself or like you probably don't need the sense and you probably will it's nice to show the 700 right like if you're going to show up on a project i don't want to show zero so maybe at least if you just take the sense off of it um so you had ryan as you were putting it together and i'll try at the same time to pull up some connection with that i think um as i as i mentioned several meetings hill this chart is based on unexpended appropriations so it may or may not necessarily reflect i didn't say this actually in the write-up but it may or may not reflect physically any project standards it's probably a proxy of of of the total in that chart million dollars prior fiscal years 2015. of that of the 10 highest dollar unexpended appropriations accounted for it was 55 percent and in the write-up we decided not to get silver in the list it just had a chart at the table that shows the top 10 uh projects the name of silver annually so it's the flow of the intent of this was to create a section that could be then dropped into the first pirate accent tracks so it was reflected in the pin college report a couple years ago and so you're starting to kind of a high level breaking it down by fiscal year between town schools and you know three enterprise funds um but then once i got through that and then you know it's focused just on 2015 to 24 since 25 and 26 really it was still just getting going and in fact a lot of those projects actually didn't have their full funding to be said they're debt financed until they just did the bottom offering or some other financial ways to get the money as i said i did want to point out that there has been substantial progress again if you went back two or three years and read a thing on the court you've seen it largely with a weight on projects but 71 percent through spending the money for those fiscal years through 24 and then i tried to read that down to see the next table uh between there are a bit larger projects hundred thousand instead of appropriation higher than the hundred or less so there's a whole lot of smaller unexpended balances some of which when you look at each detail project which is in the self-scription um probably can be closed out to this point and i'm assuming that the finance director will be the one going through with the departments and uh between now and january and february uh making a judgment on what can actually be closed out so that that surplus capital for them to utilize the fund you know and then from this start i didn't say let's just focus on the top 10 which is 50 percent of the total roughly eight million dollars keep going down you'll see the top 10 projects and like i said i didn't get into the detail of what why each one is where it's at but um the exceptional library which i'm not quite sure why there's that much money still pending since they've done a lot of work at the library so i don't know if there's any delay in processing invoices are they over appropriated well on alligators i think the elevator is the last towards the tail end of it and so there's a fair amount of money from the elevator but i i don't know for sure so i'm just guessing but all the other ones you know i think you've probably heard through discussion we have some input from him or i kind of know what fully completed and then i just threw in a final comment about the easy cip to try to make sure that we get an opportunity at some point i think that comment means hope is to get your video only access and hopefully town's staff would have similar access to that um you know if you look at the input the visitors even i will circulate an updated version of that excel spreadsheet uh which includes these extra details which is where david's coming from but i also uh pieced it in with three departments the btw and facility space three which covers town buildings school and recreational recreation they provided some input on their open capital projects with a bit more yeah color so i just decided piece that straight into the file so we didn't all can it's all one place look to that but what you'll see from that input we got is it's the btw might recall his data comes from 2024 so you'll see it just plug in some numbers on that import the rest of the town staff got it printed out on august 1st so some of that's been dealt with between now and then so one thing so the good news is that file should basically provide a historical basis and you'll see two prior iterations of it and kind of brought it forward next year this time but one thing that i kind of realized that while we've got information and department had it was sketchy and so that's why that see if we've used yes hopefully we'll provide a database with sufficient detailed chart then the other thing i noticed probably did last time telling you about when i think i raised this question at the last yea and one of the four when you look at the august 1 printout under the center Federations there were numerous line items that were negative numbers which I was concerned that they were spending before they had appropriation or the number of those items the borrowing had occurred. And Brian Kennedy and the planning attorney got back to me, at least on the bigger ones that I knew the finance just occurred, the financing just occurred. He told me that, he said in some cases invoices that classified the wrong private. And then on some of the other ones, he said it's all up to date. I still am a little concerned from a process standpoint that they should spend the money from the general fund, which they can do as an advance as long as legal paperwork can get the proper approval from recycling. But I am a little concerned. The other thing I'm a little concerned about, and I didn't see a lot of it, but I know in the IT, I'm not sure it's happened, but I can see a couple places where it seemed like people felt like if they didn't use all of their appropriation for a particular project in their apartment, that perhaps those funds are for you to help out on another project. We can't do unless you go back and get appropriation, I think. You can't, you can't unless, there were some projects structured, and that wasn't IT that I remember. Some of them were related. Right, where it was like district-wide flooring that we did in three tranches, that's different, but I did not think it was structured like that. Yeah, so an example where it's related was the high school septic facilities. Um, when I was looking at the August one, the list, the normal 18th, the unexpected balance, as you'll see, I think they did it in the special, they sent the workbook, they sent you, I went back and put in the actual initial appropriation, approved it that meeting, and also put it in all the funding sources that were approved in the various avenues, and then business out, so that might just be helpful also for you to get a sense of how things they had funded, which stuff would be the sell workbook that Kelly had up here. Um, the one thing I noticed, for example, on the high school septic, the description was fiscal 21, the appropriation for high school wastewater, and it, the appropriation was 141,000 in that town meeting, and the balance was 285,000, so I can't be. When I look back two fiscal years, it had been another appropriation for the high school facility in fiscal 19, so I asked my head director, just out of curiosity, once the fiscal 19, because that wasn't showing up in the list, did you take the fiscal 19, an unexpected appropriation, and roll it into the, uh, roll it into the account. There, it happens to be sort of combined, and its response was, yeah, that project number in the listing, including 19's unexpected appropriation, plus fiscal 21, just because they related to the same project. Maybe that one's okay, it's not the best accounting. I think it's, it's probably okay, but it's not the best from, uh, this was a parade this year for this project, and this is, yeah, it's a trail, but it said there were a few others that it kind of seemed like, at least you were suggesting that this radio, this, this IT, something or other, that has a thousand dollars, but it's not, I'm not sure that it happened, or would happen. So, all that said, I think, as we go forward, I think, understanding that there's more of the controls, uh, over tracking the appropriation, again, it gets all into this database, and the initial appropriations are put in, and fiscal years, and that's maintained, and then that gets caught back, you know, that's where you get your, and your sort of fiscal control. I have a question, just in terms of how things are structured, uh, you know, I saw on some of the spreadsheets, they have, uh, project numbers. Are there, like, just town-wide project numbers, or are there project numbers for BPW, for the high school, and, uh, how's that going to be, uh, honored and in track? I don't know for sure. I think we said there wasn't. Yeah, we, to my knowledge, there wasn't a common system. I can't say for sure. Um, when I was keeping track of capital from the Finance Committee, I made up my own numbering, just so that I could follow where, right, these are BPW projects, but I don't, I've never seen. Yeah, but the numbers in the, in the Excel spreadsheet, which come from the data that Kevin has provided, I believe are, uh, sub-account numbers of your units and counting system, as to why those particular numbers, I'm sure they're just, uh, probably a sub-account number, probably just sequential numbers, and I'm not sure why the counting numbers seem different than the school numbers, other than this town school. Um, but they may have been set up with different meeting numbers, right? That all seems to be accounting, or it is a sort of project management type of, like, the high school, one of the high school projects we're talking about is partly high school, partly BW and so I'm not sure how they got that. Yeah. When we talked about that at the last meeting, it's the, who wants to be the owner, does that want to be the owner? And ultimately, where's the going to get trapped? And we'll have to deal with that ourselves, uh, before we finish our work, because I think a number of items are duplicate, uh, sufficient. Yeah, it's an age-old question that keeps, I keep kind of hammering all on, because it's been inconsistent from one year to the next, and you'll see debate, right, just like the high school, the wastewater in the fields. Right. The BW doesn't want the fields in their, in one of their projects, but the projects do have their own connection, but who really should own the overall project? Um, the trend over the last number of years has been, right, if it's a facility, if the facilities project, even if it's a facility in the school or a facility that falls into facilities, but I can't say we've gotten to 100% consistent on strict rules. Um, we do run into this, hey, that's on two lists, right, that's not who's specific. Hey guys, nothing against the people that are working on this, but it's all meant to get the process and procedure, right, consistency, so that whoever picks it up will have a sense of what it's done. And it was, I was, even the other one you mentioned with the, uh, wastewater, there was 200 project number, two months, it's the same project. Um, actually, you know, well, on the list that I had from Brian Kennedy, the Fiscal 19 appropriation wasn't there. Oh. And I was prompted because the balance on expended was higher than the fiscal appropriation, either being something that was coded. When I then went back and looked to see if there had been a higher appropriation I saw on the fiscal 19, so I asked him, I don't see fiscal 19's appropriation, 100% appropriation on your list, did you roll it into this other account which he said they did. Now, how much are you here? It varies, but I'd say it's, it's usually been 20, 25-ish. You can go back up. We, I mean, the method that you see, the first one issue was a lot of the next one this year, but it's capital of protein. It's really bad. Yeah, so there's 24 core projects in all sizes, 37. Yeah, the other is obviously, but yes, there's a lot. Again, they vary. Well, it's probably less than 100, at least like 20, 26-1. One, one thing I thought would be, so a couple comments directly I have on page, but in paragraph, in this paragraph right here, you've got 54 have an average of 22, 25 have an average. Yeah. 54 plus 25 is 79, but there's 80 open projects. Well, that doesn't add up. And then, I wonder if adding, and I don't know how easy this is in the spreadsheets, Brian, adding the original, it doesn't have to be by each, the breakout by town, school, and enterprise, but the total appropriated for the year. Yeah. I mean, I'm happy to do it. I gave some thought for that, but if you think fiscal 2015, it would be a really big number. Millions and millions of dollars. Yeah. The only reason, and I'm trying to kill two birds with one stone is really your question, I don't know, like, how much, how much and how many projects are we tapping on every year? Because it gives you, in addition to knowing what's out there today, it gives you a sense of trend of what the asks have been across the line. Over the years. Yeah. And I think if we get rid of the decimals, then we get a little more. Yeah. And I hope that I can put it in.
98% certainly. I'll be packing it all over a couple times instead of 90 days. So I can, yeah, I can, your pleasure. I can stick it off to the left as the first column. Sort of in or fiscal year. Yeah. You could go left or right. You could, because you could put it next to the unexpended and then you'd have unexpended against total side by side with each other. And you're going to see when you get to the bottom, right, those 37 projects, 10 million dollars was probably 37 projects for 15 million or something. Yeah. I think it was 12 million. Okay. I'll stick it. Another comment so far was on that last paragraph on APCIP. I think we need Kelsey or the town manager to actually verify that it's happening. I know we have the software, but implementation timeline is what we're saying is being used. Do you want to do that? Yeah. I think you asked that question before. And then if you feel, again, looking forward to the final report, do you feel, we'll get this from Kelly to fix those couple minutes and that kind of do with the revised itself? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes tomorrow night I want to sit and just go through it and check on it. Question. Do you feel any further detail given our charge and what we're going to do? Or what we're going to do? Or might we just be just this kind of level of detail in the report and then provide the campaign to try and take a copy of the accelerator folks. No, I think this is perfect for, particularly for first year, but in general, it's what I've always kind of harped on that I don't think it's fair to ask the town to spend money on capital if they don't see what you did with the money, right? And where you are with the money they were already appropriated. So I think this gives sufficient detail for where we are now. I mean, the only other thing which we're not, in the interest of time and helping this committee is, we're not at, is getting into the why, right? What, why is there, you know, from FY20, why would we automated water meters? Yeah. And that's it. I mean, go to that next level. Because I think I know that the answer is for almost all of these. Yeah. But as I said, I didn't, I didn't know. I think your point is this year since we're way behind. I think in the, in the future that we would want to go to that level of detail. I don't think given how late a start we got and how much more we have to do, that that's the best use of our time, right? Right now. I think, yeah. I mean, some of us could then change the way the rules are. Hey, do not have to spend until a year. At least then you'll have to. That's right. We don't have a good reason why it's not, if it's not spent yet. It's gotta be returned and voted again. Yeah. So, uh, do you have other comments that you want to get me? Uh, no, that's on my, that's until I can travel once. So you prefer me to distribute, to revise, files, learn, and sell? Yeah. Send it to everybody. And, um, then I'll do my checking. But there's no reason. Anybody else? Yep. Yep. We'll go over it. Okay. Thank you. Um, we have, we have the nicety that sort of the intro from, from Liz, which you don't really want to talk about this here, but whatever your thoughts on that. Pardon me. My recollection was a cut and paste off the website. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A bit more substance. Yeah. So when we do this, um, you'll send out a revised draft of outstanding capital. I'll take Liz's initial draft of that and merge them into one document and then do some editing and set that all out together to, so we can talk about the next meeting. Yeah. So I think for the next, the substantive sections of the, what we really need to talk about is, obviously we still have meetings, school and facilities, rec. So we don't have their stuff, but we haven't talked to them about it fully, but I'd like to, Ryan, talk through the summary that you made of everything we've gotten so far. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I saw B2 meant that I missed something at B1, but I'm hopeful that I picked up all the detailed requests. I know that I tied out to the capital plan for fiscal 27 to 30 from last year. Yeah. But I certainly could use everybody else in a set of eyes as a, and I think probably come from you now if you're putting the same stuff into your workbook. Yeah. Probably might pop out. Yeah. That'll be the check. Try to put it in a sort of check fingers that I could miss something. But I personally found it helpful last year and this year to put all the stuff in one place. Yeah. Everybody else has the same. Yeah. I mean, at some point, and I think Kelly, it's up to you. It's really, at some point, the big columns here have to be filled in and read through by a majority of this committee before it can be plugged into a final report and set along with the panel manager. And I was thinking about how to do that so you can sit here in the meeting with a roller or whatever and literally fly by line. Yes, no, yes, no, move this, that. Another approach would be to put them on the chair or another member to get them all rolling by basically taking the first cut based on everything they produce, which would only reflect one person's view. Or third, try to identify some of the bigger items that are clearly things that we have to talk about. Either ask more questions or really quickly decide what we have to do with them. Because there's a lot of stuff here that people, at least in their minds, they say, well, please match up what was in the last year's primary plan. And when I ask if there's going to be more or any less, why should that not be approved? The answer is, logically, it probably should be. But it doesn't mean that they might not be things that come up in this year. It's a new request that supports us to rethink what was done by the time the answer is So, but ultimately, this thing could probably be clear what this thing or the components have to be filled in. The pink columns have to be filled in. It's a lot of decisions we have, so I'm sure I'm going to do that. I think, again, it's just sort of my unfamiliarity to a degree, the way it all works. But at the very bottom, I'm going to talk about all the several warrant article requests for longevity. Is that my question? Yes. Yeah, I was just trying to, to the very bottom of the sheet. I put this in just because over at least the three years I was on the page, a couple of these items appeared. It was the five-year capital. You can go up here for the warrant. Are these the ones that were noted but not part of the budget? They're, they're, yeah, they're listed below, right, as articles. So there's the capital plan, which is going to go with the part that we intend to have be a part of the capital budget, which is voted as one, right, voted as one block. And then there's individual articles for some of the bigger projects. We had differing opinions. My opinion was all things needed to be shown because it all has financial impact. The others felt differently. The compromise was we have a block in the table of everything that's going to go in the capital vote. And then, and then separately showing CPA, um, and articles below it so that you can get a view of all. Well, I guess that was sort of a question I had, uh, was, I mean, for instance, what's our charge with respect to things that are, have been being lost? Are we supposed to be, uh. Yeah, no, we're supposed to, because we're familiar first. Yeah. Okay. So that reconciliation bond, again, it's, I want to get down to apples and apples, pears, and what was in fiscal 27, quote, find your capital plan above the line, just to see, uh, how much new dollar requests there are in person with the plan. And so that's why I pulled all those items out. Yeah. I'm not necessarily suggesting that we continue to approach this the same way, because I believe we've determined that this base is supposed to be reviewing anything that's a capital project, regardless of whether it appears not to be a capital article or a separate article. So this is really just a, a, a reconciliation. But all these items are in the upper sections of the moment. Right. And we may decide to ask where we want to present them, and if the finance committee or the town manager want to present them in a warrant in some way. A couple observations, right, from this that I think will circle back around to Brian's question. I think looking at those roads, Brian, which is sort of comparing apples to apples, right, is where I started and say, all right, well, if I wanted to do what was in plan last year financially, right, I got cut a million and a half just out of the first year. And I've got cut off of every year. Right. Right. Just to get back to where I was. And that's not including, right, that's just non-article projects. I've got a significant chunk of, you know, it's $50 million almost between MWRA, the town building and others of other on top of that for 27. Yeah. Do you believe that? Right. Do you, do you believe that there's nothing that goes in the beyond years? Funny how it always happens that there's this big chunk of extra in the first year and then not in the out. So I think there are two things. One, you exclude that the article projects first, you've already got a significant cut you've got to make just to get back to where you were. And do we feel that that's where, is that the right place to go to? I think it's a good, I don't know that it's the right place to go to, but it's a good place to start. Right? Let's try to get the plan. Well, again, back to your question. The reconciliation I did was suggesting above the line, find your capital plan, a number of the items including the town building, if you will, find your plan including below the line items. Right. So the town building was in last year's warrant at $5.5 million. Yeah. In fact, it's the last piece out. This was funny. The wastewater in the high school was noted. It wasn't below the line anywhere. It was noted in the text. Yeah. That if you had to do it, then it would have cost $5.5 million. They thought it would be. So in result of your question, if we ignore those for the net moment and compare those to what else was in the below the line of the text with a separate matter, yeah, on the items that were in the five-year plan, each line item, each column in 2030 would require a cut. The second thing we don't know, we know what the planning director and town manager proposing the funding sources. Yeah. We don't know right. What is their current view of funding sources for fiscal 27 in particular is the most important. And so if we want to take the approach, we're simply going to prioritize things and say, if you remember back then, they did very brief, highest priority, medium, whatever. We could do that without knowing the financing source. But if we're supposed to come forward with an approved recommended plan, I don't know how we do that knowing what are the constraints. We have to know the funding sources. So it's a triangulation. We have to know the funding sources because you can't use some of the funding sources for some of the projects. So in a simple world, yes, you can just prioritize them and you have this much money and you need this many projects to go down the line. Some don't qualify. And down the line, but some don't qualify for some of the funding sources. So we do need to know that. So I was going to suggest that I think the next meeting is going to be taken up. But maybe the very next meeting, you really need to get Ron Chapman in here. Yeah. And tell them, you better come, you better get close and advance that meeting. What financial resources are. I think we should still prioritize them. Go to folders and say, hey guys, this funding source. Yeah, no, it doesn't hurt to prioritize them. I'm just saying you can't quite do the simple like cut off here. Right? Yeah, I don't think the fact, my opinion is the fact that something's new running, you have to prioritize based on what the known current is. Right. I won't say that, but I will say, said this before, I have less sympathy for things that I have a hard time understanding why they weren't anticipated. So that's where understanding why is this new information. We really didn't know, it was a surprise, right? Or because we knew and we chose a different priority, that made sense. Yeah. We've had some staff turnover, so you may get some of that. We saw the IT burden still. We look at the chart to host the projects, even around late, at some point, unless or when, it doesn't make sense anymore. We're putting salary in a couple of three new things. Yeah. One of which is spending more money for the whole thing. But if you're in the same school, if you're trying to instruct the business manager. Fresh look at it, they say some couple of priorities would go to progress. Yeah. So as far as approach, Brian, I'm going to suggest a compromise approach, which is because I want everybody on the committee, but this is, we're getting to the important part of the decisions here, right? Of deciding what a statement goes. So I think everybody on the committee has to go through the projects and based on what you've heard, prioritize them and figure out where you would, right, what you would think needs to be cut first. Because when we come back to talk, I can go through it and I will go through it and do the same thing. But I don't want to come here and say this is what I want to do. And everybody just nods their head. Yeah. And it's just drawing out that it just didn't allow it. Yeah. In some sense, you know, the group, by sending out this committee, the town has basically created an extra layer of bureaucracy. Because what we're talking about, if your report has been done by the finance director, who pretty much handed it off to whoever was the town manager, the administrator, who pretty much accepted what the finance director said. And the finance director was the one that made the top decisions. Sometimes the town of the trader, the manager, the job. And then they would get the finance committee and generally they would go along with it. But there might, as there have been over the last three years anyway, the occasion would be put back in something. But now we have this new layer of review with five people doing what here for the finance director did by itself. Which, that's why I kind of view, when I sign up for this, this committee being more focused on the long-term stuff. Which has never really been looked at anything for you to create a 10 to 15 year plan. Versus taking something that mechanically had been working reasonably well. Which is why I suggested early on, shouldn't we get the finance director to do the first cuts? I've asked. I've asked three times. Yeah. And then present that to us so we could see who the plus, what he did and what not. This just seems like we're having. But nonetheless, that's where we are. Yeah. I hear you, Brian. And I don't know what else to do outside of coming in here and standing in someone's office. But I will say, while it is an extra layer of bureaucracy, which I'm generally not a fan of, I don't know that I necessarily think that in the past the prioritization considered all the factors that this group of five people who have varied backgrounds are coming at it from. Yeah. I'll use, you know, if that were the case, the boilers of the schools that were in desperate need of replacement wouldn't have been an emergency the year after they were asked for, right? Because they would have been included in the year before's plan. Yeah. So it's things like that that I hear you. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Yes. And again, different stakeholders. We can get a diverse group of people. Yeah. The majority will rule in the committee. Yeah. You can very well end up with different decisions. It doesn't mean there's overrated. It starts to move. So back on this. At some point, active dollars have to go in. But the purpose of moving this along in advance of hearing from the other prioritizing. Would you envision doing that one approach would be literally in each section, literally if you just prioritize from one to 50. But. Yeah. I'd probably not one to 50. I'd probably do something great, high, B, and low, right? And then see if your highs, right, if you've used all your money with your highs. Mm-hmm. You answered that question now. So I think that makes sense. You can't do one to 50. It's too difficult. But is it our intention that 14 will fill in the pink copy? Yeah. And are we going to present that to the department heads and give them an opportunity to come back and tell us we're crazy or argue as to why we're mistaken in terms of what we've done? Again, when I say this, if we had this started earlier, I think we would have had the opportunity to have back and forth. That said, will we inform them of what we decided and why? And yes. Will they have an opportunity before the report goes out to convince us otherwise? Maybe, maybe not. But they will have an opportunity because we're only the first layer in the bureaucracy, right, to have it change when it hits the town manager right on the floor. And that's not ideal. That's not my go-forward preference. But I think that's where we're going to be. We're going to be. Yeah. An example, if maybe we can deal with the schools next week. An example would be that they have two new priorities. And if the general says, okay, I won't agree with those things that we need. But we're not so sure those need to find something from some other department. So, of the rest of your items that are carrying over by your plan, do you want us to just pick one? Or do you want to give us input? Yeah. That's an example. And we may have heard enough from our other meetings and if we decided there are other things to move in other departments that we could go ahead and do that on our own. But again, it's just not a whole lot of time. They caught a snippet of the things that are going to be on Monday night. And they're wondering where the capital finance is. And, you know, we still are waiting to hear from the public, the most significant departments. We have no financial parameters within Winchstoppie. And they said, oh, yeah, I'm starting to go to some communities. I don't want it to be blowing back on us. The financial needs left out there, you know. It's like February and we're still not giving up the capital. So. Yeah. I, listen. We have our liaison here. My feelings don't get hurt very easily. Number one. Number two, of six years on the FinCon, they got a capital, we got a capital plan in October, November, December, and we're still debating it in February. So. It'll be fine. I'm clearly they should have to spend as much time on it. But anyway, since we have our liaison here, she talks to the town manager all the time. Perhaps you can take back some of this feedback. And they are ATHOP members in this committee. And I think the sense of having ATHOP members, that they might attend from time to time. They could stay in the loop. B. They could help support and facilitate this group. And I haven't seen the town manager for three or four meetings. I haven't seen a finance director since the first meeting. So it's a, anyway, pushing ahead. But I think it's a task for the next, I don't know if it's the next meeting and what after that. You're suggesting we're going to have to do this. At least we go through with marked high B and low and every item in a big column for all years. See how we. Yeah. And then I envision we're going to get back in this room together and we're going to talk about what our highs, what our highs are. Yes. And see where we differ. As Joe and Harvey would probably run out of money when we're done with high. So probably won't have to go too much further, but I would like us to do it. Yeah. And then you could decide how you want to do that. If everybody came with or got their prize meetings and those in, it might be easier for me, whether we go through each of those inputs and whatever the majority is in that given item, put that in and ask the document and bring that forward. It doesn't mean any meeting and the individual member who already said cannot speak up. Or because I think I should be more correct than all of us sitting here with five different sheets. Yeah. You mean just consolidating. Yeah. To work for improvements. If five people say hi, it's going to say hi. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's fair. So we're going to use this. This is what we have so far. Yeah. Maybe it's worth adding a couple of columns. Just send out whatever you're going to put out versus us and turn in. You know, maybe you just start between B and C. Just put in a comment. What do we do with that? Oh, I get it. The alternative is I can put five individual columns in for everybody to use. So everybody's kind of meeting them over there. You can always put your inputs in and think certainly and whatever the majority is, that's what I'll put in. Do we really think we're going to have a high in one year and a low for the family? Are we going to rank it with a high in that year? Well, not every, I mean, not everything goes across multiple years and roads go across multiple years, but not everything goes across. That's what I want to do. Do we just need to rank the project? Do we just need to rank the project? Do we just need to rank the project? Do we need to rank the project? Do we need to rank the project? Do we need to rank the project? Yeah. I hear what you're saying, John, but I don't want to over-complicate it too much. I think you could just do it for the project. That's what I'm asking. Yeah. And then have it applied to the given year, but that makes it a little bit harder if you just want to filter on, right, hey, we've got to get 27. Yeah. We need to have all of them there for the 27 projects. Let's filter on them. So, yeah. So we'll rank each year by being one of our projects. Yeah. I think you have to do it by year because there is some, there needs to be some consideration of what the other projects are for slated for that. You'd be a little tired of this year. Yeah. Right. The other thing that I'm finding a little bit frustrating is, again, we just have to deal with it. I find it difficult on some of these to, you know, prioritize them without knowing what the next five years will be. The next five years, very well, might have something in them in anticipation of those projects might cause me to. I, I, I, I agree with you wholeheartedly, but that's a mountain we cannot climb right now. The reality, right? It's a part I need to be prioritizing their projects. Yeah. I mean, I, I hear you, Brian, because we've already ventured into that in our discussions about the town, you know, the, the, the, the town dump, the garage, right? Like, well, does that make sense if you're doing this study? There are other ones like that, the same thing, town building, right? What's the future of the town building and what's other additional expenses you anticipate beyond what these, what these extra, right, articles are, which is my other concern. You know, we don't have much identified for articles in the out years. And if I look back, if I actually look back at the history, right? I tend to have them, not every year, but I tend to have a pretty consistent, um, number of articles that come up on top of the capital plan. So the fact that we don't see it. I don't want to see that in another chart. Yeah, exactly. How many additional articles were it having for a year? It tells us how many surprises. Okay. Thought I had labeled murder. Thought I had labeled, you know, other articles. Is the trend getting much worse every year? So it is. What tends to happen is, I think, you have articles, right, that you want, they want to do, and ultimately you run out of room and you don't do them and they accumulate. So like town building has been getting kicked a year over year over year over year. It didn't just pop up right this year. Um, so I think that's some of why it accumulates, but I, I, I know we have to get beyond the five years. There is at least a new school building of some sort, or a substantially renovated school building of some sort. It's going to come out of a long term school building study that's currently operating. And as far as I know at the moment, I would say that it's not there at the moment. The only thing on the school buildings was a million dollars and it was slotted in 2030 for a sign for being able to get in the MSDA for state funding. And, um, and that had been in 28 and the plan started pushing out to 30. I'm going to ask the plan, the school business manager, the year ago, what do you agree with? The guy kind of pushed out two years and kind of said, as long as it's in the five year plan. But, but that's an example of, um, probably the largest capital expenditure that's still working out there. Yes. And that discussion, rather than discuss what a feasibility study, it should be about, well, when can we, you know, when could we actually handle that project and then work backwards from there. Right. Versus like, oh, I'll just keep picking the study out. Well, the study is no good if you can't handle the project for another 10 years after that. Right. Right. Okay. So we're supposed to, uh, the idea is that we'll do high median loan, not just for 27, but for all of them. Yeah. So I think, I think to save yourself, use the file Brian already sent out in the pink column, put your high median loan. Next to each requested dollar number. Next to each requested dollar number. So for example, if you're looking at 2027, you're going to put one in road improvements, you're going to put one in sidewalk improvements, and you're going to put one in stormwater. Uh, actually, we looked through the year. We heard that. Sorry. Yeah. At age 40 slot water. So wherever there's an amount in, that's been requested for this year, you're going to put a high median loan next to it in the pink column. Yeah. And I, I, yeah. That's a hard question. Yeah. I guess probably when you want, because for instance, we haven't partnered with the schools yet, so. That's what I said. I mean, I think, I think you can, a, you can start to all look at this and tell you how your homework is. Uh, you, you at least need to get familiar enough with all, you can wait until after next meeting. Next meeting, get something back together for whatever the next meeting is to be set. Yep. Yep. Sounds like that. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I don't know, that's the only thing I can think. Because eventually we do then, if they translate that into dollars and resources. And there's going to be maybe zero discussion on some of these. And there's going to be a person discussion on some of them. But again, we're, we're, uh, going back to one of your original points. We're doing this somewhere in the bathroom to do the funding of the bill. It's not, it's not a bad exercise to do. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And again, it's the funding. We could start, if we have to. Because the contract doesn't come forward with something different. We could start with what's shown in the war. But fiscal 27 through 30 by your capital plan projects, which has sourcing certain dollars and types of projects. And just say, okay, if we're going to live on that, here's what we can do. And we can get more requests than we're in that plan. But how do we skinny them down? And then maybe we could get, because of what's running the operating budget, we could get the financial director coming and coming back saying, we need to, if it was going out with the water project, we need to scale back on fiscal 27 from what was in the plan. I'm not saying it's 17 days. So we would just, it would be a waste of our time to do what I just described, but it's just all of our reason to happen to step up and tell us. It's an extreme case, for example, if you do this, but I could put zero, or low initially, and then zero, knowing that A, to get some money from the state every year, they could deal with some of the roads. B, they're about a year behind the state of the money I already appropriated. But if we've got to do something in fiscal 27, get that passed down, it wouldn't be ideal for the VW, but the roads will get a few more patches. Just as an example. All of our bigger discussions is going to be that four and a half million about the combo number for the percentage facility in high school, two million, and two and a half million moved up from fiscal 29 for the high school field. If we're told you've got to live within the means of fiscal, for example, or less, they have to do the wastewater. Yeah. On roads, and I don't remember if I forwarded on, I have a bunch of things I need to send on to you guys, but Tom Holder answered the remaining kind of our follow-up question. And I don't, it's the same on a bunch of projects. If they're, you know, basically have a year of money, right, extra, right, taking it down for a year doesn't hurt anything. You might need to give a little bit so that they can cross over, right, and they're not stuck, you know, at the beginning of a fiscal year or the end of a fiscal year. But it doesn't hurt anything. If you can't get to the work, appropriating the money doesn't do any good. I'm not picking on that one. No, I'm not picking on that one. It's not, I guess, I look at it differently than I look at, like, no, you can't do that project right now, right? It's like, you've got enough to work with now is more of that concern, right? We've got other places that needs to go. That's going to put that dollar amount perpetually into the future. It doesn't change, right, it doesn't change how much work gets done. It's not, it doesn't mean more patches because it changes the schedule. Storm on our system is the same thing. Right. So this just may be a year, but maybe you defer some things that typically wouldn't otherwise have been deferred, if, in fact, the instruction. Whether we just do that because we think it's right, we do, or we get the instruction. Anyway, so if it is your question, I think, we need at least one day to get through four sets of input, five sets of input. Yeah, I would ask you, I mean, even though we haven't been in schools, I would tell you to get started. Oh, yeah. And then when schools come, if you have to adjust, right, you'll adjust, but get started on the phone. Okay. Do you have anything else you want to talk about on the press that are out there? Yeah. Two quick things. The town manager, last year, made the process, given the attention that maintaining the existing of IHQ's stock in these one-town meetings, and the commissioner's article, I think, a year ago, that created a separate committee. The town manager came forward and has proposed, initially, $100,000 a year from the capital budget. Yep. Using the capital city division. We have no submission from the town manager as far as well. I know. Yeah. I don't know if we're in a position to just, okay, I suppose we can put things in. I presume his intention was as a, at least the minimum need. I asked that question. I'll say today. And then secondly, maybe this could be agenda for the next meeting, potential division. I believe there was one CPA article, and I have to watch the meeting from last night to see what the CPA decided to do with it. It was requesting money for a counter-owned asset, particularly in the fall field. Yep. And the committee said it previously mentioned. I know. From that discussion. But I thought, at least I can watch the meeting before, I should be able to report next meeting, I can at least speak to where the CPA came out on it. Is there a number of open questions based on the application that I saw for money was in program. So I also wanted to be reckoning that occurred yesterday, when the rec commissioners were talking about that project. And they were talking about moving, moving playground funding through the CPA, which is the ballpark outside of the 2030 something. Swapping the older playground, which is in fiscal 28, in the recs plan. But I haven't talked to schools yet, which is going to slowly happen. But that's an example of, you know, this kind of movement. So anyways, I think if we're supposed to provide oversight and input from the CPR, that's the only one. Right. In the thought. Kelly talking. Us talking about it. Yeah. I mean, we, Brian and I both looked through the other CPA articles and they were either not capital, not town-owned assets. So that was just the list, the EJN. Are we at that meeting last night? You know what happened at it? Are you? No, no, no. Okay. No, but I do. Okay. That's their discussion just so I know. That's Carol Martin. Sure. And so it's Carol Martin. Perfect. Thank you. So I'll ask their meeting just to see where the discussion was. I'm not sure they were planning to take final, final votes last night. The total budget funding is dependent on yet another CPA appropriation that was at the moment a slot at the local fiscal community. So how that all, to your point, and I really don't want to give the discussion yourself about that project, but it's another example of if the total project financing requires this swap of playground that the schools decide they don't want to swap over playground for a particular fall field. How does the project? Well, this gets a little tricky because I'm not speaking specifically with the project, but it's a CPA decision how they want to spend when they don't actually need the school's blessing, right, to provide the funding. They have projects in front of them. They can decide to swap it, right? I'm not saying we should. I'm just saying we're in an intersection. It's not the schools coming to the town to say, hey, we'd like this funding. No, no, they can fund it, but if they're funding it on the basis that they're, because they've pulled the recognition in the past, like last year, I think they're asking them. We've actually seen a $400,000 request in the CPA. I've scheduled the request for $400,000 each year, every other year. Yeah. We have a plan that goes out for the program. Yeah. And so if, hopefully, the CPA is focused, the CPC is focused on, if the total financing that only includes this year's ask was dependent on flip-flopping. Yeah. In the end, the CPA agreed in advance that they're going to fund, as they said they wouldn't agree to do last year. You can ask agree. Yeah. It just seemed, it was, you know. The other area that this one, if you get funded last year, so-called council of landowners, put it clear on $400,000. The county here is recommending it not be put right where it is. Not be where it is. Yeah. It's an insensitive wetland area. It's also dangerous. Yeah. It's terrible. But it was also noted that the schools in Maryland and this whole facility study are putting in that this discussion about the children's way for being here, but then she was quick to say, well, it's not really just the children's way to play around, it's a town claimer. So, it's just an example of- It is, it is that it's restricted, it's restricted to the children's way to school there. Yeah. My only point is that I have to advance preview some of what we hear next week, but it's just an example of follow the bouncing ball on how do you, how do you prioritize things that are not small dollars. Anyway. So, I would hope for the next agenda, if we had time, I'd put up- If you'd be part of the committee for the following meeting- Yep. And if you have this thing kind of filled out- And if the next meeting would be the department that hasn't been to talk about the CPA- Yep. Article review- Just do whatever you do to report about that to see- At least my draft- I guess you're going to do something- Yeah. Yeah. Where are we at the guts of the FinCom sections of the capital- I still don't know what we're doing. We really started having more than 100 K jobs. Yeah. K job. Thanks, David. I travel it all week. But it's- It's on my weekend agenda. And I'd say the last thing is- We need to work backwards from the schedule. We need to let the FinCom- No, we realistically didn't expect something from the true view. We might realistically expect something from- Yes. Unless we have our date to work forward. And that's the other, of course, part of doing the second thing in the committee. Actually, my thoughts are the future. Today we had to do a lot earlier. We- I will say we need to set aside two or three days in AB. And if AB people can do it during working hours. So we can get all the department heads done quickly. Because Frank Kennedy would be able to just need it during work day whenever it's been in. If you've got to go from one week to the next week, that just never gets done. Not for this year. Yeah. I understand, Brian. But that's- That's the difficulty. But the volunteer committee, right? That some of whom have jobs, right? Sure. We have our review. We do it at night. We're saying we need to do a better job next year. Getting people to get us this information in July. Including when we start going up in the longer term. And a hard date where you all must have all your stuff in our new forums. And we're going to meet with you all this week. And we're going to commit to do three meetings in one week or something. Yeah. I agree that all of that could be done federal up front, right? We're behind the eight ball. I'm just taking this opportunity for people to think about where we really want to go. This is just frustrating. It's not our fault. Yeah. We haven't gotten any. Anyway, that was my thing. I disagree. I could meet on Christmas. Of course not. Any further discussion tonight? We have a lot of homework to do. So let's move on to review and vote to approve the minutes of November 19th. Did anybody have any comments or discussion? No. Not a little bit. Can I get a motion to approve those? So I move. All in favor? Aye. All in favor? Aye. Those minutes of November 19th are approved. All right. I do not have any topics reasonably anticipated by the chair 48 hours prior closing. Next meeting will be December 9th, which is Tuesday. The agenda is already out there. I will issue or submit a revised agenda just to add. Okay. All in favor? All in favor? Aye. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Those minutes of November 19th are approved. All right. I do not have any topics reasonably anticipated by the chair 48 hours prior closing. All in favor. Aye. The next meeting will be December 9th, which is Tuesday. The agenda's already out there. I will issue or submit a revised agenda, just to add the CPA item discussion. Fleck. Aye. tomorrow? I'll leave it. Just do it tonight. All right. All right. All right. And then for the meeting after that. Yeah, we have the 17th slated, is that ready? Is everybody still okay with that? John always said so far. It's a good caveat. We said 6 p.m. for that one. Can I assume? Yes, so the next meeting is 5 p.m. hybrid. And the 17th is 6 p.m. hybrid. Is it going to come on hybrid? Yes, we'll see if you can come for this. I don't know that I can plan out any further than that. As we get into this over the weekend, we get things together first. The week is the 17th? Wednesday. It's Wednesday. It might be helpful if we get the town manager to show up with that. Does that allow us to figure out where we are and how we get to where we can get this? Yep. On the 9th, I mean? The 17th? The 17th. The 17th. I guess in our discussion of priorities. We do another one in December. Is there any, is there any particular day beyond the 7th before Christmas? That's good for you guys just to remember. Do you think before the 17th? No, after the 17th, before Christmas. Oh. How may it be? The 22nd. Right. So that's behind it. It'll have to be removed. Maybe not, because it's pulled back. The 12-22. 12-22, yeah. Yes. Just because we're about to adjourn, I assume. Mm-hmm. And see if a member of the public has shown up at the end of our meeting. Yes. Fair and appropriate to ask if that person has any comments or questions. Yes, it would be your comment or question. Any public comment or question? No, not at least time. All right. Can I get a motion? Motion to adjourn. All in favor? Aye. All right. Adjourning at 16-4 p.m. Thank you very much.
oh the table close yeah very high touch yeah you just slide on so you know what i think uh chart because this is really the crux of what you put together so we'll start here just because i think what you put together is really good brian because it really outlines two things it outlines the cadence of everything right old that isn't hasn't been done but it also um some of your narrative gets at progress right and that there has been progress made which i think my only net 50 comments in the report itself or like you probably don't need the sense and you probably will it's nice to show the 700 right like if you're going to show up on a project i don't want to show zero so maybe at least if you just take the sense off of it um so you had ryan as you were putting it together and i'll try at the same time to pull up some connection with that i think um as i as i mentioned several meetings hill this chart is based on unexpended appropriations so it may or may not necessarily reflect i didn't say this actually in the write-up but it may or may not reflect physically any project standards it's probably a proxy of of of the total in that chart million dollars prior fiscal years 2015. of that of the 10 highest dollar unexpended appropriations accounted for it was 55 percent and in the write-up we decided not to get silver in the list it just had a chart at the table that shows the top 10 uh projects the name of silver annually so it's the flow of the intent of this was to create a section that could be then dropped into the first pirate accent tracks so it was reflected in the pin college report a couple years ago and so you're starting to kind of a high level breaking it down by fiscal year between town schools and you know three enterprise funds um but then once i got through that and then you know it's focused just on 2015 to 24 since 25 and 26 really it was still just getting going and in fact a lot of those projects actually didn't have their full funding to be said they're debt financed until they just did the bottom offering or some other financial ways to get the money as i said i did want to point out that there has been substantial progress again if you went back two or three years and read a thing on the court you've seen it largely with a weight on projects but 71 percent through spending the money for those fiscal years through 24 and then i tried to read that down to see the next table uh between there are a bit larger projects hundred thousand instead of appropriation higher than the hundred or less so there's a whole lot of smaller unexpended balances some of which when you look at each detail project which is in the self-scription um probably can be closed out to this point and i'm assuming that the finance director will be the one going through with the departments and uh between now and january and february uh making a judgment on what can actually be closed out so that that surplus capital for them to utilize the fund you know and then from this start i didn't say let's just focus on the top 10 which is 50 percent of the total roughly eight million dollars keep going down you'll see the top 10 projects and like i said i didn't get into the detail of what why each one is where it's at but um the exceptional library which i'm not quite sure why there's that much money still pending since they've done a lot of work at the library so i don't know if there's any delay in processing invoices are they over appropriated well on alligators i think the elevator is the last towards the tail end of it and so there's a fair amount of money from the elevator but i i don't know for sure so i'm just guessing but all the other ones you know i think you've probably heard through discussion we have some input from him or i kind of know what fully completed and then i just threw in a final comment about the easy cip to try to make sure that we get an opportunity at some point i think that comment means hope is to get your video only access and hopefully town's staff would have similar access to that um you know if you look at the input the visitors even i will circulate an updated version of that excel spreadsheet uh which includes these extra details which is where david's coming from but i also uh pieced it in with three departments the btw and facility space three which covers town buildings school and recreational recreation they provided some input on their open capital projects with a bit more yeah color so i just decided piece that straight into the file so we didn't all can it's all one place look to that but what you'll see from that input we got is it's the btw might recall his data comes from 2024 so you'll see it just plug in some numbers on that import the rest of the town staff got it printed out on august 1st so some of that's been dealt with between now and then so one thing so the good news is that file should basically provide a historical basis and you'll see two prior iterations of it and kind of brought it forward next year this time but one thing that i kind of realized that while we've got information and department had it was sketchy and so that's why that see if we've used yes hopefully we'll provide a database with sufficient detailed chart then the other thing i noticed probably did last time telling you about when i think i raised this question at the last yea and one of the four when you look at the august 1 printout under the center Federations there were numerous line items that were negative numbers which I was concerned that they were spending before they had appropriation or the number of those items the borrowing had occurred. And Brian Kennedy and the planning attorney got back to me, at least on the bigger ones that I knew the finance just occurred, the financing just occurred. He told me that, he said in some cases invoices that classified the wrong private. And then on some of the other ones, he said it's all up to date. I still am a little concerned from a process standpoint that they should spend the money from the general fund, which they can do as an advance as long as legal paperwork can get the proper approval from recycling. But I am a little concerned. The other thing I'm a little concerned about, and I didn't see a lot of it, but I know in the IT, I'm not sure it's happened, but I can see a couple places where it seemed like people felt like if they didn't use all of their appropriation for a particular project in their apartment, that perhaps those funds are for you to help out on another project. We can't do unless you go back and get appropriation, I think. You can't, you can't unless, there were some projects structured, and that wasn't IT that I remember. Some of them were related. Right, where it was like district-wide flooring that we did in three tranches, that's different, but I did not think it was structured like that. Yeah, so an example where it's related was the high school septic facilities. Um, when I was looking at the August one, the list, the normal 18th, the unexpected balance, as you'll see, I think they did it in the special, they sent the workbook, they sent you, I went back and put in the actual initial appropriation, approved it that meeting, and also put it in all the funding sources that were approved in the various avenues, and then business out, so that might just be helpful also for you to get a sense of how things they had funded, which stuff would be the sell workbook that Kelly had up here. Um, the one thing I noticed, for example, on the high school septic, the description was fiscal 21, the appropriation for high school wastewater, and it, the appropriation was 141,000 in that town meeting, and the balance was 285,000, so I can't be. When I look back two fiscal years, it had been another appropriation for the high school facility in fiscal 19, so I asked my head director, just out of curiosity, once the fiscal 19, because that wasn't showing up in the list, did you take the fiscal 19, an unexpected appropriation, and roll it into the, uh, roll it into the account. There, it happens to be sort of combined, and its response was, yeah, that project number in the listing, including 19's unexpected appropriation, plus fiscal 21, just because they related to the same project. Maybe that one's okay, it's not the best accounting. I think it's, it's probably okay, but it's not the best from, uh, this was a parade this year for this project, and this is, yeah, it's a trail, but it said there were a few others that it kind of seemed like, at least you were suggesting that this radio, this, this IT, something or other, that has a thousand dollars, but it's not, I'm not sure that it happened, or would happen. So, all that said, I think, as we go forward, I think, understanding that there's more of the controls, uh, over tracking the appropriation, again, it gets all into this database, and the initial appropriations are put in, and fiscal years, and that's maintained, and then that gets caught back, you know, that's where you get your, and your sort of fiscal control. I have a question, just in terms of how things are structured, uh, you know, I saw on some of the spreadsheets, they have, uh, project numbers. Are there, like, just town-wide project numbers, or are there project numbers for BPW, for the high school, and, uh, how's that going to be, uh, honored and in track? I don't know for sure. I think we said there wasn't. Yeah, we, to my knowledge, there wasn't a common system. I can't say for sure. Um, when I was keeping track of capital from the Finance Committee, I made up my own numbering, just so that I could follow where, right, these are BPW projects, but I don't, I've never seen. Yeah, but the numbers in the, in the Excel spreadsheet, which come from the data that Kevin has provided, I believe are, uh, sub-account numbers of your units and counting system, as to why those particular numbers, I'm sure they're just, uh, probably a sub-account number, probably just sequential numbers, and I'm not sure why the counting numbers seem different than the school numbers, other than this town school. Um, but they may have been set up with different meeting numbers, right? That all seems to be accounting, or it is a sort of project management type of, like, the high school, one of the high school projects we're talking about is partly high school, partly BW and so I'm not sure how they got that. Yeah. When we talked about that at the last meeting, it's the, who wants to be the owner, does that want to be the owner? And ultimately, where's the going to get trapped? And we'll have to deal with that ourselves, uh, before we finish our work, because I think a number of items are duplicate, uh, sufficient. Yeah, it's an age-old question that keeps, I keep kind of hammering all on, because it's been inconsistent from one year to the next, and you'll see debate, right, just like the high school, the wastewater in the fields. Right. The BW doesn't want the fields in their, in one of their projects, but the projects do have their own connection, but who really should own the overall project? Um, the trend over the last number of years has been, right, if it's a facility, if the facilities project, even if it's a facility in the school or a facility that falls into facilities, but I can't say we've gotten to 100% consistent on strict rules. Um, we do run into this, hey, that's on two lists, right, that's not who's specific. Hey guys, nothing against the people that are working on this, but it's all meant to get the process and procedure, right, consistency, so that whoever picks it up will have a sense of what it's done. And it was, I was, even the other one you mentioned with the, uh, wastewater, there was 200 project number, two months, it's the same project. Um, actually, you know, well, on the list that I had from Brian Kennedy, the Fiscal 19 appropriation wasn't there. Oh. And I was prompted because the balance on expended was higher than the fiscal appropriation, either being something that was coded. When I then went back and looked to see if there had been a higher appropriation I saw on the fiscal 19, so I asked him, I don't see fiscal 19's appropriation, 100% appropriation on your list, did you roll it into this other account which he said they did. Now, how much are you here? It varies, but I'd say it's, it's usually been 20, 25-ish. You can go back up. We, I mean, the method that you see, the first one issue was a lot of the next one this year, but it's capital of protein. It's really bad. Yeah, so there's 24 core projects in all sizes, 37. Yeah, the other is obviously, but yes, there's a lot. Again, they vary. Well, it's probably less than 100, at least like 20, 26-1. One, one thing I thought would be, so a couple comments directly I have on page, but in paragraph, in this paragraph right here, you've got 54 have an average of 22, 25 have an average. Yeah. 54 plus 25 is 79, but there's 80 open projects. Well, that doesn't add up. And then, I wonder if adding, and I don't know how easy this is in the spreadsheets, Brian, adding the original, it doesn't have to be by each, the breakout by town, school, and enterprise, but the total appropriated for the year. Yeah. I mean, I'm happy to do it. I gave some thought for that, but if you think fiscal 2015, it would be a really big number. Millions and millions of dollars. Yeah. The only reason, and I'm trying to kill two birds with one stone is really your question, I don't know, like, how much, how much and how many projects are we tapping on every year? Because it gives you, in addition to knowing what's out there today, it gives you a sense of trend of what the asks have been across the line. Over the years. Yeah. And I think if we get rid of the decimals, then we get a little more. Yeah. And I hope that I can put it in.
98% certainly. I'll be packing it all over a couple times instead of 90 days. So I can, yeah, I can, your pleasure. I can stick it off to the left as the first column. Sort of in or fiscal year. Yeah. You could go left or right. You could, because you could put it next to the unexpended and then you'd have unexpended against total side by side with each other. And you're going to see when you get to the bottom, right, those 37 projects, 10 million dollars was probably 37 projects for 15 million or something. Yeah. I think it was 12 million. Okay. I'll stick it. Another comment so far was on that last paragraph on APCIP. I think we need Kelsey or the town manager to actually verify that it's happening. I know we have the software, but implementation timeline is what we're saying is being used. Do you want to do that? Yeah. I think you asked that question before. And then if you feel, again, looking forward to the final report, do you feel, we'll get this from Kelly to fix those couple minutes and that kind of do with the revised itself? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes tomorrow night I want to sit and just go through it and check on it. Question. Do you feel any further detail given our charge and what we're going to do? Or what we're going to do? Or might we just be just this kind of level of detail in the report and then provide the campaign to try and take a copy of the accelerator folks. No, I think this is perfect for, particularly for first year, but in general, it's what I've always kind of harped on that I don't think it's fair to ask the town to spend money on capital if they don't see what you did with the money, right? And where you are with the money they were already appropriated. So I think this gives sufficient detail for where we are now. I mean, the only other thing which we're not, in the interest of time and helping this committee is, we're not at, is getting into the why, right? What, why is there, you know, from FY20, why would we automated water meters? Yeah. And that's it. I mean, go to that next level. Because I think I know that the answer is for almost all of these. Yeah. But as I said, I didn't, I didn't know. I think your point is this year since we're way behind. I think in the, in the future that we would want to go to that level of detail. I don't think given how late a start we got and how much more we have to do, that that's the best use of our time, right? Right now. I think, yeah. I mean, some of us could then change the way the rules are. Hey, do not have to spend until a year. At least then you'll have to. That's right. We don't have a good reason why it's not, if it's not spent yet. It's gotta be returned and voted again. Yeah. So, uh, do you have other comments that you want to get me? Uh, no, that's on my, that's until I can travel once. So you prefer me to distribute, to revise, files, learn, and sell? Yeah. Send it to everybody. And, um, then I'll do my checking. But there's no reason. Anybody else? Yep. Yep. We'll go over it. Okay. Thank you. Um, we have, we have the nicety that sort of the intro from, from Liz, which you don't really want to talk about this here, but whatever your thoughts on that. Pardon me. My recollection was a cut and paste off the website. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A bit more substance. Yeah. So when we do this, um, you'll send out a revised draft of outstanding capital. I'll take Liz's initial draft of that and merge them into one document and then do some editing and set that all out together to, so we can talk about the next meeting. Yeah. So I think for the next, the substantive sections of the, what we really need to talk about is, obviously we still have meetings, school and facilities, rec. So we don't have their stuff, but we haven't talked to them about it fully, but I'd like to, Ryan, talk through the summary that you made of everything we've gotten so far. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I saw B2 meant that I missed something at B1, but I'm hopeful that I picked up all the detailed requests. I know that I tied out to the capital plan for fiscal 27 to 30 from last year. Yeah. But I certainly could use everybody else in a set of eyes as a, and I think probably come from you now if you're putting the same stuff into your workbook. Yeah. Probably might pop out. Yeah. That'll be the check. Try to put it in a sort of check fingers that I could miss something. But I personally found it helpful last year and this year to put all the stuff in one place. Yeah. Everybody else has the same. Yeah. I mean, at some point, and I think Kelly, it's up to you. It's really, at some point, the big columns here have to be filled in and read through by a majority of this committee before it can be plugged into a final report and set along with the panel manager. And I was thinking about how to do that so you can sit here in the meeting with a roller or whatever and literally fly by line. Yes, no, yes, no, move this, that. Another approach would be to put them on the chair or another member to get them all rolling by basically taking the first cut based on everything they produce, which would only reflect one person's view. Or third, try to identify some of the bigger items that are clearly things that we have to talk about. Either ask more questions or really quickly decide what we have to do with them. Because there's a lot of stuff here that people, at least in their minds, they say, well, please match up what was in the last year's primary plan. And when I ask if there's going to be more or any less, why should that not be approved? The answer is, logically, it probably should be. But it doesn't mean that they might not be things that come up in this year. It's a new request that supports us to rethink what was done by the time the answer is So, but ultimately, this thing could probably be clear what this thing or the components have to be filled in. The pink columns have to be filled in. It's a lot of decisions we have, so I'm sure I'm going to do that. I think, again, it's just sort of my unfamiliarity to a degree, the way it all works. But at the very bottom, I'm going to talk about all the several warrant article requests for longevity. Is that my question? Yes. Yeah, I was just trying to, to the very bottom of the sheet. I put this in just because over at least the three years I was on the page, a couple of these items appeared. It was the five-year capital. You can go up here for the warrant. Are these the ones that were noted but not part of the budget? They're, they're, yeah, they're listed below, right, as articles. So there's the capital plan, which is going to go with the part that we intend to have be a part of the capital budget, which is voted as one, right, voted as one block. And then there's individual articles for some of the bigger projects. We had differing opinions. My opinion was all things needed to be shown because it all has financial impact. The others felt differently. The compromise was we have a block in the table of everything that's going to go in the capital vote. And then, and then separately showing CPA, um, and articles below it so that you can get a view of all. Well, I guess that was sort of a question I had, uh, was, I mean, for instance, what's our charge with respect to things that are, have been being lost? Are we supposed to be, uh. Yeah, no, we're supposed to, because we're familiar first. Yeah. Okay. So that reconciliation bond, again, it's, I want to get down to apples and apples, pears, and what was in fiscal 27, quote, find your capital plan above the line, just to see, uh, how much new dollar requests there are in person with the plan. And so that's why I pulled all those items out. Yeah. I'm not necessarily suggesting that we continue to approach this the same way, because I believe we've determined that this base is supposed to be reviewing anything that's a capital project, regardless of whether it appears not to be a capital article or a separate article. So this is really just a, a, a reconciliation. But all these items are in the upper sections of the moment. Right. And we may decide to ask where we want to present them, and if the finance committee or the town manager want to present them in a warrant in some way. A couple observations, right, from this that I think will circle back around to Brian's question. I think looking at those roads, Brian, which is sort of comparing apples to apples, right, is where I started and say, all right, well, if I wanted to do what was in plan last year financially, right, I got cut a million and a half just out of the first year. And I've got cut off of every year. Right. Right. Just to get back to where I was. And that's not including, right, that's just non-article projects. I've got a significant chunk of, you know, it's $50 million almost between MWRA, the town building and others of other on top of that for 27. Yeah. Do you believe that? Right. Do you, do you believe that there's nothing that goes in the beyond years? Funny how it always happens that there's this big chunk of extra in the first year and then not in the out. So I think there are two things. One, you exclude that the article projects first, you've already got a significant cut you've got to make just to get back to where you were. And do we feel that that's where, is that the right place to go to? I think it's a good, I don't know that it's the right place to go to, but it's a good place to start. Right? Let's try to get the plan. Well, again, back to your question. The reconciliation I did was suggesting above the line, find your capital plan, a number of the items including the town building, if you will, find your plan including below the line items. Right. So the town building was in last year's warrant at $5.5 million. Yeah. In fact, it's the last piece out. This was funny. The wastewater in the high school was noted. It wasn't below the line anywhere. It was noted in the text. Yeah. That if you had to do it, then it would have cost $5.5 million. They thought it would be. So in result of your question, if we ignore those for the net moment and compare those to what else was in the below the line of the text with a separate matter, yeah, on the items that were in the five-year plan, each line item, each column in 2030 would require a cut. The second thing we don't know, we know what the planning director and town manager proposing the funding sources. Yeah. We don't know right. What is their current view of funding sources for fiscal 27 in particular is the most important. And so if we want to take the approach, we're simply going to prioritize things and say, if you remember back then, they did very brief, highest priority, medium, whatever. We could do that without knowing the financing source. But if we're supposed to come forward with an approved recommended plan, I don't know how we do that knowing what are the constraints. We have to know the funding sources. So it's a triangulation. We have to know the funding sources because you can't use some of the funding sources for some of the projects. So in a simple world, yes, you can just prioritize them and you have this much money and you need this many projects to go down the line. Some don't qualify. And down the line, but some don't qualify for some of the funding sources. So we do need to know that. So I was going to suggest that I think the next meeting is going to be taken up. But maybe the very next meeting, you really need to get Ron Chapman in here. Yeah. And tell them, you better come, you better get close and advance that meeting. What financial resources are. I think we should still prioritize them. Go to folders and say, hey guys, this funding source. Yeah, no, it doesn't hurt to prioritize them. I'm just saying you can't quite do the simple like cut off here. Right? Yeah, I don't think the fact, my opinion is the fact that something's new running, you have to prioritize based on what the known current is. Right. I won't say that, but I will say, said this before, I have less sympathy for things that I have a hard time understanding why they weren't anticipated. So that's where understanding why is this new information. We really didn't know, it was a surprise, right? Or because we knew and we chose a different priority, that made sense. Yeah. We've had some staff turnover, so you may get some of that. We saw the IT burden still. We look at the chart to host the projects, even around late, at some point, unless or when, it doesn't make sense anymore. We're putting salary in a couple of three new things. Yeah. One of which is spending more money for the whole thing. But if you're in the same school, if you're trying to instruct the business manager. Fresh look at it, they say some couple of priorities would go to progress. Yeah. So as far as approach, Brian, I'm going to suggest a compromise approach, which is because I want everybody on the committee, but this is, we're getting to the important part of the decisions here, right? Of deciding what a statement goes. So I think everybody on the committee has to go through the projects and based on what you've heard, prioritize them and figure out where you would, right, what you would think needs to be cut first. Because when we come back to talk, I can go through it and I will go through it and do the same thing. But I don't want to come here and say this is what I want to do. And everybody just nods their head. Yeah. And it's just drawing out that it just didn't allow it. Yeah. In some sense, you know, the group, by sending out this committee, the town has basically created an extra layer of bureaucracy. Because what we're talking about, if your report has been done by the finance director, who pretty much handed it off to whoever was the town manager, the administrator, who pretty much accepted what the finance director said. And the finance director was the one that made the top decisions. Sometimes the town of the trader, the manager, the job. And then they would get the finance committee and generally they would go along with it. But there might, as there have been over the last three years anyway, the occasion would be put back in something. But now we have this new layer of review with five people doing what here for the finance director did by itself. Which, that's why I kind of view, when I sign up for this, this committee being more focused on the long-term stuff. Which has never really been looked at anything for you to create a 10 to 15 year plan. Versus taking something that mechanically had been working reasonably well. Which is why I suggested early on, shouldn't we get the finance director to do the first cuts? I've asked. I've asked three times. Yeah. And then present that to us so we could see who the plus, what he did and what not. This just seems like we're having. But nonetheless, that's where we are. Yeah. I hear you, Brian. And I don't know what else to do outside of coming in here and standing in someone's office. But I will say, while it is an extra layer of bureaucracy, which I'm generally not a fan of, I don't know that I necessarily think that in the past the prioritization considered all the factors that this group of five people who have varied backgrounds are coming at it from. Yeah. I'll use, you know, if that were the case, the boilers of the schools that were in desperate need of replacement wouldn't have been an emergency the year after they were asked for, right? Because they would have been included in the year before's plan. Yeah. So it's things like that that I hear you. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Yes. And again, different stakeholders. We can get a diverse group of people. Yeah. The majority will rule in the committee. Yeah. You can very well end up with different decisions. It doesn't mean there's overrated. It starts to move. So back on this. At some point, active dollars have to go in. But the purpose of moving this along in advance of hearing from the other prioritizing. Would you envision doing that one approach would be literally in each section, literally if you just prioritize from one to 50. But. Yeah. I'd probably not one to 50. I'd probably do something great, high, B, and low, right? And then see if your highs, right, if you've used all your money with your highs. Mm-hmm. You answered that question now. So I think that makes sense. You can't do one to 50. It's too difficult. But is it our intention that 14 will fill in the pink copy? Yeah. And are we going to present that to the department heads and give them an opportunity to come back and tell us we're crazy or argue as to why we're mistaken in terms of what we've done? Again, when I say this, if we had this started earlier, I think we would have had the opportunity to have back and forth. That said, will we inform them of what we decided and why? And yes. Will they have an opportunity before the report goes out to convince us otherwise? Maybe, maybe not. But they will have an opportunity because we're only the first layer in the bureaucracy, right, to have it change when it hits the town manager right on the floor. And that's not ideal. That's not my go-forward preference. But I think that's where we're going to be. We're going to be. Yeah. An example, if maybe we can deal with the schools next week. An example would be that they have two new priorities. And if the general says, okay, I won't agree with those things that we need. But we're not so sure those need to find something from some other department. So, of the rest of your items that are carrying over by your plan, do you want us to just pick one? Or do you want to give us input? Yeah. That's an example. And we may have heard enough from our other meetings and if we decided there are other things to move in other departments that we could go ahead and do that on our own. But again, it's just not a whole lot of time. They caught a snippet of the things that are going to be on Monday night. And they're wondering where the capital finance is. And, you know, we still are waiting to hear from the public, the most significant departments. We have no financial parameters within Winchstoppie. And they said, oh, yeah, I'm starting to go to some communities. I don't want it to be blowing back on us. The financial needs left out there, you know. It's like February and we're still not giving up the capital. So. Yeah. I, listen. We have our liaison here. My feelings don't get hurt very easily. Number one. Number two, of six years on the FinCon, they got a capital, we got a capital plan in October, November, December, and we're still debating it in February. So. It'll be fine. I'm clearly they should have to spend as much time on it. But anyway, since we have our liaison here, she talks to the town manager all the time. Perhaps you can take back some of this feedback. And they are ATHOP members in this committee. And I think the sense of having ATHOP members, that they might attend from time to time. They could stay in the loop. B. They could help support and facilitate this group. And I haven't seen the town manager for three or four meetings. I haven't seen a finance director since the first meeting. So it's a, anyway, pushing ahead. But I think it's a task for the next, I don't know if it's the next meeting and what after that. You're suggesting we're going to have to do this. At least we go through with marked high B and low and every item in a big column for all years. See how we. Yeah. And then I envision we're going to get back in this room together and we're going to talk about what our highs, what our highs are. Yes. And see where we differ. As Joe and Harvey would probably run out of money when we're done with high. So probably won't have to go too much further, but I would like us to do it. Yeah. And then you could decide how you want to do that. If everybody came with or got their prize meetings and those in, it might be easier for me, whether we go through each of those inputs and whatever the majority is in that given item, put that in and ask the document and bring that forward. It doesn't mean any meeting and the individual member who already said cannot speak up. Or because I think I should be more correct than all of us sitting here with five different sheets. Yeah. You mean just consolidating. Yeah. To work for improvements. If five people say hi, it's going to say hi. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's fair. So we're going to use this. This is what we have so far. Yeah. Maybe it's worth adding a couple of columns. Just send out whatever you're going to put out versus us and turn in. You know, maybe you just start between B and C. Just put in a comment. What do we do with that? Oh, I get it. The alternative is I can put five individual columns in for everybody to use. So everybody's kind of meeting them over there. You can always put your inputs in and think certainly and whatever the majority is, that's what I'll put in. Do we really think we're going to have a high in one year and a low for the family? Are we going to rank it with a high in that year? Well, not every, I mean, not everything goes across multiple years and roads go across multiple years, but not everything goes across. That's what I want to do. Do we just need to rank the project? Do we just need to rank the project? Do we just need to rank the project? Do we need to rank the project? Do we need to rank the project? Do we need to rank the project? Yeah. I hear what you're saying, John, but I don't want to over-complicate it too much. I think you could just do it for the project. That's what I'm asking. Yeah. And then have it applied to the given year, but that makes it a little bit harder if you just want to filter on, right, hey, we've got to get 27. Yeah. We need to have all of them there for the 27 projects. Let's filter on them. So, yeah. So we'll rank each year by being one of our projects. Yeah. I think you have to do it by year because there is some, there needs to be some consideration of what the other projects are for slated for that. You'd be a little tired of this year. Yeah. Right. The other thing that I'm finding a little bit frustrating is, again, we just have to deal with it. I find it difficult on some of these to, you know, prioritize them without knowing what the next five years will be. The next five years, very well, might have something in them in anticipation of those projects might cause me to. I, I, I, I agree with you wholeheartedly, but that's a mountain we cannot climb right now. The reality, right? It's a part I need to be prioritizing their projects. Yeah. I mean, I, I hear you, Brian, because we've already ventured into that in our discussions about the town, you know, the, the, the, the town dump, the garage, right? Like, well, does that make sense if you're doing this study? There are other ones like that, the same thing, town building, right? What's the future of the town building and what's other additional expenses you anticipate beyond what these, what these extra, right, articles are, which is my other concern. You know, we don't have much identified for articles in the out years. And if I look back, if I actually look back at the history, right? I tend to have them, not every year, but I tend to have a pretty consistent, um, number of articles that come up on top of the capital plan. So the fact that we don't see it. I don't want to see that in another chart. Yeah, exactly. How many additional articles were it having for a year? It tells us how many surprises. Okay. Thought I had labeled murder. Thought I had labeled, you know, other articles. Is the trend getting much worse every year? So it is. What tends to happen is, I think, you have articles, right, that you want, they want to do, and ultimately you run out of room and you don't do them and they accumulate. So like town building has been getting kicked a year over year over year over year. It didn't just pop up right this year. Um, so I think that's some of why it accumulates, but I, I, I know we have to get beyond the five years. There is at least a new school building of some sort, or a substantially renovated school building of some sort. It's going to come out of a long term school building study that's currently operating. And as far as I know at the moment, I would say that it's not there at the moment. The only thing on the school buildings was a million dollars and it was slotted in 2030 for a sign for being able to get in the MSDA for state funding. And, um, and that had been in 28 and the plan started pushing out to 30. I'm going to ask the plan, the school business manager, the year ago, what do you agree with? The guy kind of pushed out two years and kind of said, as long as it's in the five year plan. But, but that's an example of, um, probably the largest capital expenditure that's still working out there. Yes. And that discussion, rather than discuss what a feasibility study, it should be about, well, when can we, you know, when could we actually handle that project and then work backwards from there. Right. Versus like, oh, I'll just keep picking the study out. Well, the study is no good if you can't handle the project for another 10 years after that. Right. Right. Okay. So we're supposed to, uh, the idea is that we'll do high median loan, not just for 27, but for all of them. Yeah. So I think, I think to save yourself, use the file Brian already sent out in the pink column, put your high median loan. Next to each requested dollar number. Next to each requested dollar number. So for example, if you're looking at 2027, you're going to put one in road improvements, you're going to put one in sidewalk improvements, and you're going to put one in stormwater. Uh, actually, we looked through the year. We heard that. Sorry. Yeah. At age 40 slot water. So wherever there's an amount in, that's been requested for this year, you're going to put a high median loan next to it in the pink column. Yeah. And I, I, yeah. That's a hard question. Yeah. I guess probably when you want, because for instance, we haven't partnered with the schools yet, so. That's what I said. I mean, I think, I think you can, a, you can start to all look at this and tell you how your homework is. Uh, you, you at least need to get familiar enough with all, you can wait until after next meeting. Next meeting, get something back together for whatever the next meeting is to be set. Yep. Yep. Sounds like that. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I don't know, that's the only thing I can think. Because eventually we do then, if they translate that into dollars and resources. And there's going to be maybe zero discussion on some of these. And there's going to be a person discussion on some of them. But again, we're, we're, uh, going back to one of your original points. We're doing this somewhere in the bathroom to do the funding of the bill. It's not, it's not a bad exercise to do. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And again, it's the funding. We could start, if we have to. Because the contract doesn't come forward with something different. We could start with what's shown in the war. But fiscal 27 through 30 by your capital plan projects, which has sourcing certain dollars and types of projects. And just say, okay, if we're going to live on that, here's what we can do. And we can get more requests than we're in that plan. But how do we skinny them down? And then maybe we could get, because of what's running the operating budget, we could get the financial director coming and coming back saying, we need to, if it was going out with the water project, we need to scale back on fiscal 27 from what was in the plan. I'm not saying it's 17 days. So we would just, it would be a waste of our time to do what I just described, but it's just all of our reason to happen to step up and tell us. It's an extreme case, for example, if you do this, but I could put zero, or low initially, and then zero, knowing that A, to get some money from the state every year, they could deal with some of the roads. B, they're about a year behind the state of the money I already appropriated. But if we've got to do something in fiscal 27, get that passed down, it wouldn't be ideal for the VW, but the roads will get a few more patches. Just as an example. All of our bigger discussions is going to be that four and a half million about the combo number for the percentage facility in high school, two million, and two and a half million moved up from fiscal 29 for the high school field. If we're told you've got to live within the means of fiscal, for example, or less, they have to do the wastewater. Yeah. On roads, and I don't remember if I forwarded on, I have a bunch of things I need to send on to you guys, but Tom Holder answered the remaining kind of our follow-up question. And I don't, it's the same on a bunch of projects. If they're, you know, basically have a year of money, right, extra, right, taking it down for a year doesn't hurt anything. You might need to give a little bit so that they can cross over, right, and they're not stuck, you know, at the beginning of a fiscal year or the end of a fiscal year. But it doesn't hurt anything. If you can't get to the work, appropriating the money doesn't do any good. I'm not picking on that one. No, I'm not picking on that one. It's not, I guess, I look at it differently than I look at, like, no, you can't do that project right now, right? It's like, you've got enough to work with now is more of that concern, right? We've got other places that needs to go. That's going to put that dollar amount perpetually into the future. It doesn't change, right, it doesn't change how much work gets done. It's not, it doesn't mean more patches because it changes the schedule. Storm on our system is the same thing. Right. So this just may be a year, but maybe you defer some things that typically wouldn't otherwise have been deferred, if, in fact, the instruction. Whether we just do that because we think it's right, we do, or we get the instruction. Anyway, so if it is your question, I think, we need at least one day to get through four sets of input, five sets of input. Yeah, I would ask you, I mean, even though we haven't been in schools, I would tell you to get started. Oh, yeah. And then when schools come, if you have to adjust, right, you'll adjust, but get started on the phone. Okay. Do you have anything else you want to talk about on the press that are out there? Yeah. Two quick things. The town manager, last year, made the process, given the attention that maintaining the existing of IHQ's stock in these one-town meetings, and the commissioner's article, I think, a year ago, that created a separate committee. The town manager came forward and has proposed, initially, $100,000 a year from the capital budget. Yep. Using the capital city division. We have no submission from the town manager as far as well. I know. Yeah. I don't know if we're in a position to just, okay, I suppose we can put things in. I presume his intention was as a, at least the minimum need. I asked that question. I'll say today. And then secondly, maybe this could be agenda for the next meeting, potential division. I believe there was one CPA article, and I have to watch the meeting from last night to see what the CPA decided to do with it. It was requesting money for a counter-owned asset, particularly in the fall field. Yep. And the committee said it previously mentioned. I know. From that discussion. But I thought, at least I can watch the meeting before, I should be able to report next meeting, I can at least speak to where the CPA came out on it. Is there a number of open questions based on the application that I saw for money was in program. So I also wanted to be reckoning that occurred yesterday, when the rec commissioners were talking about that project. And they were talking about moving, moving playground funding through the CPA, which is the ballpark outside of the 2030 something. Swapping the older playground, which is in fiscal 28, in the recs plan. But I haven't talked to schools yet, which is going to slowly happen. But that's an example of, you know, this kind of movement. So anyways, I think if we're supposed to provide oversight and input from the CPR, that's the only one. Right. In the thought. Kelly talking. Us talking about it. Yeah. I mean, we, Brian and I both looked through the other CPA articles and they were either not capital, not town-owned assets. So that was just the list, the EJN. Are we at that meeting last night? You know what happened at it? Are you? No, no, no. Okay. No, but I do. Okay. That's their discussion just so I know. That's Carol Martin. Sure. And so it's Carol Martin. Perfect. Thank you. So I'll ask their meeting just to see where the discussion was. I'm not sure they were planning to take final, final votes last night. The total budget funding is dependent on yet another CPA appropriation that was at the moment a slot at the local fiscal community. So how that all, to your point, and I really don't want to give the discussion yourself about that project, but it's another example of if the total project financing requires this swap of playground that the schools decide they don't want to swap over playground for a particular fall field. How does the project? Well, this gets a little tricky because I'm not speaking specifically with the project, but it's a CPA decision how they want to spend when they don't actually need the school's blessing, right, to provide the funding. They have projects in front of them. They can decide to swap it, right? I'm not saying we should. I'm just saying we're in an intersection. It's not the schools coming to the town to say, hey, we'd like this funding. No, no, they can fund it, but if they're funding it on the basis that they're, because they've pulled the recognition in the past, like last year, I think they're asking them. We've actually seen a $400,000 request in the CPA. I've scheduled the request for $400,000 each year, every other year. Yeah. We have a plan that goes out for the program. Yeah. And so if, hopefully, the CPA is focused, the CPC is focused on, if the total financing that only includes this year's ask was dependent on flip-flopping. Yeah. In the end, the CPA agreed in advance that they're going to fund, as they said they wouldn't agree to do last year. You can ask agree. Yeah. It just seemed, it was, you know. The other area that this one, if you get funded last year, so-called council of landowners, put it clear on $400,000. The county here is recommending it not be put right where it is. Not be where it is. Yeah. It's an insensitive wetland area. It's also dangerous. Yeah. It's terrible. But it was also noted that the schools in Maryland and this whole facility study are putting in that this discussion about the children's way for being here, but then she was quick to say, well, it's not really just the children's way to play around, it's a town claimer. So, it's just an example of- It is, it is that it's restricted, it's restricted to the children's way to school there. Yeah. My only point is that I have to advance preview some of what we hear next week, but it's just an example of follow the bouncing ball on how do you, how do you prioritize things that are not small dollars. Anyway. So, I would hope for the next agenda, if we had time, I'd put up- If you'd be part of the committee for the following meeting- Yep. And if you have this thing kind of filled out- And if the next meeting would be the department that hasn't been to talk about the CPA- Yep. Article review- Just do whatever you do to report about that to see- At least my draft- I guess you're going to do something- Yeah. Yeah. Where are we at the guts of the FinCom sections of the capital- I still don't know what we're doing. We really started having more than 100 K jobs. Yeah. K job. Thanks, David. I travel it all week. But it's- It's on my weekend agenda. And I'd say the last thing is- We need to work backwards from the schedule. We need to let the FinCom- No, we realistically didn't expect something from the true view. We might realistically expect something from- Yes. Unless we have our date to work forward. And that's the other, of course, part of doing the second thing in the committee. Actually, my thoughts are the future. Today we had to do a lot earlier. We- I will say we need to set aside two or three days in AB. And if AB people can do it during working hours. So we can get all the department heads done quickly. Because Frank Kennedy would be able to just need it during work day whenever it's been in. If you've got to go from one week to the next week, that just never gets done. Not for this year. Yeah. I understand, Brian. But that's- That's the difficulty. But the volunteer committee, right? That some of whom have jobs, right? Sure. We have our review. We do it at night. We're saying we need to do a better job next year. Getting people to get us this information in July. Including when we start going up in the longer term. And a hard date where you all must have all your stuff in our new forums. And we're going to meet with you all this week. And we're going to commit to do three meetings in one week or something. Yeah. I agree that all of that could be done federal up front, right? We're behind the eight ball. I'm just taking this opportunity for people to think about where we really want to go. This is just frustrating. It's not our fault. Yeah. We haven't gotten any. Anyway, that was my thing. I disagree. I could meet on Christmas. Of course not. Any further discussion tonight? We have a lot of homework to do. So let's move on to review and vote to approve the minutes of November 19th. Did anybody have any comments or discussion? No. Not a little bit. Can I get a motion to approve those? So I move. All in favor? Aye. All in favor? Aye. Those minutes of November 19th are approved. All right. I do not have any topics reasonably anticipated by the chair 48 hours prior closing. Next meeting will be December 9th, which is Tuesday. The agenda is already out there. I will issue or submit a revised agenda just to add. Okay. All in favor? All in favor? Aye. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Those minutes of November 19th are approved. All right. I do not have any topics reasonably anticipated by the chair 48 hours prior closing. All in favor. Aye. The next meeting will be December 9th, which is Tuesday. The agenda's already out there. I will issue or submit a revised agenda, just to add the CPA item discussion. Fleck. Aye. tomorrow? I'll leave it. Just do it tonight. All right. All right. All right. And then for the meeting after that. Yeah, we have the 17th slated, is that ready? Is everybody still okay with that? John always said so far. It's a good caveat. We said 6 p.m. for that one. Can I assume? Yes, so the next meeting is 5 p.m. hybrid. And the 17th is 6 p.m. hybrid. Is it going to come on hybrid? Yes, we'll see if you can come for this. I don't know that I can plan out any further than that. As we get into this over the weekend, we get things together first. The week is the 17th? Wednesday. It's Wednesday. It might be helpful if we get the town manager to show up with that. Does that allow us to figure out where we are and how we get to where we can get this? Yep. On the 9th, I mean? The 17th? The 17th. The 17th. I guess in our discussion of priorities. We do another one in December. Is there any, is there any particular day beyond the 7th before Christmas? That's good for you guys just to remember. Do you think before the 17th? No, after the 17th, before Christmas. Oh. How may it be? The 22nd. Right. So that's behind it. It'll have to be removed. Maybe not, because it's pulled back. The 12-22. 12-22, yeah. Yes. Just because we're about to adjourn, I assume. Mm-hmm. And see if a member of the public has shown up at the end of our meeting. Yes. Fair and appropriate to ask if that person has any comments or questions. Yes, it would be your comment or question. Any public comment or question? No, not at least time. All right. Can I get a motion? Motion to adjourn. All in favor? Aye. All right. Adjourning at 16-4 p.m. Thank you very much.