January 20, 2026 – Board of Public Works – Video & Transcript

January 20, 2026 - Board of Public Works

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Okay. It is 6.01. I'm going to call the meeting to order. The intro that's required to be read is the location for this meeting, in-person meeting, is wheelchair accessible. If you need other accommodations in order to participate in the meeting, please contact Whelan's ADA coordinator at least two business days in advance of the meeting. While municipalities will do their best to accommodate you, certain accommodations may require the timing of outside contractors who may not be available if requested immediately before the meeting. This meeting may be recorded, and if recorded, it may be available to the public on WACAM. As soon as possible after the meeting, public will be excluded from executive sessions. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Act of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person or via remote access in accordance with the applicable law. Ed, could you mute yourself, please? If the meeting is only remote access, no in-person attendance by members of the public will be permitted. If this meeting has remote access, one may watch or participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found at H-T-T-P-S-W-W-W-W-W-A-L-D-dot-M-A-S-D-U-S-slash-public-body-meeting-information-virtual-in-person-and-hybrid. When required by law or... Ed, you're drowning me out. when required by law or allowed by the chair persons wishing to participate public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so at the meeting location in person or remote as applicable public comment should be limited two minutes per person okay uh call the meeting to order uh do we have uh julie or mr spelman there's judy and there's mr spelman okay so we're going to start with a uh roll call uh spelman judy here ed yes well wake of our here and you just here that's everybody right okay uh any opening remarks by anyone none for staff okay any announcements none for staff okay and we recognize by the way carl bonds our financial uh finance committee uh rep hello there evening to you all and uh don and uh who else we have one and joe okay uh start with a public comment reminding it's a limit of two minutes do you have any public comment so it looks like we may be moderating this ourselves so i see two okay i will recognize elissa hi i'm elisa i live on sherman's bridge road and um i did send an email today so hopefully um you will at some point have time to look through that but basically i just um feel um anybody you can just mute those is there anyone in control okay um so i'll try to speak over them um i feel that they're the uh current bridge plan for the sherman's bridge road sherman's bridge um renovation is substantial enough to warrant a um a vote at town meeting that the citizens of wayland should have a say on this plan rather than trying to um just figure it all out with um with going to various boards i think there's enough significant change in how the bridge will be used and how it will be received that warrants it um following the um uh major uh renovation of something as opposed to a simple repair job so i just wanted to share that and um thank you for allowing me to speak and uh sorry about those guys talking over i don't know if you could hear me yeah we could hear you fine we're sorry about that thank you all right the next that i see is henry white hi there uh thank you uh you can hear me okay yes good thanks well first of all i want to thank you for your continued responsiveness and hard work during the design and planning process uh um in my mind that can remains one critical opportunity that i urge you to consider before the plans are finalized as you all know the sherman's bridge is unique among all the sudbury river crossings and wayland it alone offers safe accessible views for pedestrians unlike all the other bridges that are constrained by narrow shoulders and heavy traffic to take full advantage of this um that as other speakers have noted that i believe the rehabilitation should include a second walkway on the south side of the bridge which would significantly improve safety for residents who already use that side for reviewing and it would enhance the bridge's value as a resource and i understand some funding for this may be available through the scenic river stewardship council or other public grants uh from previous discussions i'm aware that there are questions regarding right-of-way and structural feasibility to resolve these i am requesting that the board commission a preliminary study from the project engineer to explicitly assess the feasibility and estimated cost of a south side walkway obtaining this hard data would go a long way to addressing the concerns of many residents and could reveal a viable path forward that satisfies both safety needs and community desires and again thank you very much for your consideration thank you henry do we have anyone else tom no other hands raised okay be a closed public comment and uh tom move to your section on sherman bridge update yeah i've got uh some prepared remarks to make and then uh glad to answer questions um the project team purposefully solicited public input through hosting a visionary workshop you recall that uh on october 9th uh this has been coupled uh with encouraging continued public feedback during the design process uh we have strived to take what was heard and learned through this public involvement and this next listing um are features that were able to accommodate within the current project scope so we have eliminated the proposed asphalt layer i know that was uh much desired we are able to maintain the current five-foot walkway width we lowered the barrier between the driving platform driving surface and the walkway we are able to keep the steel banded wood guard rails that are in place on the north side bridge bridge approaches so those will remain in place we are able to allow for easier access to the walkway from both wayland and sudbury sides uh the walkway is to be built from timber boards the design will include a timber wearing surface over the glue lamp decking uh that's a a recent um design detail and we're also working to include conduit uh for the future location of the overhead utilities that are currently in place two items which were understood to be sought within the planned bridge deck repair that were unable to achieve at this time is in working in collaboration with mass dot and to meet current bridge standards steel guard rails must be included on the south side bridge approaches i was talking just moments ago about the north side bridge approaches uh there's a difference between the two of them uh mainly because of the uh the crash tested barrier on the south side um so these are intended to be limited to only 18 feet in length uh and they will transition uh from the wood bridge rails uh to the planned steel banded guard rails that we'll be able to leave in place uh at the extremity of the of the guard rail and those will be in a similar footprint to what is currently in place there now um as one of the previous speakers mentioned uh there's a desire to install a second walkway um and that is at this point in time just outside uh the scope of the current bridge deck repair the towns are preparing to repair the bridge deck construction of a second walkway would extend the project scope to include structural changes to the bridge substructure uh changes there uh and it would also require obtaining easements uh from the u.s fish and wildlife services not insurmountable but it would be um a lengthy process to do that um so at this point in time that is outside the scope of the project in hearing from a previous speaker um we um we do understand that there might be funds uh from the river stewardship program uh we have met from a prominent member of that group offering um some funding and with those funds we are prepared uh have spoken with our engineer and we are prepared to have them perform what we call a technical memorandum which will identify the details of designing and constructing a second walkway i am not saying that it's going to be included within the scope of this project but we are um open to at least having the engineer put down in a in a formal memorandum the details of that so to help better understand some of the design parameters um just want to make a couple of uh points uh prior to the construction of the current bridge there was a two and a half ton uh weight limit on the bridge when the bridge was rebuilt in 1992 it was designed to withhold far more than that and currently it does um support large vehicles large trucks school buses tractor trailers plow trucks it is designed to do that and mass dot um you know has it categorized with an unrestricted weight um characterization there's been a lot of questions about glulam and its use glulam is the only known wood product that meets mass dot and ash toe bridge standards ash toe is the american association of state highway and transportation officials um and this glulam would include the required crass tested ratings associated with the graphic studies and data that we've we've compiled as part of this project there are planned nominal repairs involving one piling and a number of cross members that will be included in the bridge repair effort underneath the deck all proposed approach guardrails will be located in the same or similar footprint that is currently there now i know there's been some statements in the past that they will be extended and that is not the case it never was the case there will be no impact or restrictions to river access as is currently enjoyed the bridge itself from the whalen to the sudbury abutments will be constructed entirely in wood i know there was a strong desire to maintain the historic nature of the bridge whereby we would replace it with wood and that is what what we're doing along with strong support from the project design concept mass dot is graciously offering you know to pay for deck repair materials and also to have their contractor perform removal and installation services of that deck this is a tremendous final financial benefit in considering the town's current financial challenges the current bridge repair design balances the inclusion of current bridge safety standards with the preservation of the bridges historic nature while maintaining current recreational amenities it has been suggested that we secure a sample of glue land material and we are working towards doing that um some of the most recent work that we're performing with the engineer uh and some of our uh and some of our permitting processes that uh we had to resubmit uh the pack our package our design package to massachusetts historical commission they had some additional questions from us so they now have that second package in hand we are preparing to submit notice of intent um applications with the respective wayland and sudbury conservation commissions and we are working with massdot to finalize what we call shop drawings and that's part of the design process so i think that summarizes what's been done and what we are currently engaged in thank you tom any questions from the board yes george i have a question go ahead thank you first off tom i want to say thank you for all your hard work on this i know this has been an enormous amount of work um for you and your team i want to say thank you from the board um my question which you very kindly offered to uh answer on on uh your time at work i thought might be best answered here while we're talking to everyone and my question really had to do with maintenance of glulam which uh be nice to hear i've heard someone tell me that doesn't need maintenance at all but i thought it'd be good to hear from you as for what type of maintenance glulam would require thank you so much sure well thanks for the question the glulam itself is is a significant structural uh type of wood um it is you know the pieces are when i say significant there uh they are crash tested
they are going to be covered with a timber wearing surface that was desired and uh so we took a look at that you know so we are going to be able to protect the deck itself with this wearing surface so that will prolong the life of it so the one thing about the glulam that's different from what is there right now is that right now internal staff with their respective departments of public works are able to replace timber boards but we know that over the last 12 years we've been doing that each and every year and it's just not a um sustainable way to to do this so glulam will not have that type of a maintenance requirement uh it'll be installed it will be covered with the wearing surface the wearing surface uh would then be replaced um you know in the distant future uh but the glulam itself will have a 25 to uh to 30 year lifespan thank you yeah my my question is uh i i thought this bridge was considered as a historical bridge if we propose to uh put another walkway on different side that's changing the looking for the historical then we have to get the permit from a historical society
those make create more time to for get all the permit together yeah there has been a spoken desire to preserve the historic nature of the bridge prior to 1992 there were no walkways and the bridge in 1992 included a walkway that's what we're prepared it's really replaced in kind but yeah to to include a second walkway there's a number of hurdles challenges uh that is beyond the scope of this project but as i mentioned earlier we're uh we're um open to preparing an engineered formal report that describes all of that and that could be done at a later date correct yes that something along those lines we had spoken about that could be installed at a later date mike i saw your hand up thank you yeah i echo uh judy said thanks for your work on this tom it's been extensive i'm sure we probably know only part of it um the glulam maintenance or the lifespan will that be extended with the timber um covering yes it will yeah i mean we had initially you know uh proposed to have asphalt for that particular reason yeah for for many reasons that wasn't uh embraced uh this wooden wearing surface will do something similar yes great so it might be up to 40 years potentially i think that's what asphalt was or somewhere yeah it was it you know mass dot said it would in essence double the life of it so yes great um the question i have is about the safety of the gap that we've heard about from several folks um i i forget the distance like maybe a 16 to 18 inch gap um that sounds like it's something that could be easily addressed is is that has that been addressed yeah so i had the same thought that uh and in one of our recent meetings with the engineer i had expressed that that this should not be that difficult it might not be required you know in in bridge railing specifications but why not do it so um yes that's that is being included in the evaluation yes yep okay and then uh the walkway uh to me the walkway is out of scope um yes it would be nice and and i agree it would be a great addition um and i think you know given the interest i think maybe it should be done uh at some point um so as long as um we can construct in a way that it makes it uh easier to do that um should should we find the funding and get this approved at town meeting uh the funding to add that walkway and i just want to make it clear that this is uh and i think everyone understands this is a repair activity um it's it's grown beyond that a little bit but um uh and i am in favor of that second walkway but i think the timing and um and the cost would slow things down quite a bit so that's just my opinion okay okay thank you any other questions from the board one more um we talked about adding something to slow the speed uh from from whether it's sudbury or whalen side of the bridge is that still something we can consider was it rumble strips or something something like that you were talking about yeah i mean rumble strips is an option you know in some applications uh the one thing that those they don't really fare well uh in that location in new england whether they they fill up with water they break they uh deteriorate um you know so it's it's something i actually asked about you know during the design process and um but it was it was explained to me that this is this would not be the proper application for those um you know it has been suggested speed bumps speed humps uh neither town is supportive of installing those for a number of reasons public safety officials in both communities are not supportive of that there are some traffic calming things that we can do with striping and pavement markings leading up to it and we are receptive of doing that but aside from that we're relatively limited in in what we're planning relative to uh items on the roadway that will that will reduce speed there's a you know enforcement and uh those types of things are likely going to wind up being part of the you know part of future endeavors is it is there room there to put you know sometimes they have those speed signs that track how fast you're going on a little trailer to remind you to slow down well even better than that in which we may wind up doing that the town has installed successfully uh solar powered lights that do just what you're talking about and in that particular area there's a lot of exposure to the skies so solar would work fine uh we've installed them a clip at hill uh on um a street uh down parkland thank you appreciate that um so uh that would be something that would be easily installed good and it if you go down 27 there's a speed uh meter like that but instead of giving you speed it tells you you know you're nice you're nasty slow down a little more uh visual yeah there's there's creative ways to to demonstrate that yes yes okay any other questions okay thank you mike route 20 landfill visioning how are you i'm up uh so this is a recap of the december 22nd meeting of the landfill visioning committee uh we started off a few years ago with uh 17 uses for 17 acres and uh we've got that down to about 10 uses for the 17 acres um based upon the findings of the borings um and a bunch of other testing that's been done um and so i've got the 10 uses that we think we can fit all of them on the 17 acres um and so we've we've got them all down most of this work has been by uh tom fay the tireless town volunteer and um so i can go through all 10 of them and with a brief description and the four uh categories that we've thrown them into which is well the four um four kind of things that are important to each option which is the description benefits challenges and assessments uh so number one passive recreation and open space which is development of low impact recreational amenities walking trails bird and wildlife observation structures uh interpretive signage uh and no permanent structures penetrating the cap uh the benefit would be broad public access and community benefit minimal capital cost and then low environmental risk it aligns with our conservation and wellness goals challenges uh would be ongoing maintenance and obligations ongoing maintenance obligations they must be carefully designed to avoid cap disturbance uh our assessment is this option represents the conservative and widely accepted reuse strategy and it is well uh suited as a baseline use and could coexist with other options everybody got that one uh number two solar voltaic installation this would be installation of a ground mounted or ballasted solar photovoltaic system likely designed specifically for capped landfill conditions and best placed at one or two more parking areas the benefit would be long-term revenue through power purchase agreements and leases uh supports town climate and sustainability goals minimal soil penetration using ballasted systems uh the challenges would be it would require careful engineering and regulatory review um we'd have to be conservative uh visual impacts our assessment would be solar uh solar pv is one of the most common and financially attractive reuses of the capital landfill uh it offers substantial benefit with relatively low risk when properly designed option three rectangular grass field with lighting for informal recreation this would be a development of one or more rectangular grass fields with lighting suitable for informal recreation community use and active sports activities fields would be designed using grading turf and drainage methods compatible with capped landfill conditions and would avoid subsurface penetration penetration uh benefit provides flexible multi-use recreation space for residents supports community health wellness and informal gathering relatively low structural impact compared to built facilities compatible with open space and passive recreation goals uh the challenges services it requires careful design to protect landfill cap integrity ongoing turf maintenance and irrigation considerations limited limited suitability for formal athletic programming um and potential light and neighborhood compatibility concerns our assessment yes um i don't know if this is easy for you to do but is it possible to share your screen because i don't think this is in our packet um okay it'd be helpful to follow along for me anyway that would be helpful if i know how to do that mike you see that or can you just send it to us later i can send it to you later it's a lot to read yeah okay but you see where the arrow that says share then read through all this because i'm only at number three i will i'll email this all to to all of you uh and i'll just go through just mike is it is it on your is it on your screen now yes you see where the share button is on the uh black on the bottom the green share button in the middle of the um in the oh yeah right there yeah yep you click on that you guys seeing that not now i think you just have to select one oh there it is something's coming um double click on it that it says hmm uh just said you started sharing oh there it is yep got it thank you are you able to see that now yep yes thank you okay by the way if we have questions you prefer we hold them to the end or talk as you go through um let's um let's uh you can how about if you um have any questions on each option okay oh no never mind we can go through them all and then you can uh we can just scroll back okay sounds good all right so uh just went over option three rectangular grass fields so now option four dog park designed for capped landfill conditions all right so i think we can all see there uh the benefits the challenge in the assessment um we heard from several people in other other meetings with public comments saying that dark park would be a great idea i think they wanted to put it in town center to be that's their primary goal but having it here would be great as well um shared surface parking so now we've got a lot of we've got a big uh parking area for fields for all these other amenities that we're going to talk about adding uh the challenges with that would be you know we have to be careful where we put it uh we have to manage the storm water um but it's we definitely have to find a place to park these uh parked vehicles for people who are going to visit this uh this area option six school bus parking that'll make the folks over at the town building happy uh we can get school buses over there uh challenges also would be um run off uh from the vehicles and um parking lot and managing the waste uh managing water option seven shared restroom facility supporting recreation and municipal uses so we'd have to throw a bathroom there because we're inviting a lot of people to come to this space
uh option eight uh the lay down area for the public works um vehicles uh because that's currently the only use that we're using it for so and we have to cut it would take away a place for them to put down their excess materials so we're going to have to provide them with another place but we should be able to do that with this space and uh option nine vegetated perimeter buffer using native plant species um so you know we're all aware that that area in the sudbury um sudbury river um kind of delta area there is uh it's a national wildlife so we're gonna we're gonna have to we might have to do some planting there establish a perimeter buffer using native plant species provide visual screening ecological benefits and advanced site integration with surrounding areas um option 10 nature-based design elements so small outdoor amphitheater uh i believe this was this where was it tom do you recall uh the town that installed a amphitheater we had someone from the collaborative yeah they had done that work before i think it would i think it was actin yes yeah so actin actin worked with this company the collaborative that we've been working with they put an amphitheater in so so uh there could be using lightweight non-invasive construction methods you could you could put put a small theater there for people to use have um some educational or packs of recreational programming so these all have uh their upsides and downsides but we think they're all great uh community-based uses for the space
and according to what everybody's saying uh on the board and others uh that we should be able to get all 10 of them in here we're going to be meetings we have a couple meetings in february where we're meeting with a company that goes by the clever name the collaborative that is going to be designing the space and uh discussing with us and coming with some plans on where everything the pieces are going to fit
any questions yeah will we be able to have food trucks there i don't see why not judy i don't know i i can't speak to to to that what kind of permitting that requires or what kind of facilities but i don't know it's a just someone who lives in wayland i don't see any reason why there's you can't have food trucks there yeah the biggest issue on any of these is going to be parking i would assume yeah one one question on your comment about judy i'm sorry i don't want to cut you off is you all set i'm all set i just think with all those people they're going to have a lot of hungry and thirsty folks maybe we can send them over to the town center so we can get more use out of that uh your your comment about the solar i remember when we were talking about the landfill over by the transfer station there was a comment that you couldn't uh put in solar on the ground there for some reason and i'm wondering if you find a way to do it here uh if we could then include the area by the transfer station which is much larger uh and get double bang for the buck so it just may be something you want to consider i think the landfill yeah i think if i can jump in here i think the landfill had a challenge with the slope george um tom joe you can probably provide more light on that yeah yeah there was there was only one small section of the transfer station landfill that would support solar and i know that there the facilities department had an inclination to hire tie and bond to do an evaluation i'm not sure if that got any traction i haven't heard anything recently but i do remember that it was a very small portion because of the sloping if there's a slope you could fill in the shorter the lower parts to bring it all up to one level it's a big hump george so fill in the lower parts we might fill in the town um dpw building area as well it's it's a big uh it's a big mountain one of the other solar options that was discussed too was to have um you know pedestal mounted much like you see at the high school at town building you know so if there's an area for school bus parking an area for uh public works materials management you know as long as we're able to accommodate the height of trucks and buses there has been some talk about utilizing that portion to have pedestal mounted solar arrays as well
well then over on the uh by the transfer station could you have different heights so pedestals to take care of that yeah i mean i guess i would leave that to that facilities you know study i know that they were the one taking the lead on that yeah i'm just if we're going to do one we can maybe just include it and get uh get all that revenue to the transfer station agreed i'll bring that up at the at the meeting we have in february um yeah i'm not sure if the if the goal was to was to make something that's more candy levered or um to be placed over the parking areas similar to we have at the town building and at the high school over by the pool um or if it was truly ground-based um that hadn't been really uh explained to us yet yeah okay good thank you any other questions that was my question too if it if if it would be um if you would have to avoid the uh penetrating the cap and i'm not sure if you could do that with the uh overheads but that would be ideal i would think um but yeah that sounds great all 10 you think might be able to be accommodated here is that is that yeah that's that's that's yeah that was that's what was said yes that's awesome it's going to be a yeah very much an engineering challenge but good yep so we're meeting with the collaborative uh at the end of the month or the middle of next month and then we're going to make a recommendation to the select board okay all right all right anything else before we move along okay next one uh tom is the long-term supply uh article
yes so that was that was submitted well in advance of the january 15th deadline um so um i know that uh the finance committee has it i know that um yeah we were in the email that uh i sent it i described the board of public works desire to have the select board co-sponsor this article i believe tonight at the select boards meeting that that topic is on the agenda so hopefully i i know there was a statement uh some weeks ago that uh the select board was reluctant to commit to that until seeing the article well now they're able to see it so hopefully you know there's a vote and they agree to co-sponsor because that was that would be a tremendous help in our cause good carl can you give us any feedback in terms of where you guys stand on your committee sure thing um we have not met since january 5th um and so there's been no formal vote on the article um but i've um i've read it a couple of times uh i think you've done me a great service by all the background information which i will duly adopt as the finance committee's comments um i do have a you know a couple small questions that i don't think that's worth taking up time here so i can talk to um um you tell me but i assume it'd be tom you know to go over you know any language changes or or um questions we might have yep i'd be happy to to speak with you on that sure okay yeah we're we're not talking a lot here because i i do think it's in really good shape and i can't speak for the rest of the committee but i think we all understand we don't have a choice we've got to do this so i would expect a an easy vote on this good thank you uh public forum comment tom yeah i just wanted to start thinking about um perhaps a date and i was proposing i'm sitting here looking at my calendar i was i was thinking the beginning mid april and knowing that town meeting is may 4th uh there's a balance of of having it ahead of time so people have a chance to contemplate what is said but then also having it near enough to town meaning that people remember it when they when they go to town meetings so you know i thought i would pull the the membership here tonight and see availability that week of um the 6th or the 13th i have i have yet to reach out to uh the town manager's office and and way cam we would it would be you know a hybrid we would obviously the uh staff and i believe the uh board of public works would attend in person we would have representation from our designer uh we would have a a formal powerpoint presentation and then be available for any questions that might come up so i i'm not sure if anybody has dates that would not work work and then i can using that try to try to schedule something that week of the 6th of the 13th of april um i think for me the 6th would work better that week i may be away the following week okay yeah the fifth is is easter so i'm not sure when school breaks are uh but yeah i'm fine either way and again for the open forum we don't necessarily have to have a meeting right we can just have uh a subgroup and and yourself there for the forum yeah i mean i think ideally would be good to have this there's a quorum yeah yeah yeah i mean i and that's typically we had we had something similar almost at the exact time last year last year town meeting was april 7th it was very early um we had a march forum when we were requesting design funding and i and i'm pretty certain we had the full uh full board there and i know that's my preference but i'm just saying if somebody can't make it yep yep we could we could go with you know three four or five yes yep okay all right um so i'm hearing the preference is the sixth um i'll work towards that if i run into any issues or whatever i can reach out and and uh and see if i have to do it a different a different week would that be on a tuesday or yeah oh i just i have to see what other um boards are whether the select board is meeting on that monday the 6th i'm not certain i haven't even looked into that uh to see whether you know we don't we'd rather not compete with other boards if they have other important matters on their agenda we don't want people to be uh trying to pick or choose which meeting they go to if i can find an open night i'll select that one but uh we'll see how it plays out okay okay good anybody have anything else on that so far those dates look okay but hopefully it will remain so understand okay next one is the water enterprise fund the uh forecast of revenue expenses in impact of retained earnings has got to be uh fine-tuned a little bit what went out has got some problems uh a couple things though to so we're going to push that off a month but a couple things that uh we need to uh talk about uh because it has an impact i reminded brian that and carl you may want to uh remember this as you go through with your people is the rate increase that's going to come through in fiscal 27 from the additional debt uh you know it's going to be a neighborhood i assume just for that uh 25 30 percent kind of range depending on what else settles down uh so that is one issue and then the other thing that uh we'll need to think about not that we have to make a decision today but we may just need to forewarn as you may remember the municipal rate is all tier one with the significant increase coming through uh for this and then the mwra do we really want to continue that or should they be billed like everybody else and you know the thought process here is not to make a decision but warn them that it may be coming uh so that as they look at their budget they consider that in addition to the rate increase so i don't know how people feel but the issue is tier one is significantly less than our cost to provide water and probably less than uh our mwra uh and that they're being billed at that regardless of how much water they use so i don't know what the board thinks about that uh and how you feel if we should warn them i don't want anybody surprises uh after after the budgets have been approved by the town and the schools or somebody erect coming back and saying you can't bill me for this because i wasn't forewarned that it might be coming that's the thought process yeah brian kevin he did send out an email about a week ago just warning department heads including the school department um of you know a possible 30-ish percent increase in in rates and that they should be planning accordingly in fy27 so uh at a minimum decision makers in each department were uh were notified yeah that was basically after my discussion with him yeah yep yes it was so uh i don't know anybody have any thoughts on uh just and all we really need to do is tell carl who has to as he reviews these budgets uh can ask the question and well that's one sorry can we provide uh them an idea of how much they would be charged if if we did charge in the you know the four tiers today so that they know what they're using yeah that certainly can be calculated i mean if if um i mean i guess it would be good to know perhaps as you know as a policy whether the board here was inclined to implement a tiered structure to municipal customers or not and i would assume it also will depend on as you do the rates go in for 27 the tier one rate how much you're going to increase that uh because if you increase that significantly trying to bring it more in line with at least the variable cost uh then you may not be as necessary if you keep it very low where you're subsidizing those uh the thought process on that is that people get billed if you're a tier three you still get part one tier two and then the excess in tier three uh so that has an impact
yeah so my my thoughts are that uh
this would be one way of pushing
increase back toward the tiers for the municipal water rate uh let me try i now you're you're better now okay yeah no i i would um i i'm open to looking into using the tiers for the municipal water rate in in in part because it's a way to push the the increases back towards the tax um tax side of the world versus the water rates okay mr spellman your thought i'm obviously in favor of it also but go ahead um i don't think i'm i think i'm in favor of of uh the municipals being billed at the tier three rate as well yeah and we go back to remind that the select board one of the reasons that they wanted to go with water rates versus taxes is they wanted everybody to pay their fair share so judy uh i'm good i'm good with paying your fair share so i think that makes sense so tears you like the way i worked that in okay and that's fine okay uh tom uh would you let brian know and carl you can let the finance committee know that while no vote has been taken the board has been pulled and believes that we the municipal should be billed at the respective tiers
and how that works works out as we when you set the rates uh in whatever it is may uh that they'll be aware of that will do yes can do and i believe that that one analysis that was done that showed the uh municipal usage you could probably take that and figure out the impact of going to the tiered rates at the current rates yeah i think we've got the information whereby the volumes um because matt abrahams uses that information um to create you know the rate forecast and and recommendations so i we would likely be able to do that now could we consider all municipals as one for how much usage they have no i'm just teasing okay okay uh yeah the use of retained earnings uh article e uh again i think we should put that off until february when we see where we think we're going to end up uh because if we're using uh retained earnings to cover losses in the current year which is i think a possibility i think you need to consider that in terms of how much retained earnings you may want to do in terms of the uh
bill where you're going to get the revenue from and also the fact that with the 30 increase in the amount of fees you would have to either increase the amount of retained earnings or reflect that 30 percent reduction in the percentage you'll get out of retained earnings to billings or expenses if you follow me not quite all right if if our if our expenses are going up by 30 percent and you're currently you want to maintain i'm just going to pick a number not that it's correct 20 percent uh retained earnings either you'll have to increase retained earnings to get to that 20 or reduce your 20 to i don't know 16 just to pick a number to balance and so i think you need to know where we're going to be to make that decision yeah in my opinion we make that decision when we set the rates we try to figure out how we're going to get to that number that that new number um i agree but you want in your motion in the warrant you wanted you talked about use of retained earnings that's why i'm bringing it up now yeah i think as a placeholder we should use the contingency expense um as our retained earnings um usage in the budget those should match the the expense that's uh the contingency expense which is not expected and uh the um retained earnings which we don't expect to use for the contingency i think those should match as a placeholder i just don't want to get it get too late in the year again where it just gets pushed off and in past years the select board had to put it in there um i know it's a controversial topic but we voted on this as a board and i think to have that placeholder there would make sure that it's recognized by brian and um others who are interested in that topic okay that that's going to be obviously up to the board you know where i stand i think the real challenge is what that percentage is going to be if we end up which i think we will using some retained earnings this year because of the expenses we're incurring and the increase in expense how low is that percentage going to drop versus the select boards pushing at 25 which i don't think we're ever going to be able to get to but it's the force that that is being pushed so i think we just need to see where we're going to see the numbers and then you guys can make a decision we really don't need to make that decision until we finalize the wording on the warrant we well the thing is we don't really know george until we set rates after the warrant is out and after town meeting has happened and that's the challenge so i i would make a motion that we set the retained earnings in the warrant to be equal to the contingency fund even though you don't know where retained earnings is going to be at this period exactly so you could drive it it could be down to ten percent and you'd still be happy no we set our rates to cover that george we that's where we said i'm not gonna get all right that's fine so you want to have that equal to contingencies which is two hundred thousand dollars yes all right how does the rest of the board feel about that anybody want to stick your neck out into this argument no way no how but i do need a second a little more and think about it so this is mike and judy and ed this is the mo these are the one of the two motions that we voted on earlier this year that we discussed at nauseam um and this is the the first which has to do with making sure that the warrant includes um retained earnings as a funding source so that we can use it if we need to so that was already understood and approved yeah and so all i'm saying is we don't know exactly what number we want to put there because there was a little calculation that we voted but i think at the very least we do know what the fake expense is the contingency expense is two hundred thousand in our budget well you could call it a fake expense because i'll call it what i want i want i i'll call it what i believe it is it's it and how it was set up george was as an expense um that we didn't know what we would use it for or if we would use it so i call it a fake expense and i'm not trying to mimic any um of our leaders even though we use some of it every year okay all right no we haven't used some of it every year i'm not even going to get into this anymore well you are but um yeah so all i'm suggesting is that we match that which is what we did originally when we set this up tom louise miller myself we set this up with the board several years ago and that was what we did we matched the contingency expense with retained earnings in the warrant that way it was available to us and you've heard what the select board thinks of that okay do you want to make them you want to make a motion to do that or you want to wait till we cover the uh next meeting the warrant yeah i'll make a motion to set the retained earnings as a funding source for the water enterprise fund budget in um in an amount equivalent to the contingency expense and i haven't seen uh lately the budget is that set at 200 000 right now the contingency expense it is okay so 200 000 is there a second i don't feel comfortable voting on it because i don't completely understand it judy judy so my understanding is that this has to do with that page where we had water and then we didn't have a contingency line but the transfer station did and then i forget what service did as well and it seemed odd to me for us to not have it when the other groups did so for based on that i'm not saying that 200 000 is exactly the right dollar amount i think it's a placeholder um is it is it a possibility mike do you feel comfortable if it's 250 or if it's 300 or does it have to be 200 i'm saying it's something we will need to determine but right for now as a placeholder 200 000 okay matches it might change based on the budget yes end up working exactly we've got we've got the but you've got the budget you went through it last meeting and the budget has a contingency of 200 000 that's where we got the 28 increase that's in the warrant the question on the floor is do you want to cover the expenses with water rates or water rates less 200 000 the 200 000 being funded by retained earnings so it's water rates minus 200 000 it's expenses less 200 000 is covered by water rates 200 000 is coming out of retained earnings oh and the retained earnings is that 1.4 mil is that correct no it's 1.1 million 1.1 mil as of last year you don't know where it's going to be this year yet so for example if we lose money this year because of all the things that are going on and the mwra cost and the repair cost that number could drop that's why i wanted to have the updated forecast for this year but it's not ready yet well can we vote when we have the updated forecast or would that be too late what's happened in the past judy is this has been pushed through to the warrant and we haven't been able to get this back in for every year since we put it in place it was 50 000 contingency expense 50 000 funded by retained earnings then it went to 200 000 and it was matched by funding by retained earnings and then at some point around 2021 2022 we lost control of that article it was taken over maybe as part of the town manager act and they removed that so now we have this contingency expense that we don't really know if we're going to spend or not we have no idea if we had an idea what the expense was we would put it in the budget and say here's the expense line and here's what it's for it's a it's a mechanism to allow us to use our retained earnings in that amount so that's why we match the two we just for clarification it is you are able to use retained earnings if you have a loss it doesn't have to be in the warrant in the warn allows you to set rates less than your expenses if we set if there is zero in the warrant for retained earnings but we have a loss it still comes out of retained earnings the issue is only in terms of the rate setting except towards that the dor wants to see that matching so if we have retained earnings in there yes it does wash out in the end but they want to see it matching and that's why we use that funding to make sure it matches in terms of revenue and expenses yes your revenue has to equal expenses or revenue plus retained earnings has to equal expenses but that doesn't mean that if you have a loss it doesn't come out of retained earnings anyways just trying to okay now we if tom as i understanding is february 24th meeting still gives us enough time to get it in the warrant is it not it does i did affirm with brian that we had until the february 24th meeting uh to make that determination i think in principle i'm comfortable with this um because it it's in line with the other groups and what you're really saying is that if we don't use it we don't use it if we do use it it the actual dollars come out of the 1.1 now um i don't know where it would come out of if we if we didn't do it this way it still comes out it comes out either way setting the rates oh then then i i would think that it's okay ed and we set the rates so we can factor that in when we set the rates i i think i just need a second um before we discuss it hasn't been seconded yet the motion i thought my thought is just combining with the rate if we can find some uh neighborhood uh community have their current water rate and we don't need to mention which town or which water district or whatnot and kind of comparison with with our rate if we are right on the top then we don't need to mention it if we are in the middle or in a bar lower portion of it then we can say okay other community is much higher to us you know we've been go through during my my time as a consulting when we go through lots of this you have to uh show we are doing the best we can to save the money for the for the for the citizens in in this town so uh instead of having a like a retaining a separate item you'll be better off combining me into one rate including that if we feel that with the show already too high then re retaining any fine with me i i have no problem but it's just sometimes it's tough to sell in the town meeting going back to mike mike's comment we need to get a second i'll second it okay now just so people remember we're talking 200 000 out of 4.4 million right yeah all right there's a motion on the floor we'll go for a vote judy we'll start with you since you seconded i vote yes mike spellman i also vote yes ed i'm gonna go yes yes george is no mike yes so it's four four one zero thank you quarterly billing update tom yes so the the the sheet that we included in the packet uh the really the sole reason for including that there's a lot of information even for me it's it's sometimes difficult to follow it's really that bottom line um we were trying to make a determination as to when we transition to quarterly billing from semi-annual uh it's always been known that we would achieve really a one-time increase in our revenue revenue because of the cash flow and in essence that that bottom line uh you know identifies that the old billing you know uh scenario you know you'd have you know 10 632 bills with the quarterly billing in fy26 you increase that by a little over 2000 um bills that go out in an essence that uh translates to about 85 000 in increased revenue during fiscal year that the first six months of fiscal year 26. so uh that was the sole reason for including that go ahead just again just are we on um this uh spreadsheet underneath in the packet yeah it's got orange lines on it yeah i wasn't following what you were speaking about um let me just see if i can bear with me uh do you want me to try and share it if you can i was going to say i'm i'm trying as well but uh if you guys have it in your fingertips okay all right george has got it it looks like yeah all right so if you were able to increase it the size of it i don't know how do i do that sound like well first hit that x on the left see all tools just hit x and that will a little further over the the panel on the left a little further over right up the top of the corner of that one yeah over to the right hit that x that'll yeah and then if you um
yeah i don't if you hold the control key and zoom with your uh i don't know if you have a mouse with a scroll bar but that will zoom in um or on the bottom right there's a magnifying glass with a plus the bottom right of the screen there we go the tools right keep going to the right keep going to the right there you go plus the one above it oh it's just directly i'm trying to i've got to get down the uh oh unfortunately the uh that better one more time yeah that that will can everybody read that okay yeah that's that's probably good so what i'm referring to is on the bottom left it says totals so currently number of bills you'll see in the bottom it's ten thousand six hundred and thirty two when we go uh in for fy26 only um the number of bills is twelve thousand six hundred and seventy three so what that translates to if you go over to uh the same row you'll see an increase uh increase in revenue of about eighty five thousand one hundred and twenty nine dollars using using the staff uh schedule in this fy26 matt abrahams produced this spreadsheet which shows what that one time increase that we're you know we didn't we didn't plan on that we didn't show it in our revenue projections so that should only help our cause and for our next meeting when we have the fy26 projected we'll be able to show that so that was my reason yep so uh a friend of mine has been traveling so i've been helping out paying her bills while she's away and in the town of newton they do this weird thing where because they don't they're billing four times a year for something but they don't want to send out four postage uh incurred four postage stamps so they only send it out twice a year and each time there's quarter one bill and quarter two bill but it's all in one bill and i find that really confusing and so i would suggest that when we do quarterly billings that we actually do quarterly billings and not try to do two billings just to save postage is that something you've thought about well yeah no our intentions are to send out every homeowner will get four bills a year every homeowner business owner every account holder will get four bills a year thank you yeah and hopefully we'll have an option to um choose electronic billing yeah just like you do today people can opt out of yeah yeah great okay yep yeah so that was my intent of of including that complicated spreadsheet with a lot of comments and notes that was really mad and i know george george had perused this uh to a great length as well yeah the uh that brings up a good point though mike i think that i'm not sure how many people realize it because i didn't that i could get an electronic bill versus a paper bill that might be something as we communicate this change that we make people aware of so they get a they get a paper bill you can just pay it electronically oh okay i was thinking of somehow allowing to save postage going back to judy's comment if we could somehow bill electronically instead of that's what i was intending bill yeah that was my question so i i guess i i didn't understand it that way sorry no i mean everybody currently everybody gets a paper bill they have the ability to pay it um electronically but yeah i mean i'll have to take a look and see whether or not that's an option um as to what yeah i i haven't really considered that because that would save us some money yeah i'm just trying to think about how you how do you manage that um if some people are getting paid because you'll have the mobile it's the same way as your phone bill or gas bill you know you can get it electronically or you get a paper one yeah yeah so especially if we have the app um so that you can see your usage mm-hmm the customer portal yep the customer portal hopefully there's a an add-on where you can just receive and pay your bill through that yeah i'll i will uh inquire about that i i have to be honest i hadn't even thought of it so this is um just because of the the timing of the invoicing now that we've moved to quarterly uh we'll see that increase or we're expecting an increase of about 85 000 of revenue this year is that correct that's what we're forecasting yep this year it's in 20 physical 26 just so we're clear yes okay now one thing to keep in mind is and i was disappointed but i understand why see all these negatives instead of a positive number is significantly reducing the benefit that we get because they're pushing out the building dates to get an even flow and i understand why they're doing that but that's leaving a lot of money on the table so just you know they made the decision has been made between tom and matt abrams on the billing timing that is going to push out a number of these collections in 26 and so that reduces you know we're here the top two is uh 280 000 and we lose 200 000 in these pushouts yeah so that decision was made by myself and staff not matt abraham's well yeah it's caused by what we're actually able to manage uh we're not able to send out um you know 5 000 bills all at one time and be able to manage that so what we're doing is where we're billing two routes in january two routes in february two routes in march and then it just keeps you know circulating that way we just maybe at some point in the future um when we get our arms wrapped around this but um i had contemplated doing this and i nearly had a mutiny on my hands that's there's a there's still a lot of customer staff interaction relative so that that's okay um i have a question on the 85 000 that will just push us into fiscal year 27 right no it doesn't push anything into 27 because from that point you're billing and you'll get you'll get a full annual billing in 27 versus four quarterly instead of two semi-annuals this should be a one-time push yeah so for an fy 26 you wind up getting one semi-annual bill and then two quarterly and then an fy 27 you'll get four quarterly so this is this this increase will not be experienced in 27 judy you had a question yes thank you so i understood that by going to the new water meters we were going to get a seven percent bump did that happen so i did not review the latest uh for this meeting coming up what we have seen up until december was in july we saw a six percent increase i think it was the month after it was flat then i saw a two percent so we're not seeing that seven percent it's it's less than that well let me let me answer can i answer that a different way tom and i think i'm correct we think that those meters are improved accuracy which will reduce the unbilled but you may not see it in the usage because of all the other factors that are ongoing in terms of what we've been through with the mw area and the water rationing and everything else that goes with it so yeah i mean i yeah it's fair to say that the meters are more accurate they're uh recording flow better but people's habits may be changing is that what you're saying or just some of the things that we put in place that prevented the uh usage of use of water the getting people to be more conscious of what they're doing more conservation based yes so it's really hard to tell the only thing really to be able to know is at some point if we can see a reduction in the unbilled water but because of the timing differences that we go through now it's very hard to see that once we get i assume into the new system we'll be able to see in a month how much we've captured in terms of billing versus how much we've produced yes by going from semi-annual to not only quarterly billing but in essence we can we can run reports monthly that's what i'm saying yes monthly yep yep because that's the only real way to do it because right now because of the splits and the timing it's hard to do an apples to apples comparison correct because everybody's on a different billing cycle yeah when don reports to the dep he's doing it on a calendar year we're working off of a fiscal year there's you know there's gaps um in in how that's so your point is is right on the money thank you okay anything else on this you probably if you're not you should see a oversized postcard in your mailbox um they went out friday so i'm thinking by today you should have gotten one um and um it just describes the new metering program it describes the quarterly transition just so people understand that they're going to get more frequent bills it explains as best we could that you know that there's really no action required on their part and then it does also advertise coming soon as the the customer portal so there you go carl's got it on screen yep i got mine on saturday beautiful yeah good i i already sent them my mail out
good so uh so that's out and hopefully that will you know uh notify people of why they're getting more frequent bills yep and that would wrap up my portion of that okay going over the transfer station yeah so um we had a a spreadsheet that everybody's accustomed to seeing a year-to-date report it's it's something that we we generate in-house um actually sat with george for a fair amount of time a week ago and george was able to kind of identify a little bit easier on the eyes kind of a format a little bit more accurate way to look at same information but presented in a more better understood format so i i know you're working towards sharing likely uh i'm just seeing i'm seeing the file name but uh hasn't uh i see your mouse hovering over the file name yeah you you might have um you might need to unshare and reshare the document see it now it's coming it looks like it's coming there we are yep and again if you want to x out that all tools like you did earlier on the on the left that x that uh it'll yep there we go yeah so george i mean uh if you're up for talking through this i think it's two pages this one and the one below it yeah yeah so basically what this is first of all is and we'll go to the 27 and in the next if i can find it again uh basically our budget for expenses was 543 000 first half spend was 240 000 we're looking at second half forecast of 300 000 uh which would give you 5.5 million i'm sorry 539 000 which is roughly uh on the budget in terms of expenses very close and you can see the different uh lying items that are in there uh yeah we went we went through each cost center uh and evaluate myself anita and joe doucette and did the best we could in predicting how these next six months you know would look like for each of these cost centers and uh and that's how we established our second half forecast and there and therefore the rest of those columns so as normal they've done a good job and think they will continue to do a good job in terms of managing expenses uh the issue again is revenue uh revenue is forecasted uh to be 434 000 actually they're thinking they're going to get 465 000 which gives me a net of loss of 73 000 because remember my expenses were 539 and expenses are 465 so we're looking to lose 73 000 uh 50 000 of that is going to be covered by a transfer uh covering the consulting project and that leaves us with a net loss of 23 000 and did it this way uh rather than putting the 50 000 in revenue so as we talk to the select board about next year they can see the impact if we didn't have that 50 000 coming in now we also won't have the 50 000 hopefully in expenses but this just shows the the where we are in the pieces okay and then when we go to george can i ask a question yeah um did we have the um 50 000 funding this year i think it was 75 000 the year before um yeah that's the 50 that's right there okay so that was in the fiscal year 26 but it's not currently in the fiscal year 27 correct well that's where i'm going to get to in just a second so hold on a minute but so far it's not in there right in the well no no that's not let me just give me a second mike all right okay i lost it hold on i lost it uh is it transfer station fy 27 yeah that's what i was trying to find so i think if you want to stop sharing yours i can try sharing mine okay go ahead okay uh i was trying to get back into the and i couldn't get back into the file for some reason is that the one yes yes okay page one page two right okay so this this is your your expenses and so right now we're projecting to be at 539 000 in expenses what we have in the budget for 27 is an increase of about 17 000 and that's all in required salaries with uh reductions in a number of the other categories to offset it the only other big increase is in vehicle repairs so our expenses are up slightly but you know was it three percent uh and then if you go to the next one next page this is our revenues uh we've got growing going up slightly uh i'm sorry going down slightly uh increase in sticker sales but a reduction in terms of the bag sales uh and not sure again this is a scientific wild ass guess i guess uh in terms of what how many bags we think we're going to sell but i guess uh they the people have seen a decrease in some of the bag sales uh and if this would hold true we would lose about a hundred thousand dollars uh fifty thousand if you remember in our last meeting we passed a motion to ask the town to continue that fifty thousand dollars until such time as we get the uh consulting report and can take action i don't know that tom has that actually been communicated to uh the select board and to brian so it has and i i spoke with brian about this and i also spoke of the desire to continue with the fifty thousand general fund transfer uh up until we complete the the evaluation and see what the financial uh results are he did not say no he said that it had yet to be determined so the door is not closed but and if we do get that that would leave us if these were correct another fifty thousand coming out of retained earnings as a loss so that in other words we're asking them to cover half and half will come out of retained earnings so we'll we've got to get there okay on that uh and see what it is but that's basically how it's currently set up now in terms of the warrant uh again brian is got either has to uh have one of the sources being retained earnings or inquiry increase the uh revenue budget as he has done previously uh and then the 50 000 from the transfer to break even uh and so we'll have to see how that works either case the loss will come out of retained earnings and the the rates that we set really have nothing to do with uh what revenue we need to cover expenses because as we've seen uh just because you increase sticker prices does not necessarily mean you get an increase uh equivalent in revenue because of people dropping out questions so i'm not sure you know in knowing that we just voted a placeholder for retained earnings for the water side of the house uh whether the board is supportive of tonight selecting a proposed level of retained earnings used you know it looks like it looks like we're going to need a hundred grand how that's divvied up between general fund transfer and retained earnings i'm not sure if there's any uh desire tonight to make a motion and vote would you
sorry yeah no uh what's what's my recommendation would you recommend we have a placeholder of a hundred thousand or fifty thousand i'm trying to think of the proper strategy because part of me says we need a hundred um and i would say we tell we need a hundred we they get half and uh half comes out of retained earnings yeah and if we if we can word that into a proper motion that would be my recommendation well we already had a motion on the 50 that 50 for the was in the last meeting right right and maybe it wouldn't hurt to affirm it but correct so is the motion to request we um utilize 50 000 from transfer station enterprise fund retained earnings as a funding source for the fiscal year 27 budget yeah before we go to that motion can we put up i think i have it uh the uh page that you did on the town cost yeah let me uh i'm gonna stop sharing this yep you know that might be another well since this is a placeholder should we try and get a second and vote on that george or no no i want to go i want to go through one thing first before we do that just give me a second time i can pull up what's i can pull up what's in the uh the packet yeah that would do it that would do it i'll do that do that yeah there we go okay and i think it with that request for the 50 i think this is a good example in terms of the dollar amount because this is and i think some of these costs are low because i'm not sure you're going to get somebody to come in and do a weekly trash pickup for two thousand dollars i mean you know that's like what forty dollars a week uh so even these which are low is 61 000 which is in excess of the 50 000 that we're asking for so i think by attaching this to the request for the 50 it helps people understand what we're what we're looking at so just this level set this here is a summary and tom had you put this together with those the staff years ago maybe yeah probably about a year ago yep okay and it's been uh brushed up and updated um we were trying to determine what would the cost to the town be if we were to shut down the transfer station because there would still be costs that would need to be borne by the town those are covered by the rate payers um up until recently when we started receiving those uh supplemental funds from the town um and so this is a summary of the the categories where we'd have expense no i think this is different mike what this would be is these are services we provide that we don't bill for if we build for these services it's actually a com it's a combination it's a combination george you'll see that uh um you know the first line is paid by the schools and the town building the second line uh transfer station paid by transfer station and then i included what that that vendor cost is about two grand so uh there is a mix under each category uh but the dollar amounts are only what we would build that what this value the services that they're getting that's right and that's what so the 60 grand is accurate in saying that if we would have shut the transfer station this is what costs would be incurred uh for the on the general side of the town okay but i would say it a different way if we build for these services it would be in excess of the 50 000 we're asking for because you you don't build for these services yeah well the the big one is the 50 grand if you if you scroll up mike uh you'll see that one right there um you know we do that um and they they would have we don't get anything for that so they if if the town were to hire if the rec department was to hire um it would be and we got that information from um a vendor it would be about 50 grand so for years and years and years the rate payers have been supporting these town costs um recently we started the transfer station started receiving some supplemental funding i think it was 75 000 a year uh for two years and then 50 000 this this year um and this is a this is a summary of the costs um to demonstrate how the town is benefiting from the services provided by the personnel and equipment that traditionally has been paid for paid for by the rate payers of the transfer station um the only correction to that mike is they did not bill they did not give us the 50 000 for those services this year they gave us the 50 000 for the consulting project they agreed to fund that that's what the 50 000 was for yep so this this 60 grand you know uh ballpark it is recognized at the select board level i i know i've heard them mention it a number of times so this this is a concept that is out there one one um area i didn't notice was here and i know we talked about it and maybe you felt it's already covered but if we were to discontinue the operation of the transfer station um and let's say that we no longer required staff we would still be wouldn't we be on the hook for covering the opeb costs related to all staff yeah i'd have to take a look and see how the transfer station budget um i'm not sure if anybody has that handy i don't think i do but um what the opeb charges are for the transfer station hmm well it'd be opeb and pensions right yes right yep yep so there'd still be a significant cost in that regard as well but be careful because i don't think we're currently billed for those they're not in that expense sheet okay because you remember on the water we had we had the line for that we don't have that in this and i don't are those maybe because the employees are also considered board of public works employees well going back a long way it was actually an agreement when we when we set up the um financing for it to move to a transfer station um but that was the original agreement long long back um before there was a board of public works okay so now we can go back to the motion uh as a reminder to them with sending that request with this information out to show that they're getting more than that in terms of services and what we're asking for carl woody where do we stand on the budgets for these things and i know it's going to be a very tight year how much pushback do you think we're going to get i really don't have a good answer to that george um we've seen a really preliminary budget a couple of weeks ago um and um i don't recall if it has anything on addressing this but we won't see the uh sort of revised and more carefully thought through budget for another two about two more weeks i think okay okay so uh time you're suggesting then that we get a motion to uh re-emphasize the request with the uh and then send in the request plus this schedule yeah so you know reaffirm the board's desire to have 50 000 transferred from general fund in fy 27 and then we would also then ask that 49 000 in essence it's 50 000 be listed in article e to be taken from retained earnings right that that prior sheet that i had up right yep okay can i have such such a motion so moved can i get a second second okay uh mike uh made the motion ed second roll call vote mike yes other mike unless it's spellman no other mike yes yes yes ed yes george yes 500 okay george just can i ask her so are we not asking for um a supplemental funding this year from from the uh general fund yeah we're asking for the 50. okay the 50 is being transferred from our own retained earnings that doesn't that's that's no we're sure we're short 100 000 mike 50 coming from the general fund and 50 coming from retained earnings got it okay thank you no problem that one i understand just want to make sure i understand my motion yeah that's a good idea
okay uh next thing on the transfer station is where do we stand in terms of the consulting project i am going to defer to joe on this one as he's leading that charge so i'm currently just waiting for um the working group members to agree on a time to discuss um all the proposals this proposals that were sent i just recently sent an email tonight to try to narrow it down to a particular time from monday so that's where we sit okay so just for us dummies here uh so the proposals went out you have you got them back with scope of services and a fee and has that has that been opened yet no no this is just for us to um choose a company based on the proposals that came in to choose an engineering firm to do that but you just asked but have we have we opened those proposals the responses to the proposal uh so we know what what the scope of services for each of these people are and what the amount is or is that yet to be done that is yet to be determined based on the fact when we choose a firm they will give us those figures and that ladder information yeah if i could jump in if i could jump in the there's separate um pieces george and this evaluation we have to evaluate the quality of the responses first before we can open up the cost bid okay yeah so we we've gotten the responses back we you guys we haven't met as a group so we have to we have to each individually rate the responses meet as a group and then determine which group we uh we choose if if any of the three we choose okay but the responses do you guys have those at this point or do you go through them yes so you do have the responses yes yeah okay but we don't have the cost yet because it's okay that yeah i understand the split uh are those responses uh how do i want to word this uh what we get we got regardless of who where they came from are they reflective of what we're looking at and is there anything there that you should share with the board in terms of the kind of scope you're looking at from the different companies not an evaluation between them but are they meeting what worth it what we thought we'd get i won't i won't answer that i was going to say i think it's premature to answer that until we okay all right um so at some point after your meeting will you share with the board uh uh the reason the response that you selected and what okay yeah and most likely recommendation okay yeah good anything else that we should be aware of in terms of this like for example timing uh will we have an idea of the timing versus the fiscal 27 you know in these kinds of things or we have anything back uh before we set rates in uh for 27 these kinds of things i'm just curious how this timing plays out against our other pieces we probably know the cost right joe we should know the cost we should have it implemented before uh before july well that's the cost of what i'm looking more so or from their scope of services will that give us any ideas of things that we need to consider as we reset rates for 27 or is it too early for that yeah i don't know that okay i think if we agree if we can get an agreement by next week and get the ball rolling there is a chance we'd have to you know we'd have to work with them to see what their time frame is whoever we choose or if nothing else they might be able to help us in terms of what to look at or where to look give it we'll have a couple months under their belt before we set race okay anybody have any questions on this other than this dummy judy ed mr spelman i'm here okay anything else on the transfer station that we need to cover tom i think that completed everything we went down every bullet okay next are the minutes we have two sets of minutes to go through december 16th and january 6th okay uh comments on december 6 16th minutes anybody have anything before page four i have something on page four nope okay okay on page four uh second from the bottom uh commentary on the mwra where it has the motion uh i think we missed uh miss lynn judy you're not in there i know you voted i see ling i i see ling i as well you just really missed no i said ling second the motion to call we have spelman wagerbauer chang uv just no lang oh ling so the second one so i see ling oh yeah yeah no it's he's talking about the paragraph above that wagerbauer made a motion to forward this one article um ling seconded the motion um and everybody's listed but judy so i it was five zero zero so ling i will be added good catch good catch george i just try to protect you okay okay i did see a note that i i offered to email all of the comments to tom regarding sherman's bridge um i don't recall doing that but maybe i did um you did uh i don't i'd love some help with that so i don't know if we can have it uh send whatever went to the board of public works folder um um forwarded yeah trying to think about whether they uh i mean george's chair do you want to uh just reach out to uh nick lombardi it director just to make that request i think he'd probably have more luck than saying anything to me but the what i raised the question on rather than doing that if we could just you pull together all the emails right you told me the other day he said he doesn't didn't receive all of them because they went to public works and not to him so that's that's that that request is a different uh different animal okay yeah i would i would think it you'd be better to go to him and talk about it than me well i mean i can try and do that but um going back and trying to find all those messages and forward uh i just don't have time at the moment but i can uh i can try and reach out to nick tom if maybe you could just make an intro via email okay intro email got it okay thank you all right anything else can we get a motion to accept the december 16th as as amended so moved second okay mike wickebauer made the motion judy second roll call vote ed yes ed yes mike wickebauer yes judy yes mr spellman yes uvigius yes so five zero zero okay january six minutes uh my first one is on page two let me catch up bear with me one minute stand by page two the fifth uh paragraph starts with board members discussed got it the fourth line equipment and what's s-a-n-s what is fourth line equipment oh sans um yeah so i guess that minus the pfos um it was it was you know looking to put together the cost to replace equipment sons was the uh just means without without without without the pfos yeah yeah that was intentional for us dummies could with equipment without pfas cost be easier it's not what he said okay that's fine so everybody else understands it uh next paragraph uh shared with uh i think we should uh respect miss martin either mrs martin or ms martin not just martin the only thing i would say about that is throughout all of these minutes everybody's referred to as their you know linging explained martin who provided wegg about our maid it's just it's the last name is all right forget it i stand corrected uh last page i'm sorry before you move on that next paragraph uh made a motion to accept this warrant as modified the warrant article has modified um second to last paragraph yep i have it yep i got it thank you okay uh the follow-up action those are the same items i don't know that that were from the december 16th i don't know that those are all follow-up from this minutes
yeah they might be um if there's new ones they'll be added to this if there are some that have not yet been completed they kind of carry forward i'll take a look at them i'll take a look at them yep that's fine i didn't realize that no problem okay can i have a motion to approve those january minutes please so moved wegg of our moves mr spellman second correct second okay uh have a vote for approval uh spellman uh spellman yes wegg of our yes judy yes ed yes george yes five zero zero okay any board member concerns none here nope nope nope no oh okay next one is set the uh dates for the next there's a listing of the next meetings but you have uh are we set for february 9th for the tree hearing now we are i should be uh i'll send out the list and the packet i can do it as early as tomorrow if you'd like now i just just want to make sure that everybody has that on their calendar if it's here they have it i just want to make sure you look at all the trees okay can't tell the forest and the trees is that the idea do we want to post a january 28th i'm not sure how many members are attending the fincoms warrant workshop well first question is for petitioners that was that was going to be my question carl are we supposed to be in that we had asked you that before and you i didn't get a clear answer oh um you you're welcome to be i think you are sponsoring an article here maybe a couple right so um i look back at the at the minutes from and the agenda from a year ago the entire workshop was cited to take about an hour and 10 minutes to get through whatever that was 36 articles so i can you know there won't be a whole lot of discussion but i would um i can tell you that um oh boy i'm mine is a terrible thing to waste i think it's the conservation commission somebody else is definitely going to be there you know one of the town boards and i think the select the select board will be there so you know whether you post a meeting or just uh for yourselves or you know send one or two people i think would be you know to your advantage to be there okay do you want to have a meeting or just have uh two or three two people there with tom what's what's the board feeling i think a representative just to answer any questions probably would be sufficient okay okay so we don't have to i would not post that i don't know if you want to select a representative uh tom you're going to be there already yes i would likely i'll attend remotely yes okay yep so you'll be able to answer any technical questions um george if if you can't be there i can um try to be there myself to answer questions what time is this starts at seven seven okay uh it's it last an hour because i've got to uh drive my wife somewhere and pick her up so uh yeah we'll i will try and do that i cannot know if you can't right my wife tells me i'm not allowed i'll let you know okay any other questions on the dates okay topics not reasonably anticipated there was one um that we wanted to just quickly brief uh the board on i'm going to hand it off to joe uh just to give the board an update on our snow and ice budget the responses that we've had thus far and the costs incurred so if allowable i'll just hand it over to joe just to just to quickly go over so the board has a sense of where we're at so i just want to update everyone at the the rate of burn right now that we're utilizing the funds uh with the 11 events we've had so far that we've had to either treat or treat and plow um we've used about 80 percent of the budget um and we've only uh had about 30 percent of the winter so far so we're we're a roundabout number uh spent approximately close to 400 000 our budget's only 525 so um at this rate if it continues i just want everyone to be informed that we you know will be overspending that i mean we've being as conservatives we can with this um but it's you know it's mother nature it's really nothing we can control so it sounds like this weekend you'll burn through the rest of it i hope not because you're talking five inches of snow so the roads have been great by the way joe i have to stay yeah doing a great job i agree um yes if you talk to uh brian so he's aware of that we will yes okay and if i remember right that this is one of those that you can never decrease it but if you go over you cover it in the next year is that the idea so it's the it's the only account that we can deficit spend um so you know we just keep incurring costs we keep brian notified we right now we're budgeted for 525 000 it's his recommendation for fy 27 that that be increased to 550 you're right george once you increase that um fund you cannot decrease it so that's why towns are always reluctant to just haphazardly keep increasing it uh they in knowing that you can deficit spend it they like to be very conservative but uh uh so that's how that works okay but in terms of which year that expense it comes out of fiscal 26 even though your deficit it's funded out of 26 general fund yes it doesn't carry over to cover it in 27 no nope okay joe are we are we also um expending more than we expected because most of these events are on the holidays or weekends yeah okay i think we've had one storm during the day everything's either nights or weekends and some days new year's yeah yeah yeah it's crazy well they deserve it for uh being out they do and they earn every penny too but you can talk to the weatherman see if he can move those dates i'll give him a call yeah can i get a motion on that one okay uh i'm sure that's gonna make brian happy and uh if do you normally tell carol that too for the board of select or uh just brian so we tell him and then he passes that along to any uh current they call them current year expenses so he keeps the select board and informed it's not only snow and ice is other other funds that uh are going to over expend okay he keeps them informed because i remember from fincom days for other the departments like this one where you can go into deficit they've got to move money around to cover some of the other ones yeah and it's something i know that he's communicating to the select board and finance committee i recall when i first came to wayland i was asked to attend a finance committee meeting just prior to town meeting to talk about you know the need to um to find a funding source because of the snow and ice overage i haven't been asked to do that in recent years i think it's just it's anticipated we communicate that to brian and he gets that information out well ahead of time okay but carl we can consider the fincom notified sure enough okay any other topics none by staff board can i have a motion can i have a motion to adjourn so moved judy moved second second mike wake of our second uh roll call vote judy yes wake of our yes yes spellman yes ed yes george yes all in favor that's a five zero zero we are adjourned thank you people