July 13, 2026 – Finance Committee – Video & Transcript
July 13, 2026 - Finance Committee
Good evening. This is the Wayland Finance Committee. It is seven o'clock. We have a quorum, so all the meeting to order. First thing I will do is read the standard language. This meeting is being recorded and will be made available to the public on WACAM as soon as possible after the meeting.
Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person and via remote access in accordance with applicable law. When they watch or participate remotely with the meeting link, it can be found on the board slash committee Zoom links tab on the town's homepage.
When required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so at the meeting location, in person, or by remote access. Public comment should be limited to two minutes per person.
Robbie, do we have anybody other than Bill on Zoom?
Okay. I think I'll, nevertheless, I'll go through the agenda very quickly just so it's on the recording. After asking for public comments, and I gather there won't be any, I'd like to welcome our two new members. We will take a look at the minutes of the last two meetings and hopefully approve them.
We should discuss and better yet vote on a new chair, a vice chair, and minute taker, or takers, for this fiscal year. And following that, there's an agenda item for income liaisons to other town boards for reasons I'll discuss at the time. We'll probably pass over that entirely, but we'll at least discuss why we're doing that. We do have a couple more opportunities to point representatives to other town committees, mainly the Capital Improvement Planning Committee, otherwise known as SIPC, the Audit Committee, and as well as the Finance Director's Budget Working Group. And there is another working group to talk about fire department staffing being formed or has been formed. Again, we can appoint someone to those spots. Once we do that, we'll take a look at our own meeting schedule for this year and figure out how to go forward and finally take a preliminary look at what we know about the budget for fiscal 28. Obviously, it's early days, but people are beginning to talk about it, and so we want to have that role. So that is our agenda.
I'll double check. Robbie, anybody on lockdown?
Yes, we have one person online. Okay.
Do we know who that is?
Julie Candle. Okay. Can she hear us? There's no hand raised. She can't be, but she's done. Okay.
We'll move on. This is a fun part. Oh, Brian. Vice Chair, maybe you're going to get to this. Can you just identify who's in the room and who's participating by Zoom? I was not going to get to that, so I appreciate that.
It leads into what we're going to talk about anyway. So why don't we introduce ourselves? I'm Carl Barnes, the Acting Chair of the Committee. I'm in the room. Iris? Yes. Iris Hawksa, Finance Committee member. This will be my third year, and I received a reappointment as of July, and this will be the first of a three-year term. Yep. I'm Satish Raj. I'm a new member of the UpIncome Committee. So it's a three-year term. You know, this is my first meeting, so I look forward to helping out. Brian O'Herlihy. I'm back for my fourth year of the last five on the Finance Committee, and currently serve as the school designee on the Capital Improvement Planning Committee. I'm a 43-year resident of town, retired CPA, spent 40 years in the financial side of life, and I've volunteered in town for 25-plus years. So hopefully I can serve as a good resource for the rest of you going forward. You already are. Yes. That's good. I'm Rob Quimby. I joined the Finance Committee last November, so this will be my first full year. So looking forward to leveraging some of these people with more experience. And via Zoom, we have Bill Huss. Yes, I'm Bill Huss. It's my second year on the committee. I also serve on the Energy Committee and on the AgCom for the town of Lincoln. I have a Ph.D. in engineering and business. I worked my career in energy consulting, and I now teach at Babson College.
Great. Satish, I went through that very quickly, but just, you know, I've lived in town for 34 years. I've had one child go to the public schools here. He lives in Boston these days with his wife. I was a lawyer for 40 years and don't have to do that anymore.
But they say that those prevolutions never leave you. So I'm trying to think what else. I've been on the committee for two years. I joined just probably a month after Iris did. I was filling in a term. And so I think you were, well, you were on a meeting. So the appointing board meeting where they appointed me to another one-year term. And we'll see how that goes. Maybe there'll be more than a year. We'll find out. Could you think anybody else wanted to say about their path or their? I do not have a formal background in finance, unlike some of Mr. O'Reilly. I am a product manager. I work in the technology space, working with data and analytics, AI, machine learning for a financial-related company. So that's my background. Yeah. I don't have a deep finance background either, although I have an MBA. But I didn't use that for finance. I have experience in management. I worked in the software industry, started with, I'm a mechanical engineer by training as such, but then moved over to CAD and software industry and management. And, you know, there is some exposure to finance and planning and budgeting, but that's about it. A 13-year resident of Weyland. Yeah. And I think that's probably the only other thing that might make me perhaps slightly more unique than some of my peers in that I am not a 30-year resident of Weyland. We moved into town rather. Yeah, give it time. Exactly. I could get there, but none of this is at this moment. So I'm a rather newer resident into town, and we've lived in a couple different states. So I also did not grow up in Massachusetts. I grew up in a different state, went to school in a different state, I've worked a long time in a different state. So that's also a little bit of my frame of reference.
I'm also relative. Hoping to be a long-term resident eventually. Yes. Exactly. Good. We started somewhere, right, Carl? Yeah. Everybody starts somewhere. One year at a time. Yes, exactly. I can just add that these years go by fast. I have no idea how to go. Potential good news. The financial committee appointing board is scheduled to meet tomorrow, and we may have a son of a member join us in the very near future. I don't know, I know the gentleman's name. I don't know anything about his background, so I'll just leave that for now, but perhaps by our next meeting, we'll have a full sample. Great. We shall see. Thank you. Okay.
Moving on.
Just for the record, I'm keeping minutes tonight. And subject to the later discussion, I may continue to do so. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Speaking of minutes, we do have two sets, from May 4th and from June 29th. April had circulated the May 4th minutes quite a while ago, and probably on July 1st, or if not June 30th, sent out the minutes for the June 29th meeting. So, thank you for that. We'll take separate votes, but does anybody have any changes or comments or questions?
Yeah. In both sets of minutes, this is really a matter of, you know, procedure, and maybe you've got a view on this, Brian. The very first votes taken were taken before the final person arrived, and so the vote tallies reflect that, but it's not obvious necessarily why those numbers, if you look up top, it says there's six people here, and the votes were 5-0-0. So, do we want to, at least, do we want to acknowledge that the person, that the one person was not yet in the room, or is it good enough the way it is? Do you, it's implied, but... I figured it out. So, I think it's... I haven't done it in the past, but I'm happy to add something in both instances, if you think that would provide clarity. No, once I thought about it for, you know, in a nanosecond, I realized that had to be the case. So, the only thing I'd ask, then, is for June 29th, I think there's a misspelling of Kelsey's name on the third line. So, the third line would be also in attendance paragraph. Last or last name? Her last name is Sperlitt. You might have an extra heart there.
We'll have that good proofreading eye. I have no more.
I had one question. I'm going to abstain on the May 4th minutes, because I don't know if they're factually accurate. But I just wanted to confirm with those of you that were there, that under the fourth bolded section, says Pam Roman motion to defer on Article 9. I know prior to town meeting, the FinCom had deferred taking a position until town meeting. I just want to make sure, based on your collective memory, that, in fact, at the meeting, you also decided to just defer taking a position. And that's what April was happening. Absolutely took no position. Whether defer is quite the right word for that, I don't know, but we didn't take it. Yeah.
I mean, there was no intention of taking a position at a later date. Correct. It would have been done by that. Did they have a motion to take no position? And that was... I think that would be fine. I think it's probably... For all of you that were there, Bill? Well, since you seconded the motion. Yeah. No, that's my understanding as well. So I'll just change the motion to take no position. Thank you. All right. Anything else?
Motion to approve. I'm going to do May 4th first. Okay. I'll second that. Thank you. And it's as we're lies. Yes.
We need a roll call vote for this. So May 4th, I was there. Okay. I'm going to have to abstain from the other one. So Carl votes to approve. I'm going to approve. I was going to abstain. Good. That makes sense. Abstain. It's abstained. We'll also abstain because I was not there. Bill was. Bill? Aye. All right. So the minutes are approved as revised. Thank you. No. 3-0-3. Okay. Motion to approve the June 29th meeting minutes as amended. I was not at that meeting, so I will abstain. I vote yes. Abstain. Ryan? Yes. Yes. Bill? Yes. Thank you. So that's 4-0-2.
Okay. Thank you. It was 4-0-3, I think. 4 of us were there. 4-0-2. 3-0-3 was the first one. Do you abstain on the 29th? Because you want to do it. Yeah, I abstained. Yeah. So 1-2-3 abstain. 1-2-3. For the team, okay? Oh, yeah. You were there. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. We all set on that? Yes. Okay. I'll get those posted. Thank you. Last year, I don't know what was done in prior years, but last year, April and I started collecting and keeping in one place all the documents that were discussed or reviewed at meetings, they're not posted on our website, but they are available for anyone who is asking.
There's probably a better way to do this, but in any case, can you get to me the documents that were referred to in the June 29th minutes?
I've got several emails prior to the meeting and different versions of things, but I believe there were changes made right at the last minute. Okay. Thank you. It's really just that item 3, meaning we have the agenda, draft minutes, which we just went through, and then it was a Brian Keveny email with a memory. I guess it is just that one email. Okay. If it's Nathan, now that it was dated June 22nd, I've got, I have several versions of this, but I think I've got, I know I have the, his. Do you want to check on that if you don't have it, but you know, or I can. Um, we'll start there. I'll, I'll try and give you any more work that I, that I can do myself. Okay. Um, moving on again. Um, I've done what I can. Just one follow up question. So you and April were, whenever it got listed, you and April were collecting and depositing in somewhere, someone's computer. Yes. Um, just want to be sure if there is ever a request from the public, that request has to go through the town clerk's office. Uh, there's a online, there's a request form that you fill out. And then the town clerk, based on the description of what you want, which in this case, if they were looking for that memo, they would give that description. She would either find it or, you know, through Brian Keveney, or she'd reach out to somebody on this committee and then push that document out. And the reason I think it's important to follow that process is because if there's a subsequent request for the same document, I don't think we want to be handing out documents. We're not required to, uh, and, and so I have no issue keeping those. I keep them myself, but, uh, uh, I don't know if you've gotten requests in the past and if so, if you have not, but, but, you know, I've requested documents from other committees meetings and it's fine. It just might take a few days for the town clerk to get it in a perfect world. Um, you know, we could store these on the towns on our webpage somehow and in individual meeting packets. Um, we've talked about that, uh, in prior FinCom meetings that I was involved with, I've talked about on the capital planning committee. We've just never decided it was a high enough priority. And as long as there's sufficient detail, uh, in the minutes so that the documents could be located by the town clerk, we felt we were, you know, sufficiently fulfilling our obligations. But again, if the, if the majority of the finance committee wants to move toward posting these, uh, we can maybe as part of your agenda item about the webpage, um, you could have people thinking about that. Um, personally, I don't think we need to, to go down that road or work, but I don't want to be, um, I don't want to get a call for the town clerk saying, do you have a copy of this and have to say no. So that's why I want to keep them all in one place. That's all. And it hasn't happened yet. Thanks. Um, thank you for that. Um, I haven't gotten sworn in yet. I don't think that I'm, my term has continued just because I, you know, I'm still on the committee. Um, I'm not necessarily the chair, I'm the vice chair and, um, we have an opportunity to elect a chair and a vice chair. And so I would ask if anybody's interested in taking either of those roles. This is what happened last year, but it's not overly so, I would say.
Bill, you're awfully quiet. Yeah.
Well, Carl's done a great job. So I, you know, if, if we're ready for a nomination or a motion, I certainly would, uh, would move that Carl become the chair of the committee.
As I told you in the, um, email sending out the agenda, I'm, I'm willing to do that. Um, I'm looking for, uh, if that's going to happen, I wouldn't looking for a, uh, vice chair to work with, um, who, and I can just give you a little bit of insight, um, before Phil had to leave the committee. Um, you know, he was for lack of a better word, the public face. He would, he was the principal, uh, person dealing with other town boards, especially the select board. We would, we would though, talk about agendas. I tended to draft them. I'd send them to him. He would, uh, adjust both wording and the amount of time I was proposing. And then I would do the blocking and tackling to get them in. That is not the way it has to work this year, but that's just one way of doing it. But, um, and then I, I think literally maybe once he wasn't able to come to a meeting. Um, so, um, uh, you know, I would, I would, he would probably say, and I think it's true, but you know, I worked pretty, pretty well together and, um, I'd be looking for, um, again, maybe it's presumptuous, but nobody else is raising their hands. Um, I would be happy to take that position if, if voted as, as long as somebody will, you know, be there, help out.
Can you try to feel that vice chair?
I'm sorry, but you mentioned you recently retired. You've got some capacity. You've got Brian O'Hurley here, here as note taker and also able to support. It's a good learning opportunity. It's a big leap, uh, in the first year. But you've got support. Next year. Yeah. My two cents. Obviously I could do that. Um, I don't want to be the chair. Um, and I, I function as vice chair at the FinCon before. Um, that said, um, I'm only on here for one year. As you heard from Carl, he's only got a one year term. It doesn't mean he might not be back. And, uh, the person that serves as a vice chair in a perfect world is, is, is getting experience, additional experience. And potentially being groomed to be the chair doesn't always happen that way. And so, uh, I'd hate to waste that opportunity, uh, by me stepping right up and volunteering to do that. I certainly have time and I know what needs to get done. Um, so to me, the three people that would seem most likely to fall in that category would be that Rob, you, Iris, and Bill, but, um, you know, it's always preferable to have people willing, um, to do it rather than legend in to do it. And, uh, there's plenty of other things that are going to have to have people volunteering for. So, uh, my, my goal here is to not raise my hand for every single item that's coming up, uh, not because I, you know, wouldn't or couldn't do it, take the load off those of you that work, but, um, just because I think that's the only way you ultimately learn. And I think, Carl, to your point, um, when I was vice chair with Michael Hoyle, um, and Michael really reluctantly accepted the chair role and, and only did so because I agreed that I would do all the blocking and the tackling and all the stuff behind the scenes. And, uh, you know, I think probably what you're saying is because you've done that, you could actually, I presume could do some of that if, if, if the split of the workload between you and the vice chair needed to be different, because again, for people working, it's a little more challenging to be sure that things are getting in on time. But anyway, I, that's my two cents. I'll, I'll do what I have to do to move forward. No qualms about stepping into health, potentially in a, in a vice chair capacity. I'm concerned about not living up to the requirements from a timing standpoint. And so that's where, if we've got additional support, right? If, if Brian, your generous offer to help train up, you know, a vice chair is because that, that's going to be the crux of it is there. I know there are a lot of very important meetings that happen during the workday that I'll just never be able to join. Um, but outside of that, certainly happy to sell too hard here, but I don't think that I remember, I mean, there were phone calls with Phil, you know, um, that often took place during the day, but there were, there were not very many of any meetings that I had needed to go to because I was the vice chair during the day.
And, um, you know, um, I can still, you know, I can, I can still draft an agenda. I can still share it with somebody. I can, um, ideally I'd pick somebody or somebody's brain before all of your brains before drafting that agenda. Um, and, uh, you know, if it should be you, Iris, I would know, I would understand, okay, you're working during the day and build in that time. Right. Rob, does that interest you at all? Um, similar to you, I am conceptually open to it, but I just don't know that I really have the time to actually do it justice. I feel like I barely have the time to do just being a member of the finance committee justice, not alone being the vice chair. Yeah. And I think it'd be, and Bill, I don't know if you feel similarly or you're, you're just flat out with other stuff, but, um, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm pretty flat out. I've got, I think 16 or 17 other committees and boards that I serve on, you know, from my point of view, it really comes down to me. I love working with Carl. Uh, I would certainly, you know, it would, my, you know, if I were to step up, it's really contingent on a comfort level with Carl. I mean, I think he really has to want the person, uh, who would serve as vice chair and to have a discussion about how the, uh, the job would be split. So, you know, I, I would be open to it in, in a sort of a contingent, Hey, I got to meet with Carl first and see if that's what he wants and, and what the split would be. Uh, so I'm sort of reluctant to commit at this meeting, but I'm certainly willing to take it into consideration. Um, we also have a seventh new member, right? So if they have some background, maybe we can defer this, we could actually, um, that person is contingently. contingently. Yeah. No. Okay. So, so I, I'm, I'm going to make a motion, Carl, to suggest that you be chair. I'm happy to step in as vice chair with ample support from Brian over here, uh, to help train me up. Um, if we can do that, I think we can try that. You could also actually appoint Carl chair and meet the vice chair. I mean, if you're comfortable, it sounds like Bill could be open to it with further discussion. Iris is potentially open to it. There's a seventh member who might be interested. Realistically, I think the seventh member will be drinking from fire hose, just as we all were. And you are. I mean, um, this is a group decision. That's not my decision. So, uh, I would welcome either of you. I can guarantee you one thing. I will be, um, darkening all of your doors.
I'm looking for help. Yeah. Yeah. There's going to be plenty of, as we'll get to in your agenda, but I guess the good news is three of you at least are willing. So that's good. So hopefully you'll be willing on other items. Uh, my instinct is to, uh, well, it could be deferred and I agree with Carl looking at the background of the person being interviewed. Um, I don't think they've have volunteered in town. Um, but of the three of you, Iris has, you know, one more year, full year experience on the FinCom. Um, so I, I just feel that she might be, uh, you know, better prepared to continue down that path. Um, and, um, so I I'd be inclined to myself to move forward with the two of you tonight, if everybody else was willing to do that. Uh, and, um, and again, the minute taker is not an official voted position unless you want to make it a voted position, but, uh, not the task that anybody else wants to do unless there's somebody here that secretly wants to do it. And, uh, the reason I have done it in my three prior years on the FinCom and my current stint on the SIPC is I want to keep myself and all of us out of open meeting law issues. Uh, and I have the time to, uh, to deal with that. So, uh, that that's where I thought I could pitch in, uh, as to those three positions in your agenda item. So I think I would be happy with Carl and Iris. I've worked with them for a year now and they're both great. So I would have no problem with that. I'd also point out that if it doesn't, you know, if it's more somehow more work than you thought, or, or people look at me and say, he's really not the chair. We thought he was make changes. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That sounds good. Um, so I'm going to make a motion to appoint Carl as chair. I'm assuming I don't make a motion about myself. So I'm not going to second that. He said, he just seconded. I'm seconded Carl should be chair. All right. Any favor of the motion to, uh, have me as, so I'll go first. Yes. I'll do it. Thank you. I say yes as well. Yes. Yes. Yes. Bill. Yes. Right. Unanimous six zero zero on roll call. Thank you. And by the way, I don't want to, I don't want to just like this be feigned reluctance. I mean, I'm very happy to do it. Excellent. Thank you, Carl. But I also was, would not have been, I would not have left here crying if anybody else had said they wanted the job. No, it's still greatly appreciated. And that's, it is more work than a regular member. Um, even though the chair is just a regular member, right. But, um, appreciate your willingness to do that. Thank you, Carl. So, no, I'll nominate Iris as vice chair. And I will second that.
All in favor of the motion. Carl says yes. I say yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. I thought I heard everybody's name before their yeses as part of the roll call. So that sounds right. You make sure we do that. Right. Yes. Okay. Congratulations. You too. It's just kind of nice there. Yeah. I don't know whether we need to vote on this or not, but I do appreciate your offer to take these minutes. You know, I think that, um, April did most of it last year. Um, but I think we've seen enough to know what a big job that is and frankly, how well you do it. So I really appreciate it, Brian. No problem. If anybody along the way, uh, wants to take a crack at it. Um, uh, I know on the, uh, CPSI, they, um, CPSI is capital improvement planning committee. Sorry. Um, in anticipation of my rolling off that committee at some point in the coming months, um, one of the members has been, uh, testing with use of, uh, some form of AI, uh, and, uh, trying to assess the rest of the members, trying to assess the quality of, uh, what is produced. And, uh, while I'm all for that, it's not something I'm going to be using, um, with Zoom or, uh, they've done this particular individuals, uh, taking recordings of the meetings, but Zoom has a transcript that can be, that April was accessing the transcript from the Zoom meeting and then having AI based on whatever instructions you gave it, uh, through seven minutes. Yes, but as we noted at our recent CPSI meeting, uh, that's great to, you know, kind of get it down to something that's manageable, but you still need to identify a person that's going to review that carefully. And then I think it puts even my opinion, a little bit more pressure on the members, uh, to also be looking at those very carefully, picking on boats and things of that nature. And it's not a hundred percent accurate. And just looking at, you know, your meetings from last year, I think, although, you know, we spent a little bit of time tonight, but we used to spend maybe two to three minutes max on minute approval, some of your meetings, just because in the earlier parts of April using AI, you were spending five to 10 minutes kind of correct the minutes at the meeting. So I'm going to just keep taking notes and, and, uh, you actually have to do that as well, because if the, if the Zoom meeting goes down, you don't have that as a record, you have to be able to produce the minutes. So anyway, I will do it. I don't think you need a vote. Okay. Well, happy to have your vote. My acclamation then. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.
Five minutes ahead of schedule. Um, last year I was the liaison from the finance committee to the, to the board of public works. Um, I thought that was something that we did with other committees and had been doing for quite a while. Um, I was happy to, to do that. It turns out, um, and by the way, one of the things that Brian brings to the table, other than beyond just incredible organization is an institutional memory, like no other, no others. He, um, alerted me earlier that, um, in fact, since the town manager act was, was adopted and all the town, um, employees and, and, and not so much committees, but the boards themselves roll up through him through the town manager. So we don't, we have not had liaisons to other committees, um, um, with the exception of board public works. And that was at their request because we were dealing with this $39 million, um, um, WRA connection. Um, so, um, although I did put it on the agenda, turns out we just, we don't really need to do that. And I think that, um, there's no reason to do it going forward unless there's a generic reason to do it going forward. If there's a, if something comes up where it becomes important, we can, and of course, anybody who's interested in attending any board or committee meeting is welcome to. I would agree with that. And I'll say when I was looking at this list, that was actually going to be some of my feedback of like, I was just going to ask the question, like the fire department staffing working group, I'm sure they're doing important work, but is that work that requires our input from both financial and, um, just thinking about, I guess, the financials in general and the appropriations, like how much are we actually providing input there as opposed to listening in and to your point, that can be done after the matter of fact. That's the next agenda topic. Okay. Yeah. There's an answer to your question. Okay. Okay. Okay. That would help. Sorry. Okay. Sorry. Uh, oh, I, my apologies. I read it as the board of public works, the capital improvement planning committee, the audit committee, and my apologies. I read them all as like one long list. Okay. So I'm, I'm good with your feedback there at board of public works. I think I've given away that I'm going to ask some questions about the other boards and just trying to understand the role and purpose that spending that time and effort serves, just making sure that we're being thoughtful with our capacity. Well, I think we're there. Okay. Sounds great. We're there. I mean, did anyone else have anything else in regards to board of public works? Okay. Okay. So, so, so, are you all right? You're sideways.
There you go. Okay. I've always thought I'm doing that when I'm on Zoom call, I should put my camera upside down.
Um, Iris, those, those liaisons that I was talking about are, were one of us actually attending other boards on a regular basis. Yes. This is a little bit different. Okay. We have, um, the right to appoint three parties. Okay. As how representatives on other, on several other committees. Um, you know, Brian is trying, you're, you're the school committee is designate. You're the school committee, correct. And Kelly Lappin is ours, but she's not going to continue much longer. Um, she's stepping down, um, I think, no, I don't, I don't want to say more than that because I don't want to put her on the spot. Um, but, um, but I'll put her on the spot for you, so when she somewhat reluctantly agreed to serve, um, she opted for the one-year fincom term and told us that the very first meeting she was not intending to ask for reappointment. Um, and she, uh, followed through with that, but then also said she was willing, as Carl mentioned, he's currently doing tonight, he has been sworn in yet under his new term. Um, that under the town policies, um, a member could continue to serve until they're replaced, um, even if it's by themselves, I suppose. Um, and so Kelly has nicely agreed since we're, this summer, we're trying to get all our work done to get the report done by the October 15th reporting deadline, unless and until a fincom designee is brought forth by this committee. Uh, she said she'll hang in there and, and continue to work, um, and, um, so that's what she's doing, uh, but she's anticipating that this committee is over, plans to identify, uh, someone to, uh, take that slot. Um, she's expecting that we will keep it on the agenda, and I presume you'll coordinate with Carol Martin, chair of the select board, who ultimately then, whoever we designate, has to then officially appoint. Um, uh, to try to find somebody to do that. Um, I reached out to a former member of this committee who just recently left this committee, uh, to see if she might be interested and, uh, didn't seem so at the time. Um, but, um, and there's something that says it couldn't be somebody from this committee, but it's a, it's a heavy ask. And I mentioned before, I took the two-year term of the school committee, and I've informed the school committee chair that I'll, I'll hang in there until the report's done, uh, but that they should be looking for somebody to finish out my two-year term, just because I can't deal with stuff at home and deal with these two committees. So, can I ask a clarifying question? First. Are we trying to recruit someone for this role, or? We, we, we should, if, if you can reach out to people you might think are interested or capable. Sure. Right. But that's why, Carl, I think you should probably talk to Carol, because they also get, in the town manager's office, they get input from people that might express interest. And I think Kelly said at one of her last meetings that she and Carol had spoken to somebody who seemed to express some level of interest. And Kelly said it wasn't clear whether that person could either be the FinCom designee or the school committee designee, but she didn't want to help the person. So, I think at this point, I think if any of us know people that you want to try to get interested, including people that used to be on this committee. But I think it's going to be more coordinating with Carol, because Carol, you know, has a pretty good job. Yeah, she certainly does. There's also a procedure where basically the town has to advertise or post the… Yeah, it's already been posted for a couple months now. They have, okay. And I'm not sure where the individual they're talking to, whether they came through that posting or whether Carol or Kelly found somebody. And the school committee, likewise, you know, have to identify somebody. I volunteered with them because they weren't able to find somebody. And they ultimately then designated me. So, yeah. So, on that one, I'd say we need to collectively see what we could do to find somebody, but… What does the audit committee do? Do you want me to answer that question? Do you know? Do you want me to try? Do you want me to try? Do you want you to try? Do you want me to try? Do you want me to try? Do you want me to try? I don't know. Do you want me to try? Do you want me to try? Do you want me to try? The audit committee, by the way, I'm going to back into that. Okay. So, Shigley is our appointee. And I've never met the gentleman, because he was appointed before I joined the committee. I've talked to him. He's interested in staying on. And… That's good. It's good. is that it functions somewhat like the audit committee of a corporate board of directors. So they actually speak, they work with the auditors of the town's auditors. They identify specific things that they're more concerned about than others that they're looking for. And then the report, my understanding is, is delivered to them. And so they're kind of overseeing. Brian, do they choose the auditors to choose the actual order? Actually, ultimately the auditors are appointed by the select board, but they, under their charge, they have responsibility to recommend an audit firm. And I think in the last year or so, they may have at least talked about it. I don't know if they went through with the process of seeing if there's any other firms beyond the incumbent that they and or the select board might want to consider.
Was it a copy of the latest report? It's posted on the finance director's page. It is. Okay, great. There's two reports, if I may. It's the town's audited financial statements. And I think it's called a comprehensive annual financial spending or something. There's an acronym for it. And it's a, you know, 50 to 60 page detailed set of financial statements and footnotes that if you've ever looked at all the company financial statements, unless you're a CPA or pretty good financial background, can be somewhat daunting. So it's the audit committee's job, whether they have a background or not, Klaus happens to have that background, to interface with the auditor. The auditor makes a presentation prior to delivering the financials in a meeting with the select board. And they, in turn, respond to questions from the audit committee. So that's the primary report. The auditors also annually issue a management letter, which I think, Carl, you may have been referring to. And that's typically, while doing their audit, if they uncover processes, procedures, and things that they think should be done that aren't getting done properly. So for probably a better part of six years, treasurer's office wasn't doing timely cash reconciliations, which is auditing 101. That's a no-no. It's the most basic failure of internal control. And yet it happened six years in a row. And finally, it got pushed somewhat of my urging up to the select board's attention, even though they saw the letter every year. And eventually, one of the ways that the town got its arms around it was the treasurer who had been reporting directly to the town manager got redirected to the finance director, who now the finance director carries primary responsibility. He doesn't do them, but to ensure that. So anyway, it's those type of things. So you don't have things showing up in the management letter. And inevitably, there's three or four things that come up. And so again, it's the audit committee's job to review those. Thirdly, and the thing that they've talked about, but I don't think they've ever had time to get it done, is if they have specific concerns themselves that they want the auditors to take a look at, in theory, they could expand the scope of the auditor's engagement to look specifically at whatever it is they're interested in. As to Klaus, he was a former FINCOM member. He got appointed to the audit committee the same year after, or the year he dropped off the FINCOM. And he was appointed as the FINCOM's designee. When I looked a couple years ago, I couldn't ever see, other than that first appointment, that he ever got reappointed. He wasn't reappointed during my three years. And so I believe he's been serving under the policy of since no replacement had ever been brought forth. But the good news for us is, one, that he does a good job. And two, that's one that, in theory, if you don't mention votes there, so it's up to you whether you want to, whether you feel you're able to vote tonight, Carl, or, I mean, it says it on the front of the agenda, but you may want to. No, I hadn't even done, too. I mean, we can certainly discuss a vote, but I thought it would make sense, assuming he would- Are you going to have him? So you could meet him. You could fill in more of what I just described. I think that might be nice. It would be interesting. I haven't had, I think, a chance to read any of the outputs of that committee. And I think it would be nice to understand just a little bit more about what their process is like. I appreciate the overview you gave. But just if there's anything there, like, I think a lot of what I heard you just say is a lot of it's process-oriented that fundamentally, it sounds like they handle or might go back to the town manager. But it'd be interesting to note if any of that should come within our purview or we should expect anything from that. Yeah, I mean, any audit committee is intended to be independent of the rest of the town system. Sure. And so the audit committee does not report to the town manager. The audit committee is advisory, ultimately, to select board on the town. As with this committee, and again, I'm just going to, I offload these tidbits. You can do with them what you want. And I appreciate, I have the time to do it, but most of you have kids and work and everything else. One of the easiest ways that I find to get up to speed is to pick a meeting, any meeting. In the case of the audit committee, you could pick on WACAM the meeting where they met with the independent auditors. It's a two-hour meeting. And if you have the time to just watch that entire meeting, you probably would come away with a pretty good idea of what it is they do. But if you don't have that time having, and you should have classed it anyway because you want to make sure everybody or majority are comfortable with them. But I'd say that with any committee where there's just lots of stuff that happens.
And I was actually appointed to go on to the audit committee. And before I got sworn in, I was still on the Affordable Housing Trust. In the charge for the audit committee, to be on the committee, you cannot serve on any other board or committee that deals with financial sources of the town. And so I never got sworn in because I wanted to stay on the Affordable Housing Trust. So, is that satisfactory for the moment? Yes, thank you. And then some. Yes, thank you. I think, actually, though, I think you're not going to see a whole lot of output from the committee. Okay. It's really, I think you're going to see the auditor's reports, that management letter is from the auditors to the committee. Yeah. So, the work product will be not theirs. They actually prepare a memorandum that goes to the select board at the same time. So, to the extent they want to emphasize. So, one thing I don't remember is whether those memorandums are posted on the audit committee's webpage. But if not, when you reach out to Klaus, you could ask him if he could send their last memo to you and you could circulate that. Will do. Thank you. Which brings us to the fire department staffing working group.
To Brian's point, it could be one of us. But this is a new working group that has been where they've said finance committee can appoint a representative. I don't know much about what they're doing. I certainly don't have any volunteers to suggest.
It might be perfect for people with young kids who want to see fire trucks. I know a four-year-old who would love to do it. I'm pretty qualified. What do you mean I have to be a child? Again, I'm happy to fill in the gap there as to what it is. You may or may not have heard that the town based on an agreement in the union negotiation with the fire union several years back had agreed to do a study of staffing levels and other related matters. A meeting funded it two or three years ago. That study finally got completed sometime in the last six to nine months. And it's a 40 or 50 page report. and the union's general view of life not only in Whaling but most of the surrounding communities is that the town is staffed lighter than what's called for under some federal recommendation which is apparently common in other communities and that's why you have mutual aid apparently to help each other out. So the report finally got done. It apparently put this working group together and I don't know if it's being headed up by the fire chief or the town manager and they apparently made room for a FinCom designee. I think the relevance of a FinCom designee is that if ultimately this group were to coalesce around whatever recommendations were in the report that led to an increase in staffing is going to have clear budgetary impact. So my guess is that they were interested in having at least someone present you know maybe not contributing that much but at least unreceived and that would be very helpful ultimately for the full FinCom and I think as you said Carl it doesn't necessarily need to be somebody from this committee and I suspect those meetings will likely be during the day as there are a number of staff kind of staff on them but again they don't know that. Is it more attending those meetings or just keeping an eye on the output from these meetings? I think you'd have to determine that by going to I don't know if they've had any meetings yet and the difference for teachers benefit and any of the rest of you that don't exactly know you have boards and committees that are subject to the open meeting law and then you have so-called working groups typically under the town manager finance director in this case could be the fire chief that if they're under a staff personally they aren't necessarily subject to the open meeting law in which case you could meet in this room you could close the door you don't have to take minutes they're just a different format and tend to be a bit more efficient in getting certain things done
to find its way to the select board as part of the budgeting process and ultimately to this committee so you know Carl one approach would be if someone on this committee might want to volunteer to or you could make the contact with fire chief if he's the point of contact see when they're planning to meet and have somebody from this committee if they're able to attend and then figure out can they attend without necessarily feeling a need to be a total contributor but rather be absorbing or not because again I'm not sure what anybody here would know about what's in the report to fire staffing so I think it's going to be an important working group in the output particularly if it does result in increased staffing at a time we're facing overrides it would be helpful to have a set of eyes and ears in this actual committee in there so general expectation is kind of almost raising its hand I take away good I guess I wonder I mean we have the opportunity we can do this I don't know who here has an informed view of what the proper staffing should be I know I don't so I don't know what we will add I think we will listen I think we'll know more than we would if we don't attend but I don't know how much we can contribute to this other than depending on the discussions that occur over the coming few months to the extent there's a majority view that we're going to have some difficulties with our budget going forward having a voice at the table expressing that when you have union representation at that working group meeting I think the union has a representative expressing that we have from the finance committee that we have great concerns over the budget at least I do personally we'll find out if everybody else knows differently I think that in and of itself may be part of the calculus as to what the Fincom's role even if it's limited just to that could be helpful and then bringing back what's the realistic possibility there could be staffing implications and I'm happy to do it as I said before because if it's during the day I can do it but again I don't want to deny anybody else the opportunity to participate and you know I think it's going to be important one thing we could do one thing I will do is learn more about when and how often they're meeting because I think that's useful information to anybody who might be on the fence about that so I'll take that as an action item and you know there's
has put together for the last couple of years you know frankly I think that's much more important if you could only do one we should have a presence there I plan to be part of
so Iris that lets you out even though you're now the vice chair so you too I mean I started thinking about it well working from home but you're still working right you don't have the I get it so I don't know that hasn't started yet right now there has been a less formal more preliminary working group if you will that has been meeting with Michael to begin talks about the budget we'll get into that in a few minutes but the actual sitting down with Brian and going through it's not started yet it's probably sometime I think in August again just
as it turned out just because Michael worked he attended less of the meetings than two of us attended I think I went to everyone last year when I was no longer on the FinCon the year prior to that a fellow Bill Steinberg who years ago had been on the finance committee was serving as a former FinCon member on the working group and his wife Kathy Steinberg who had been a former school committee member was serving in that capacity Bill passed away unfortunately and so Brian Keveney contacted me and said would you care to be the former FinCon member that serves on the budget working group and I agreed and that's what I did last year the meetings generally were on Friday mornings from 10 o'clock to noon roughly and occasionally he would attempt to do a virtual so Carol Martin could connect and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't work and as Carl said I think it's important to have at least two people designated whoever they
couldn't go it's fine for two people to go but in the event Carl couldn't be there it would be important to have another person go and as I said it's important to experience the other thing I would suggest is that whomever goes and I already expressed this to Carl and I think he
each agenda should have an item for an update on the budget working group because that allows us to not be sitting around waiting until January or February next year and finally receive the budget right and so to the extent we're getting reasonably I think Phil was doing those updates for you last year I watched them I
and the second component of that and you need to clear with Brian I have a copy of Brian's forecasting Excel workbook from last year and well it's not this committee's job to create the budget there's nothing that says this committee can't take Brian's forecasting model and to extent again we're trying to stay ahead of the curve we can at least a member is conversant in it can change some assumptions we could do it in a meeting live or whatever and we could see what happens so my view is between Carl and
updated each meeting it's possibly being conversant enough in the model the alternative to that is inviting Brian which I'm not saying you probably shouldn't be doing as well at a very early stage is inviting Brian Keveney he used to come to our meetings fairly regularly I don't know how many times he came last year but it's really his job to keep the finance committee in the loop and this year is going to be particularly complicated because of potential for overwrite so having said all that I'm again perfectly happy to volunteer for that role but again I don't want to deny anybody else who has the time and wants to do it to actually at least try to do it and if they're not able to deal with it
it a short okay you're going to Friday mornings yeah it's Friday you know when yeah it's Friday mornings Friday mornings well it has been I don't I haven't started yet last year it was but the finance director is to when he thinks he can get whoever he decides he's having on it no I just ask because what I'm hearing is probably you're planning on going right I'm hearing you say you've got the capacity to go as well I'm also hearing you say hey if anyone else new wants to take a turn at being there and I'm hearing probably two people formally and so the question is do I make a motion do we need to actually appoint someone do you want me to make
exactly there's nothing that you can't vote and what you could do is have two people other than me designated and then understanding that if Carl you couldn't happen to go to a meeting and Steve you're just getting up to speed Carl you could ask me can you go with Steve to the next meeting because I can't be there I have no issue stepping into it I don't know what the situation my only reservation about that is first of all I think continuity is important you have it right it's not nothing perfect and you know that model as well as anybody and so this would be great to get to know each other I I would I'm looking forward to that I just I feel like this might be a Brian thing if you don't mind this is a type of issue the chair should express himself or herself so do you want me to make a motion are we doing it to vote I don't object to vote I don't know why we really need one okay if we don't need it then I won't do it sounds great Brian and Carl thank you for spending the time doing that you're welcome will you be the lead on it Carl so you'll find out when Brian start meeting you do that I will do that and then I would suggest we defer the fire department staffing working group not because I agree with your note about it being important but until we maybe have more details about how frequently absolutely you know this so you thank us for doing this I
if we wait until we get a budget that's fully baked it's much tougher to make changes and to have our views reflected in there the one issue that I had when I first went on the fincom it was the chair and the vice chair so it
and Kelly was vice chair Kelly focused on capital Steve and Pam focused on the operating budget my concern at the time and I thought they all did a great job and I got along well with all of them was just when I watched fincom meetings in prior years it just wasn't clear to me how much transparency there was between whoever was going on behalf of fincom to those meetings and the rest
period is almost a fee to complete and I voiced myself in my very first meeting three or years ago to Pam and Steve saying I have a problem with getting a smaller group to move the thing along but this ultimately is a finance committee decision on the budget and that's when I
talk particularly when it's sensitive information about we might have to cut the budget and what positions and all that type of you can have that conversation in a working group but if you have that conversation here it's on
it's a very valid point so I think we can still bring back to this committee a lot of information and frankly it's all circular because we want to take your views back to the working group right it's not just a one way street all right appreciate that next item on the agenda is to come up with a meeting schedule for this year I look back at the various dates we met twice over the summer last year roughly twice a month from September through January and then twice a
time to to spread out the work of the year and so standard warrant articles where the language probably doesn't change much from year to year the numbers might but we could start and work through those we know they're coming and maybe even have the time with fresh eyes to decide whether what's in there is actually useful or helpful it can be shortened lengthened I hope it will be shortened but we could do that we I don't feel a burning need to start meeting
over the summer and people had different schedules anyway during summers but what do you think what do you guys want to do in terms of I like the cadence you just mentioned I agree about getting ahead of things and agree with me it's a little bit of using the time we have together in a slightly different way and I agree with the idea that maybe starting in September we come to some of those meetings with here are general warrant articles that always appear selling trading cars every year there's no reason potentially for us to add a bunch to that revolving funds there's so much that it's pretty general there will need to be tweaks but we should standard it seems like if there were seven of us I don't know how many of these we took the bucket called standard but if we each took three article or two over the month of September we could make a long way I think so and then I also wonder to be very honest if part of that process we have these standard articles if when it comes time and numbers have to be updated or particular details might have to be updated if that's something that we can offload and ask for help with so then we can actually focus on so like the revolving funds for example like the numbers change I can't change the article but are we then if we've created a standard article where basically in brackets there's just this changes this changes this changes
make those updates they send it to us and then we all just vote on it make sure it looks good I think that's right and we're jumping ahead a little bit but no that's absolutely fine I think that one way the town can help us is actually doing drafting of some of those articles not even the non-standard articles you know somebody can it doesn't have to be we have to the town code says basically we make a report doesn't say we have to draft it in the first place so I'm going to be looking for help from the town on a lot of this stuff so I think twice a month sounds great for the fall I think it
December 15th right end of the year so in anticipation of that it might be nice to get slightly more instead of jumping from twice a month to twice a week immediately it might be nice to have like maybe December or January a little bit more but otherwise I think that cadence for the fall at least feels right to me I don't know what you guys think I guess in my head I'm just trying to kind of rationalize it like you said against what is
the town about the override right like if that's something that we think is going to take a lot of time then I should probably start sooner rather than later right so I guess it feels like your decision is a little abstract without getting into like at this point in time this is what we need to accomplish and
so that we have them right that I can get done tomorrow I think by October the budget is cooking I mean we really should be seeing a lot of numbers and you know so I think well let's see thinking out loud it's what does the code say when are they supposed to deliver the budget December 31st I had originally thought it was the 15th but I think I got a date mixed up there's one unknown at the moment that's going to
which ballot and their initial recommendation from the finance director and town manager several weeks ago was encouraging the select board to consider getting that question on the November 5th state election ballot and the rationale for that is because 80% of the town voters show up as opposed to 10% in January or 10% next April and the select board wasn't clearly prepared to say yes or no to that but if the decision is made that that's the target the second thing everybody should be aware of because you haven't been through you sort of are on the fringes of it with a debt exclusion recommendation you made is that the select board has a policy that requires if the select board or another board or committee is asking the select board to put an override question on the ballot the select board first has to ask the finance committee to make a financial presentation to
they want to vote to put something on the ballot because they're the only ones that can do that and if they then vote to put something on the ballot the finance committee based on
they've been pretty in depth to your point if we knew they were planning to go on the ballot this committee really needs to start thinking about putting together the outline and ultimately the bare bone report knowing that we don't have the full budget information yet I'm sure there's a forecast and if they defer that until January special election it's maybe a month or two months more time we have but that presentation itself is going to require a large effort and I know it's coming it's just a question of when and so my view is this committee could designate one or two people to begin possibly start by looking at prior presentations that are buried in an archived folder on the fincom webpage and then take a fresh perspective and say okay if I was a member of the select board or the public what information would I
think about the public because I thought I heard you say this Carl at the meeting with the select board when I watched if a majority of this committee on whatever basis it has this opinion is resistant to an override or resistant to an override of the magnitude that's being discussed at the moment this committee should figure that out as
resist a certain level doesn't mean it won't happen or at a certain level I think this committee is best to figure that out quickly as you can so that's the fly in the ointment of setting up I guess so so then do we need weekly I think what I'm hearing is in terms of the work right we're trying to get ahead of the warrant around communication it's not just communication to the public but a tangible output we have to do the state of the state and why we needed and on top of that we have to do the budget review we need to be combing through the numbers and looking at the operational and the in which maybe two budgets right I guess of two operating budgets that's right because one if the override passes one if it does not I'm starting to pencil on milestones here which is how I think about this it sounds like the first realistic milestone we have is at some point the select board needs to vote on whether they want to put this on the November ballot which presumably needs to happen some amount of time before November in the next four or five weeks right so I guess that's kind of like if we need to make a
so I guess maybe I'm kind of so do we have any idea when we think they would be probably never say never but the sense of the select board and that's the phrase that Carol uses because they haven't taken any votes yet is that they cannot get that done for the November ballot that they
vote probably on at their September 8th meeting to put it on the ballot if there's going to be one again I don't want to presume that for the moment in January or February yeah we think they're voting on November 8th September 8th that's right probably and the only feedback that I
personal comment so take it for what it's worth many years ago I put in a petitioner's article the town meeting with respect to exclusion debt exclusion questions that they'd be put on presidential ballots presidential elections if there's one that is forthcoming because I felt it important to get the sense of as much of the voting public as you could versus putting it on the ballot in January when a lot of the senior citizens in Florida and while they can do absentee ballots just anticipated there would be a lesser turnout that petitioner's article failed the following year another person who thought that was a good idea petitioned it again and it failed again I happen to
great to get 80% of the public casting a vote because it's likely going to be more than a single year and I think one of the reasons that I heard the select board gave for wanting to possibly push it
statute that allows the town to put information on the ballot that's informative which we can't do right now and that won't be something the town can do until the attorney general has completed its review or failed to review within 75 days of town meetings approval and then it has to be posted twice newspaper so there's a good chance that they won't know if that's available to them much before the end of August and my sense was that was at least one reason I'm not sure they had a big discussion about it and if my view is if this committee again putting aside whether this committee is supportive of an override at all and not sure we have a basis on which to formulate that opinion if this committee was of the view that there's value to having the most number of voters in town vote on an override there's nothing that says we couldn't between now and September 8th if we came to that conclusion expressed that conclusion to the chair of the select board saying we're not saying we're recommending an override but we see value if it can be done in getting it done at the November election people around this table may say that's too much work can't be
saying go ahead Bill yeah I was just I mean it seems like we're getting the cart before the horse because I think I mean I guess if you put it on the ballot as a placeholder of but I don't think we'd be able to explain to
you know I kind of figured we were going to wait to see the budgets and discuss what cuts were necessary to not do an override and then say look it's really overwhelming I think we're going to need to do an override so I mean I guess one
year you need to reference covering more than one year I think your point Bill since I have not been a party to what the town manager and this other smaller group has been up to my sense is that they have concluded otherwise they wouldn't have gone to the select board I don't think to recommend both an override and doing in November that they
needed in the budget to avoid an override understand that the two or three things that the budget working group came up with last year that allowed the town to avoid having to do an override aren't available to
those numbers are probably in a sufficient form that after the first budget working group meeting I think maybe Bill's point was less the belief that there will need to be an override and more that when you're telling someone do you want to pay more in taxes they say no when you tell them do you want to pay more in taxes or have these
I have no basis on that this is true but I have to believe it's true based on where we got to last year and the things we did last year some of them are going to come back and double up in fiscal 28 like deferring issuing long term debt that got simply punted one year so we're going to get a double dose of levy debt fiscal 28 we don't have the highway department moving levy debt to excluded debt to rely on so those type of things so my expectation is
60 or 70 percent from the schools and 40 percent from the town and the schools would have to figure out where that would come from and either the town or the schools whatever portion of it will fall in personal not enough expenses you could eliminate and so again I'm not saying that I'm a fan I'm not saying that there aren't still places that the Fincom couldn't weigh in and say look we get it it appears an override is inevitable and it is I'm just telling you it is but we still think make the sell to the town there needs to be some sort of cuts that get made in combination with the override my sense is they have the finance director and town manager school superintendent have a set of macro numbers that they're prepared to offer up both to us and the select board and if they got the green light my sense is they would then work at hyperspeed to produce the two budgets and so you could then say to the public and by the way if this doesn't pass we got to lay off X number teachers Y number of police officers Z number of firefighters and oh by the way forget that study it's a call order no doubt but I have to is this something town manager former government I have to at least initially tilt toward the town manager saying he wouldn't have come forward if he wasn't prepared to be able and he may still make that case again I'm just saying we need to to your point obviously as soon as Carl can get his hands around what the secretary will be doing but if we have to wait till September 8th we're not going to be anywhere close to having a presentation we're going to have to do the presentation anyway that was going to be my point is the
is going to happen but again I think the presentation is going to be different depending on the inputs to it right the more detail there is in
overriding experience with other communities background information the types of things that all of us will be likely relying on to come to our own individual and then collective judgment it seems like the macro numbers are there right and if you scramble and get it on November maybe that's better than in January and then scramble after right I think I guess one thing is I don't think we are the ones doing as much of the scrambling can we just maybe like schedule a meeting and have Michael and tell them about all this I really am almost certain the members are the table they're not they're meeting the select board is meeting with the town manager and the finance director on August 17th that's a month from now and then the school committee on August 31st there is and I can't tell you I can't cite chapter and verse but there's some something has to happen by mid August that we can in order for us to even have a hope of putting this on a ballot finalized and in order to get this question on the state ballot there's a date in August that simple for so yeah it is a long time all I'm saying is if that were a possibility we'd have to work in hyper speed right lots of meetings it sounds like when you're saying Carl the
he he's of the view generally he likes a lot of towns just do them right before their town meeting as the town of Wayland did in the past he likes the concept of if you do it you know what the outcome of that vote was then you can do whatever you have to
there there's a little more time but not a whole lot yeah that's what I was thinking so I changed my recommendation I almost wonder if in the fall we really need and plan for that and if the agendas are looking really light at back but presentation I suspect will be significant we want to get ahead of the warrant and we'll be doing twice as many budgets I have a third reason to agree with you I mentioned the capital and plan committee by bylaw has to complete its recommendation issue a report to the town manager that's where it goes it doesn't go to the thing you get you can look at a copy but we're not directing it to you and that has by October 15th we failed miserably last year because we had our first meeting in September because we had to wait the attorney general to move the bylaw so my recommendation was going to be that and I'm happy as the agendas are put together to be the one helping you can all again if you have the time watch our meetings you can all read the minutes eventually when the report's produced you can read the report but I can also on each agenda carve out a piece of time there's no reason why we can't review first four out of five years of the five year capital plan because if the finance director has this way they're not going to
recommend and if we do hopefully a better job this year coordinating with finance director and town manager there won't be near the variances that occurred in pretty substantive ones last year so the capital budget could be well out of
it is unlikely that there are two versions of the capital budget given the override one in which capital projects occur on an expected timeline one in which perhaps they're more spread out to try to reduce the amount of
being discussed as to where they're going to appear and if they do appear as excluded debt which could be on the ballot next spring as well as the fiscal 28 anything that's in the fiscal 28 capital budget won't affect the operating budget fiscal 28 because the debt service pushed out a year so I'm not expecting a dual capital budget but I want to say it's not impossible that when they're looking around rather than personnel someone says oh we you know I just bring it up like if you think of you know if your personal income was cut you're going to you're going to slow down on capital expenditures right you're going to slow down
and I have hard copies of people didn't look at the charts slides that I sent out Carl's request the town did single year overrides back when I was on the board of select I had three of them then there's two after I left the board of of late in other communities I see people bundling them over two or three years and I think that's where the town manager and the finance director are leaning and one of the things I wanted to just we need to as we begin to talk about this whole override concept is what I've seen a couple other communities do is there's been a negotiated MOU memorandum of understanding between the select board the school committee the finance committee presumably the town manager administrator and finance director that if a multi-year override is passed it will you know people are going to live with the budgets that override request was made because what you don't want to do is ask so they actually went as far as creating multi-year MOUs which I happen to think is a good idea and so again my view is stuff like that to the extent we're aware other communities have done it and we think it would be helpful those are the kind of things that play a role saying if you want art support you're going to need to for a multi-year you're going to put something in writing that you're not going to do other than this right and it's a really good idea so anyway I you know again those of you that work I understand because I was there many years ago it is hard doing many meetings but I think given what I heard all of you do in your debrief after last year and understand it really was largely out of your
more frequently this committee could meet between now and December and get a lot of work done in all these areas the better off we'll all be mentally but that's because I have all the time in the world that can do that but it doesn't mean we all have to be at every meeting either right no it doesn't at all and I'm I'm fine with meetings I think there's a lot to be done there'll be a lot more this year than last year right are Mondays still preferable we've been doing that for years Brian you're going to have some conflicts right Monday should be fine absent us maybe having to meet
tape typically we haven't moved to meeting twice a week until much later I'll be off by October okay and I think again I would highly encourage you reach out to Brian Kevin and request that he make himself available perhaps a bit more and you need to put him on the agenda so that you can
and he works through the town staff later on Monday so the only issue with that is if he's got to go to a select board meeting there could be a conflict select board generally meets every other week I believe so we could certainly ask him on the off cycle we can also you know I mentioned those two dates the August 17th and 31st I don't know whether we've been formally invited to a joint meeting but they're certainly inviting us to be at those select board meetings so I can clarify that with Carol as well so I think we've worked up a consensus I think to certainly by fall meeting to be meeting weekly would it make sense to try to get Brian Kevin in here to talk to us in the next week two weeks just to hear directly from him what I'm trying to pencil in a spreadsheet over here is what we're actually going to be doing right and I think it would be helpful to get that perspective on what shape we realistically think the operating budgets are going to be in
whether there's probably a lot or not that said I would love to spread the meetings out so if we actually think we're going to have 90% of the capital budget in the middle of October start planning meetings to review the capital budget in October so if Brian could weigh in on how far down the budgeting process we're going to be at what point in the year that can inform this conversation of capital budget at the next meeting we could look at the first four years of the five year capital budget because I'm feeling pretty comfortable that 90% of it will be the same and while you looked at it last year I don't think you had that much information and what we're doing is we're asking for a capital program form to be filled out not just for the upcoming fiscal year but for every fiscal year in the five years which they haven't done before so within the next three or four weeks we should have Excel files that I'm happy to share with all the PINCOM members and you'll have all the requests that come in you'll have five year summaries we have the five year summary and so we could literally for the rest of you you can have the benefit of me walking you through and answering questions rather than have to drive Brian and Kevin in to ask questions we could do that prepper and we did that two years ago we spent the better part of September and October getting through most of the capital budget well before we saw the actual budget I just think so that could be done if people want to
person or persons and on the operating budget again my having seen the model from last year which I'm sure he just rolled forward we could if I share that with you we could talk about even though it won't have been updated with his latest thinking there's only a handful of numbers that are actually going to move around and he generally budgets very conservatively at the outset and so we could look at a budget and again I sent you all two slides one of which shows unused tax levy for 10 years right that hasn't changed and it's just going to get worse than what you're looking at the slide that I sent to you and so that could immediately have us start talking about philosophically how do each of us feel about overrides how do overrides we don't need Brian Keveney for that and again I'm happy to help us through that process I just don't want to wait myself until they start to deliver to your point Rob a bit more certain product because that's what happened last year right so we'll just wait wait you know we still have the health number and then you got jammed and you
we can meet with the school committee at any time which I don't know if you went to a school committee because they were in transition last year for the new finance director on their side so I just think there's lots of things it just depends on your appetite and we may have to multitask because I was going to say I'm looking at I'm sure you were too Rob right if you look at those three general pieces or maybe four right if you look at the general articles I think we could get after that immediately right so that could be like an August September August we identify the ones we want to do September we start going through them maybe by October they're done the capital budget we can also start going through by October 15th there's a recommendation certainly from SIPC to the town manager we could take that as 90% completion hopefully this year even more than that personally I'll say for myself last year the largeness of the disparity between the number that was originally reported by SIPC and what we originally then got from the town manager I think caused me great concern and part of that is because we put in the effort to stand up this process I would like
I appreciate there will always probably be some variability but not 40 50 60 so October 15 they are making their formal recommendation we probably could effectively be done I say that in air quotes but done by November done with that the PowerPoint I think we need to the point Brian was making we need to start combing through that maybe have a couple people take the lead on that of looking at what was previously documented and start putting slides together even if we don't have the numbers right it's slide header slide header here's how we sent this that can start immediately and then if that's going to go to the ballot maybe in January February if I've understood everything correctly like we would need to be making presentations in October November okay so and then the operating budget is the one thing that we could also get started on but I
moves forward for October November December January et cetera and then starting in January we look at the warrant articles that were non-standard and that we have to dole out and you be getting routine updates on the agenda from Carl and maybe about budget working group which is right not necessarily focusing on here the budget at least the higher level issues that are going to move the needle I would like weekly starting in September maybe a meeting at least one meeting certainly in August if not maybe two but I think that makes sense is everyone else okay with that yeah same weekly starting in September is August right and September weekly is that sound okay with you all what we're talking about here yeah Mondays are good okay the number of meetings you'll obviously you might have conflicts here or there but as long as we get a quorum I think the goal is we keep pushing forward I would think we're in the middle of July right now next meeting first Monday of August let's see two weeks is July 27 I was going to suggest August 3rd we could do August 3rd August 17th and maybe even the 31st of August since August we're going to go to those is that what you're suggesting I think Carl was suggesting maybe we do off Mondays from when the sun board is meeting got it okay all right so then if we're not going to do them every week then we can meet as often as we as we wish if if you didn't meeting Carl on the 27th with just some of the follow-up items in terms of the appointment like to the fire department staffing working group I mean if they're getting going I think we should get somebody on there quickly and maybe between now and then people could look at in the archive file on the FinCom website themselves and pick off a couple of the presentations that were made over the years and you just make it a little shorter meeting and then maybe do like the 10th and the 24th or something like that the third works for me and 7th 10th and 24th seems like a reasonable 27th of July two weeks basically every two weeks starting now 27th July 10th of August 24th of August and then we would start the 7th is Labor Day I'm assuming we would start weekly when exactly would we do a Wednesday that week or would we start weekly on the 14th I think we probably ought to try to is that one of your Wednesdays no I can do that Wednesday you probably ought to try for that Wednesday nice and then weekly on Mondays okay I'll reserve I'll get that reserved for us all you know going into that same schedule we had you available Robbie yeah okay so going through October right and then going going through the rest of the fall I think I mean or were you all thinking we would move to twice a week in
and for Carl's purpose and even into next year Carl getting a rooms book all the way I guess that's true and then maybe we can touch base and see how it's going in October November and see when we double up but I don't know I'm slightly hopeful for the minutes I'm going to reflect July 27th August 10th August 24th September 9th and then weekly thereafter starting on the 14th September and then in January we're still weekly for what the first couple weeks and then you go every Monday Wednesday or Monday Wednesday didn't happen until February I would suggest that we reconvene on that I don't think we could possibly accurately predict that I'll take it through December but we'll book rooms sounds like Wednesday starting in January speaking of timing I actually think I do need to run the whole other topic on the agenda is future topics for future meetings I think we've actually pretty well we're going to defer discussion on the 830 item I think we should include it on the next meeting there's a little more to be said around our role in reviewing the warrant and for our next meeting I can commit to doing a first pass at looking at the warrant articles from last year and
the plan agendas what do we think the agenda is at a high level for all of the meetings we just scheduled I can't start that personally before I look at the warrant articles I can take a stab at the agenda I
we want to talk about the standard articles about how many meetings that's going to take I think that's a discussion for next week yeah well I
I mean the online historical presentations for overrides ideally we all should but yes I'll do that all right and then I think there's an archive folder I took all the stuff that was all over the web page and I
I don't think they would have deleted unless somebody on this committee told them to delete it I'm sure nobody did that it's just that some of the links that you used to be able to help out if by chance you don't find two or three PowerPoint presentations in there again we haven't an operating override since 2009 so I don't believe you're going to find any of those PowerPoint presentations back then what you will find are similar presentations for excluded debt questions but it was the same concept to pair something for the select board so and I'll look at my historic files that I kept I don't think I don't think I have anything from the override years I do have one which might be helpful background for members Alan Reese who was a select board member 2008 or 9 just before one of the overrides could have been a debt exclusion did a PowerPoint presentation just on the concept of overrides and I thought it was pretty helpful so I'm going to send that to you Carl you can look at it and one of the things I did get accused of when I was on FinCon and now in the Sipsy is that I tended to overwhelm people with things that I
other possibility if we can't find something is Pam Roman I suspect probably kept I think she had to put together a couple of these with Bill Steinberg for the debt exclusion questions so my thought was again we may have a totally different view of what helpful information but why recreate the templates and things of that nature and if it's just a
lot of data on peer communities and things of that nature there was a fair amount of that type of data that was in these presentations so anyway if you
Carl is I vote yes Iris is Satish yes yes Bill yes awesome I'm zero unanimous by roll call thank thank you
Robbie, do we have anybody other than Bill on Zoom?
Okay. I think I'll, nevertheless, I'll go through the agenda very quickly just so it's on the recording. After asking for public comments, and I gather there won't be any, I'd like to welcome our two new members. We will take a look at the minutes of the last two meetings and hopefully approve them.
We should discuss and better yet vote on a new chair, a vice chair, and minute taker, or takers, for this fiscal year. And following that, there's an agenda item for income liaisons to other town boards for reasons I'll discuss at the time. We'll probably pass over that entirely, but we'll at least discuss why we're doing that. We do have a couple more opportunities to point representatives to other town committees, mainly the Capital Improvement Planning Committee, otherwise known as SIPC, the Audit Committee, and as well as the Finance Director's Budget Working Group. And there is another working group to talk about fire department staffing being formed or has been formed. Again, we can appoint someone to those spots. Once we do that, we'll take a look at our own meeting schedule for this year and figure out how to go forward and finally take a preliminary look at what we know about the budget for fiscal 28. Obviously, it's early days, but people are beginning to talk about it, and so we want to have that role. So that is our agenda.
I'll double check. Robbie, anybody on lockdown?
Yes, we have one person online. Okay.
Do we know who that is?
Julie Candle. Okay. Can she hear us? There's no hand raised. She can't be, but she's done. Okay.
We'll move on. This is a fun part. Oh, Brian. Vice Chair, maybe you're going to get to this. Can you just identify who's in the room and who's participating by Zoom? I was not going to get to that, so I appreciate that.
It leads into what we're going to talk about anyway. So why don't we introduce ourselves? I'm Carl Barnes, the Acting Chair of the Committee. I'm in the room. Iris? Yes. Iris Hawksa, Finance Committee member. This will be my third year, and I received a reappointment as of July, and this will be the first of a three-year term. Yep. I'm Satish Raj. I'm a new member of the UpIncome Committee. So it's a three-year term. You know, this is my first meeting, so I look forward to helping out. Brian O'Herlihy. I'm back for my fourth year of the last five on the Finance Committee, and currently serve as the school designee on the Capital Improvement Planning Committee. I'm a 43-year resident of town, retired CPA, spent 40 years in the financial side of life, and I've volunteered in town for 25-plus years. So hopefully I can serve as a good resource for the rest of you going forward. You already are. Yes. That's good. I'm Rob Quimby. I joined the Finance Committee last November, so this will be my first full year. So looking forward to leveraging some of these people with more experience. And via Zoom, we have Bill Huss. Yes, I'm Bill Huss. It's my second year on the committee. I also serve on the Energy Committee and on the AgCom for the town of Lincoln. I have a Ph.D. in engineering and business. I worked my career in energy consulting, and I now teach at Babson College.
Great. Satish, I went through that very quickly, but just, you know, I've lived in town for 34 years. I've had one child go to the public schools here. He lives in Boston these days with his wife. I was a lawyer for 40 years and don't have to do that anymore.
But they say that those prevolutions never leave you. So I'm trying to think what else. I've been on the committee for two years. I joined just probably a month after Iris did. I was filling in a term. And so I think you were, well, you were on a meeting. So the appointing board meeting where they appointed me to another one-year term. And we'll see how that goes. Maybe there'll be more than a year. We'll find out. Could you think anybody else wanted to say about their path or their? I do not have a formal background in finance, unlike some of Mr. O'Reilly. I am a product manager. I work in the technology space, working with data and analytics, AI, machine learning for a financial-related company. So that's my background. Yeah. I don't have a deep finance background either, although I have an MBA. But I didn't use that for finance. I have experience in management. I worked in the software industry, started with, I'm a mechanical engineer by training as such, but then moved over to CAD and software industry and management. And, you know, there is some exposure to finance and planning and budgeting, but that's about it. A 13-year resident of Weyland. Yeah. And I think that's probably the only other thing that might make me perhaps slightly more unique than some of my peers in that I am not a 30-year resident of Weyland. We moved into town rather. Yeah, give it time. Exactly. I could get there, but none of this is at this moment. So I'm a rather newer resident into town, and we've lived in a couple different states. So I also did not grow up in Massachusetts. I grew up in a different state, went to school in a different state, I've worked a long time in a different state. So that's also a little bit of my frame of reference.
I'm also relative. Hoping to be a long-term resident eventually. Yes. Exactly. Good. We started somewhere, right, Carl? Yeah. Everybody starts somewhere. One year at a time. Yes, exactly. I can just add that these years go by fast. I have no idea how to go. Potential good news. The financial committee appointing board is scheduled to meet tomorrow, and we may have a son of a member join us in the very near future. I don't know, I know the gentleman's name. I don't know anything about his background, so I'll just leave that for now, but perhaps by our next meeting, we'll have a full sample. Great. We shall see. Thank you. Okay.
Moving on.
Just for the record, I'm keeping minutes tonight. And subject to the later discussion, I may continue to do so. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Speaking of minutes, we do have two sets, from May 4th and from June 29th. April had circulated the May 4th minutes quite a while ago, and probably on July 1st, or if not June 30th, sent out the minutes for the June 29th meeting. So, thank you for that. We'll take separate votes, but does anybody have any changes or comments or questions?
Yeah. In both sets of minutes, this is really a matter of, you know, procedure, and maybe you've got a view on this, Brian. The very first votes taken were taken before the final person arrived, and so the vote tallies reflect that, but it's not obvious necessarily why those numbers, if you look up top, it says there's six people here, and the votes were 5-0-0. So, do we want to, at least, do we want to acknowledge that the person, that the one person was not yet in the room, or is it good enough the way it is? Do you, it's implied, but... I figured it out. So, I think it's... I haven't done it in the past, but I'm happy to add something in both instances, if you think that would provide clarity. No, once I thought about it for, you know, in a nanosecond, I realized that had to be the case. So, the only thing I'd ask, then, is for June 29th, I think there's a misspelling of Kelsey's name on the third line. So, the third line would be also in attendance paragraph. Last or last name? Her last name is Sperlitt. You might have an extra heart there.
We'll have that good proofreading eye. I have no more.
I had one question. I'm going to abstain on the May 4th minutes, because I don't know if they're factually accurate. But I just wanted to confirm with those of you that were there, that under the fourth bolded section, says Pam Roman motion to defer on Article 9. I know prior to town meeting, the FinCom had deferred taking a position until town meeting. I just want to make sure, based on your collective memory, that, in fact, at the meeting, you also decided to just defer taking a position. And that's what April was happening. Absolutely took no position. Whether defer is quite the right word for that, I don't know, but we didn't take it. Yeah.
I mean, there was no intention of taking a position at a later date. Correct. It would have been done by that. Did they have a motion to take no position? And that was... I think that would be fine. I think it's probably... For all of you that were there, Bill? Well, since you seconded the motion. Yeah. No, that's my understanding as well. So I'll just change the motion to take no position. Thank you. All right. Anything else?
Motion to approve. I'm going to do May 4th first. Okay. I'll second that. Thank you. And it's as we're lies. Yes.
We need a roll call vote for this. So May 4th, I was there. Okay. I'm going to have to abstain from the other one. So Carl votes to approve. I'm going to approve. I was going to abstain. Good. That makes sense. Abstain. It's abstained. We'll also abstain because I was not there. Bill was. Bill? Aye. All right. So the minutes are approved as revised. Thank you. No. 3-0-3. Okay. Motion to approve the June 29th meeting minutes as amended. I was not at that meeting, so I will abstain. I vote yes. Abstain. Ryan? Yes. Yes. Bill? Yes. Thank you. So that's 4-0-2.
Okay. Thank you. It was 4-0-3, I think. 4 of us were there. 4-0-2. 3-0-3 was the first one. Do you abstain on the 29th? Because you want to do it. Yeah, I abstained. Yeah. So 1-2-3 abstain. 1-2-3. For the team, okay? Oh, yeah. You were there. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. We all set on that? Yes. Okay. I'll get those posted. Thank you. Last year, I don't know what was done in prior years, but last year, April and I started collecting and keeping in one place all the documents that were discussed or reviewed at meetings, they're not posted on our website, but they are available for anyone who is asking.
There's probably a better way to do this, but in any case, can you get to me the documents that were referred to in the June 29th minutes?
I've got several emails prior to the meeting and different versions of things, but I believe there were changes made right at the last minute. Okay. Thank you. It's really just that item 3, meaning we have the agenda, draft minutes, which we just went through, and then it was a Brian Keveny email with a memory. I guess it is just that one email. Okay. If it's Nathan, now that it was dated June 22nd, I've got, I have several versions of this, but I think I've got, I know I have the, his. Do you want to check on that if you don't have it, but you know, or I can. Um, we'll start there. I'll, I'll try and give you any more work that I, that I can do myself. Okay. Um, moving on again. Um, I've done what I can. Just one follow up question. So you and April were, whenever it got listed, you and April were collecting and depositing in somewhere, someone's computer. Yes. Um, just want to be sure if there is ever a request from the public, that request has to go through the town clerk's office. Uh, there's a online, there's a request form that you fill out. And then the town clerk, based on the description of what you want, which in this case, if they were looking for that memo, they would give that description. She would either find it or, you know, through Brian Keveney, or she'd reach out to somebody on this committee and then push that document out. And the reason I think it's important to follow that process is because if there's a subsequent request for the same document, I don't think we want to be handing out documents. We're not required to, uh, and, and so I have no issue keeping those. I keep them myself, but, uh, uh, I don't know if you've gotten requests in the past and if so, if you have not, but, but, you know, I've requested documents from other committees meetings and it's fine. It just might take a few days for the town clerk to get it in a perfect world. Um, you know, we could store these on the towns on our webpage somehow and in individual meeting packets. Um, we've talked about that, uh, in prior FinCom meetings that I was involved with, I've talked about on the capital planning committee. We've just never decided it was a high enough priority. And as long as there's sufficient detail, uh, in the minutes so that the documents could be located by the town clerk, we felt we were, you know, sufficiently fulfilling our obligations. But again, if the, if the majority of the finance committee wants to move toward posting these, uh, we can maybe as part of your agenda item about the webpage, um, you could have people thinking about that. Um, personally, I don't think we need to, to go down that road or work, but I don't want to be, um, I don't want to get a call for the town clerk saying, do you have a copy of this and have to say no. So that's why I want to keep them all in one place. That's all. And it hasn't happened yet. Thanks. Um, thank you for that. Um, I haven't gotten sworn in yet. I don't think that I'm, my term has continued just because I, you know, I'm still on the committee. Um, I'm not necessarily the chair, I'm the vice chair and, um, we have an opportunity to elect a chair and a vice chair. And so I would ask if anybody's interested in taking either of those roles. This is what happened last year, but it's not overly so, I would say.
Bill, you're awfully quiet. Yeah.
Well, Carl's done a great job. So I, you know, if, if we're ready for a nomination or a motion, I certainly would, uh, would move that Carl become the chair of the committee.
As I told you in the, um, email sending out the agenda, I'm, I'm willing to do that. Um, I'm looking for, uh, if that's going to happen, I wouldn't looking for a, uh, vice chair to work with, um, who, and I can just give you a little bit of insight, um, before Phil had to leave the committee. Um, you know, he was for lack of a better word, the public face. He would, he was the principal, uh, person dealing with other town boards, especially the select board. We would, we would though, talk about agendas. I tended to draft them. I'd send them to him. He would, uh, adjust both wording and the amount of time I was proposing. And then I would do the blocking and tackling to get them in. That is not the way it has to work this year, but that's just one way of doing it. But, um, and then I, I think literally maybe once he wasn't able to come to a meeting. Um, so, um, uh, you know, I would, I would, he would probably say, and I think it's true, but you know, I worked pretty, pretty well together and, um, I'd be looking for, um, again, maybe it's presumptuous, but nobody else is raising their hands. Um, I would be happy to take that position if, if voted as, as long as somebody will, you know, be there, help out.
Can you try to feel that vice chair?
I'm sorry, but you mentioned you recently retired. You've got some capacity. You've got Brian O'Hurley here, here as note taker and also able to support. It's a good learning opportunity. It's a big leap, uh, in the first year. But you've got support. Next year. Yeah. My two cents. Obviously I could do that. Um, I don't want to be the chair. Um, and I, I function as vice chair at the FinCon before. Um, that said, um, I'm only on here for one year. As you heard from Carl, he's only got a one year term. It doesn't mean he might not be back. And, uh, the person that serves as a vice chair in a perfect world is, is, is getting experience, additional experience. And potentially being groomed to be the chair doesn't always happen that way. And so, uh, I'd hate to waste that opportunity, uh, by me stepping right up and volunteering to do that. I certainly have time and I know what needs to get done. Um, so to me, the three people that would seem most likely to fall in that category would be that Rob, you, Iris, and Bill, but, um, you know, it's always preferable to have people willing, um, to do it rather than legend in to do it. And, uh, there's plenty of other things that are going to have to have people volunteering for. So, uh, my, my goal here is to not raise my hand for every single item that's coming up, uh, not because I, you know, wouldn't or couldn't do it, take the load off those of you that work, but, um, just because I think that's the only way you ultimately learn. And I think, Carl, to your point, um, when I was vice chair with Michael Hoyle, um, and Michael really reluctantly accepted the chair role and, and only did so because I agreed that I would do all the blocking and the tackling and all the stuff behind the scenes. And, uh, you know, I think probably what you're saying is because you've done that, you could actually, I presume could do some of that if, if, if the split of the workload between you and the vice chair needed to be different, because again, for people working, it's a little more challenging to be sure that things are getting in on time. But anyway, I, that's my two cents. I'll, I'll do what I have to do to move forward. No qualms about stepping into health, potentially in a, in a vice chair capacity. I'm concerned about not living up to the requirements from a timing standpoint. And so that's where, if we've got additional support, right? If, if Brian, your generous offer to help train up, you know, a vice chair is because that, that's going to be the crux of it is there. I know there are a lot of very important meetings that happen during the workday that I'll just never be able to join. Um, but outside of that, certainly happy to sell too hard here, but I don't think that I remember, I mean, there were phone calls with Phil, you know, um, that often took place during the day, but there were, there were not very many of any meetings that I had needed to go to because I was the vice chair during the day.
And, um, you know, um, I can still, you know, I can, I can still draft an agenda. I can still share it with somebody. I can, um, ideally I'd pick somebody or somebody's brain before all of your brains before drafting that agenda. Um, and, uh, you know, if it should be you, Iris, I would know, I would understand, okay, you're working during the day and build in that time. Right. Rob, does that interest you at all? Um, similar to you, I am conceptually open to it, but I just don't know that I really have the time to actually do it justice. I feel like I barely have the time to do just being a member of the finance committee justice, not alone being the vice chair. Yeah. And I think it'd be, and Bill, I don't know if you feel similarly or you're, you're just flat out with other stuff, but, um, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm pretty flat out. I've got, I think 16 or 17 other committees and boards that I serve on, you know, from my point of view, it really comes down to me. I love working with Carl. Uh, I would certainly, you know, it would, my, you know, if I were to step up, it's really contingent on a comfort level with Carl. I mean, I think he really has to want the person, uh, who would serve as vice chair and to have a discussion about how the, uh, the job would be split. So, you know, I, I would be open to it in, in a sort of a contingent, Hey, I got to meet with Carl first and see if that's what he wants and, and what the split would be. Uh, so I'm sort of reluctant to commit at this meeting, but I'm certainly willing to take it into consideration. Um, we also have a seventh new member, right? So if they have some background, maybe we can defer this, we could actually, um, that person is contingently. contingently. Yeah. No. Okay. So, so I, I'm, I'm going to make a motion, Carl, to suggest that you be chair. I'm happy to step in as vice chair with ample support from Brian over here, uh, to help train me up. Um, if we can do that, I think we can try that. You could also actually appoint Carl chair and meet the vice chair. I mean, if you're comfortable, it sounds like Bill could be open to it with further discussion. Iris is potentially open to it. There's a seventh member who might be interested. Realistically, I think the seventh member will be drinking from fire hose, just as we all were. And you are. I mean, um, this is a group decision. That's not my decision. So, uh, I would welcome either of you. I can guarantee you one thing. I will be, um, darkening all of your doors.
I'm looking for help. Yeah. Yeah. There's going to be plenty of, as we'll get to in your agenda, but I guess the good news is three of you at least are willing. So that's good. So hopefully you'll be willing on other items. Uh, my instinct is to, uh, well, it could be deferred and I agree with Carl looking at the background of the person being interviewed. Um, I don't think they've have volunteered in town. Um, but of the three of you, Iris has, you know, one more year, full year experience on the FinCom. Um, so I, I just feel that she might be, uh, you know, better prepared to continue down that path. Um, and, um, so I I'd be inclined to myself to move forward with the two of you tonight, if everybody else was willing to do that. Uh, and, um, and again, the minute taker is not an official voted position unless you want to make it a voted position, but, uh, not the task that anybody else wants to do unless there's somebody here that secretly wants to do it. And, uh, the reason I have done it in my three prior years on the FinCom and my current stint on the SIPC is I want to keep myself and all of us out of open meeting law issues. Uh, and I have the time to, uh, to deal with that. So, uh, that that's where I thought I could pitch in, uh, as to those three positions in your agenda item. So I think I would be happy with Carl and Iris. I've worked with them for a year now and they're both great. So I would have no problem with that. I'd also point out that if it doesn't, you know, if it's more somehow more work than you thought, or, or people look at me and say, he's really not the chair. We thought he was make changes. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That sounds good. Um, so I'm going to make a motion to appoint Carl as chair. I'm assuming I don't make a motion about myself. So I'm not going to second that. He said, he just seconded. I'm seconded Carl should be chair. All right. Any favor of the motion to, uh, have me as, so I'll go first. Yes. I'll do it. Thank you. I say yes as well. Yes. Yes. Yes. Bill. Yes. Right. Unanimous six zero zero on roll call. Thank you. And by the way, I don't want to, I don't want to just like this be feigned reluctance. I mean, I'm very happy to do it. Excellent. Thank you, Carl. But I also was, would not have been, I would not have left here crying if anybody else had said they wanted the job. No, it's still greatly appreciated. And that's, it is more work than a regular member. Um, even though the chair is just a regular member, right. But, um, appreciate your willingness to do that. Thank you, Carl. So, no, I'll nominate Iris as vice chair. And I will second that.
All in favor of the motion. Carl says yes. I say yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. I thought I heard everybody's name before their yeses as part of the roll call. So that sounds right. You make sure we do that. Right. Yes. Okay. Congratulations. You too. It's just kind of nice there. Yeah. I don't know whether we need to vote on this or not, but I do appreciate your offer to take these minutes. You know, I think that, um, April did most of it last year. Um, but I think we've seen enough to know what a big job that is and frankly, how well you do it. So I really appreciate it, Brian. No problem. If anybody along the way, uh, wants to take a crack at it. Um, uh, I know on the, uh, CPSI, they, um, CPSI is capital improvement planning committee. Sorry. Um, in anticipation of my rolling off that committee at some point in the coming months, um, one of the members has been, uh, testing with use of, uh, some form of AI, uh, and, uh, trying to assess the rest of the members, trying to assess the quality of, uh, what is produced. And, uh, while I'm all for that, it's not something I'm going to be using, um, with Zoom or, uh, they've done this particular individuals, uh, taking recordings of the meetings, but Zoom has a transcript that can be, that April was accessing the transcript from the Zoom meeting and then having AI based on whatever instructions you gave it, uh, through seven minutes. Yes, but as we noted at our recent CPSI meeting, uh, that's great to, you know, kind of get it down to something that's manageable, but you still need to identify a person that's going to review that carefully. And then I think it puts even my opinion, a little bit more pressure on the members, uh, to also be looking at those very carefully, picking on boats and things of that nature. And it's not a hundred percent accurate. And just looking at, you know, your meetings from last year, I think, although, you know, we spent a little bit of time tonight, but we used to spend maybe two to three minutes max on minute approval, some of your meetings, just because in the earlier parts of April using AI, you were spending five to 10 minutes kind of correct the minutes at the meeting. So I'm going to just keep taking notes and, and, uh, you actually have to do that as well, because if the, if the Zoom meeting goes down, you don't have that as a record, you have to be able to produce the minutes. So anyway, I will do it. I don't think you need a vote. Okay. Well, happy to have your vote. My acclamation then. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.
Five minutes ahead of schedule. Um, last year I was the liaison from the finance committee to the, to the board of public works. Um, I thought that was something that we did with other committees and had been doing for quite a while. Um, I was happy to, to do that. It turns out, um, and by the way, one of the things that Brian brings to the table, other than beyond just incredible organization is an institutional memory, like no other, no others. He, um, alerted me earlier that, um, in fact, since the town manager act was, was adopted and all the town, um, employees and, and, and not so much committees, but the boards themselves roll up through him through the town manager. So we don't, we have not had liaisons to other committees, um, um, with the exception of board public works. And that was at their request because we were dealing with this $39 million, um, um, WRA connection. Um, so, um, although I did put it on the agenda, turns out we just, we don't really need to do that. And I think that, um, there's no reason to do it going forward unless there's a generic reason to do it going forward. If there's a, if something comes up where it becomes important, we can, and of course, anybody who's interested in attending any board or committee meeting is welcome to. I would agree with that. And I'll say when I was looking at this list, that was actually going to be some of my feedback of like, I was just going to ask the question, like the fire department staffing working group, I'm sure they're doing important work, but is that work that requires our input from both financial and, um, just thinking about, I guess, the financials in general and the appropriations, like how much are we actually providing input there as opposed to listening in and to your point, that can be done after the matter of fact. That's the next agenda topic. Okay. Yeah. There's an answer to your question. Okay. Okay. Okay. That would help. Sorry. Okay. Sorry. Uh, oh, I, my apologies. I read it as the board of public works, the capital improvement planning committee, the audit committee, and my apologies. I read them all as like one long list. Okay. So I'm, I'm good with your feedback there at board of public works. I think I've given away that I'm going to ask some questions about the other boards and just trying to understand the role and purpose that spending that time and effort serves, just making sure that we're being thoughtful with our capacity. Well, I think we're there. Okay. Sounds great. We're there. I mean, did anyone else have anything else in regards to board of public works? Okay. Okay. So, so, so, are you all right? You're sideways.
There you go. Okay. I've always thought I'm doing that when I'm on Zoom call, I should put my camera upside down.
Um, Iris, those, those liaisons that I was talking about are, were one of us actually attending other boards on a regular basis. Yes. This is a little bit different. Okay. We have, um, the right to appoint three parties. Okay. As how representatives on other, on several other committees. Um, you know, Brian is trying, you're, you're the school committee is designate. You're the school committee, correct. And Kelly Lappin is ours, but she's not going to continue much longer. Um, she's stepping down, um, I think, no, I don't, I don't want to say more than that because I don't want to put her on the spot. Um, but, um, but I'll put her on the spot for you, so when she somewhat reluctantly agreed to serve, um, she opted for the one-year fincom term and told us that the very first meeting she was not intending to ask for reappointment. Um, and she, uh, followed through with that, but then also said she was willing, as Carl mentioned, he's currently doing tonight, he has been sworn in yet under his new term. Um, that under the town policies, um, a member could continue to serve until they're replaced, um, even if it's by themselves, I suppose. Um, and so Kelly has nicely agreed since we're, this summer, we're trying to get all our work done to get the report done by the October 15th reporting deadline, unless and until a fincom designee is brought forth by this committee. Uh, she said she'll hang in there and, and continue to work, um, and, um, so that's what she's doing, uh, but she's anticipating that this committee is over, plans to identify, uh, someone to, uh, take that slot. Um, she's expecting that we will keep it on the agenda, and I presume you'll coordinate with Carol Martin, chair of the select board, who ultimately then, whoever we designate, has to then officially appoint. Um, uh, to try to find somebody to do that. Um, I reached out to a former member of this committee who just recently left this committee, uh, to see if she might be interested and, uh, didn't seem so at the time. Um, but, um, and there's something that says it couldn't be somebody from this committee, but it's a, it's a heavy ask. And I mentioned before, I took the two-year term of the school committee, and I've informed the school committee chair that I'll, I'll hang in there until the report's done, uh, but that they should be looking for somebody to finish out my two-year term, just because I can't deal with stuff at home and deal with these two committees. So, can I ask a clarifying question? First. Are we trying to recruit someone for this role, or? We, we, we should, if, if you can reach out to people you might think are interested or capable. Sure. Right. But that's why, Carl, I think you should probably talk to Carol, because they also get, in the town manager's office, they get input from people that might express interest. And I think Kelly said at one of her last meetings that she and Carol had spoken to somebody who seemed to express some level of interest. And Kelly said it wasn't clear whether that person could either be the FinCom designee or the school committee designee, but she didn't want to help the person. So, I think at this point, I think if any of us know people that you want to try to get interested, including people that used to be on this committee. But I think it's going to be more coordinating with Carol, because Carol, you know, has a pretty good job. Yeah, she certainly does. There's also a procedure where basically the town has to advertise or post the… Yeah, it's already been posted for a couple months now. They have, okay. And I'm not sure where the individual they're talking to, whether they came through that posting or whether Carol or Kelly found somebody. And the school committee, likewise, you know, have to identify somebody. I volunteered with them because they weren't able to find somebody. And they ultimately then designated me. So, yeah. So, on that one, I'd say we need to collectively see what we could do to find somebody, but… What does the audit committee do? Do you want me to answer that question? Do you know? Do you want me to try? Do you want me to try? Do you want you to try? Do you want me to try? Do you want me to try? Do you want me to try? I don't know. Do you want me to try? Do you want me to try? Do you want me to try? The audit committee, by the way, I'm going to back into that. Okay. So, Shigley is our appointee. And I've never met the gentleman, because he was appointed before I joined the committee. I've talked to him. He's interested in staying on. And… That's good. It's good. is that it functions somewhat like the audit committee of a corporate board of directors. So they actually speak, they work with the auditors of the town's auditors. They identify specific things that they're more concerned about than others that they're looking for. And then the report, my understanding is, is delivered to them. And so they're kind of overseeing. Brian, do they choose the auditors to choose the actual order? Actually, ultimately the auditors are appointed by the select board, but they, under their charge, they have responsibility to recommend an audit firm. And I think in the last year or so, they may have at least talked about it. I don't know if they went through with the process of seeing if there's any other firms beyond the incumbent that they and or the select board might want to consider.
Was it a copy of the latest report? It's posted on the finance director's page. It is. Okay, great. There's two reports, if I may. It's the town's audited financial statements. And I think it's called a comprehensive annual financial spending or something. There's an acronym for it. And it's a, you know, 50 to 60 page detailed set of financial statements and footnotes that if you've ever looked at all the company financial statements, unless you're a CPA or pretty good financial background, can be somewhat daunting. So it's the audit committee's job, whether they have a background or not, Klaus happens to have that background, to interface with the auditor. The auditor makes a presentation prior to delivering the financials in a meeting with the select board. And they, in turn, respond to questions from the audit committee. So that's the primary report. The auditors also annually issue a management letter, which I think, Carl, you may have been referring to. And that's typically, while doing their audit, if they uncover processes, procedures, and things that they think should be done that aren't getting done properly. So for probably a better part of six years, treasurer's office wasn't doing timely cash reconciliations, which is auditing 101. That's a no-no. It's the most basic failure of internal control. And yet it happened six years in a row. And finally, it got pushed somewhat of my urging up to the select board's attention, even though they saw the letter every year. And eventually, one of the ways that the town got its arms around it was the treasurer who had been reporting directly to the town manager got redirected to the finance director, who now the finance director carries primary responsibility. He doesn't do them, but to ensure that. So anyway, it's those type of things. So you don't have things showing up in the management letter. And inevitably, there's three or four things that come up. And so again, it's the audit committee's job to review those. Thirdly, and the thing that they've talked about, but I don't think they've ever had time to get it done, is if they have specific concerns themselves that they want the auditors to take a look at, in theory, they could expand the scope of the auditor's engagement to look specifically at whatever it is they're interested in. As to Klaus, he was a former FINCOM member. He got appointed to the audit committee the same year after, or the year he dropped off the FINCOM. And he was appointed as the FINCOM's designee. When I looked a couple years ago, I couldn't ever see, other than that first appointment, that he ever got reappointed. He wasn't reappointed during my three years. And so I believe he's been serving under the policy of since no replacement had ever been brought forth. But the good news for us is, one, that he does a good job. And two, that's one that, in theory, if you don't mention votes there, so it's up to you whether you want to, whether you feel you're able to vote tonight, Carl, or, I mean, it says it on the front of the agenda, but you may want to. No, I hadn't even done, too. I mean, we can certainly discuss a vote, but I thought it would make sense, assuming he would- Are you going to have him? So you could meet him. You could fill in more of what I just described. I think that might be nice. It would be interesting. I haven't had, I think, a chance to read any of the outputs of that committee. And I think it would be nice to understand just a little bit more about what their process is like. I appreciate the overview you gave. But just if there's anything there, like, I think a lot of what I heard you just say is a lot of it's process-oriented that fundamentally, it sounds like they handle or might go back to the town manager. But it'd be interesting to note if any of that should come within our purview or we should expect anything from that. Yeah, I mean, any audit committee is intended to be independent of the rest of the town system. Sure. And so the audit committee does not report to the town manager. The audit committee is advisory, ultimately, to select board on the town. As with this committee, and again, I'm just going to, I offload these tidbits. You can do with them what you want. And I appreciate, I have the time to do it, but most of you have kids and work and everything else. One of the easiest ways that I find to get up to speed is to pick a meeting, any meeting. In the case of the audit committee, you could pick on WACAM the meeting where they met with the independent auditors. It's a two-hour meeting. And if you have the time to just watch that entire meeting, you probably would come away with a pretty good idea of what it is they do. But if you don't have that time having, and you should have classed it anyway because you want to make sure everybody or majority are comfortable with them. But I'd say that with any committee where there's just lots of stuff that happens.
And I was actually appointed to go on to the audit committee. And before I got sworn in, I was still on the Affordable Housing Trust. In the charge for the audit committee, to be on the committee, you cannot serve on any other board or committee that deals with financial sources of the town. And so I never got sworn in because I wanted to stay on the Affordable Housing Trust. So, is that satisfactory for the moment? Yes, thank you. And then some. Yes, thank you. I think, actually, though, I think you're not going to see a whole lot of output from the committee. Okay. It's really, I think you're going to see the auditor's reports, that management letter is from the auditors to the committee. Yeah. So, the work product will be not theirs. They actually prepare a memorandum that goes to the select board at the same time. So, to the extent they want to emphasize. So, one thing I don't remember is whether those memorandums are posted on the audit committee's webpage. But if not, when you reach out to Klaus, you could ask him if he could send their last memo to you and you could circulate that. Will do. Thank you. Which brings us to the fire department staffing working group.
To Brian's point, it could be one of us. But this is a new working group that has been where they've said finance committee can appoint a representative. I don't know much about what they're doing. I certainly don't have any volunteers to suggest.
It might be perfect for people with young kids who want to see fire trucks. I know a four-year-old who would love to do it. I'm pretty qualified. What do you mean I have to be a child? Again, I'm happy to fill in the gap there as to what it is. You may or may not have heard that the town based on an agreement in the union negotiation with the fire union several years back had agreed to do a study of staffing levels and other related matters. A meeting funded it two or three years ago. That study finally got completed sometime in the last six to nine months. And it's a 40 or 50 page report. and the union's general view of life not only in Whaling but most of the surrounding communities is that the town is staffed lighter than what's called for under some federal recommendation which is apparently common in other communities and that's why you have mutual aid apparently to help each other out. So the report finally got done. It apparently put this working group together and I don't know if it's being headed up by the fire chief or the town manager and they apparently made room for a FinCom designee. I think the relevance of a FinCom designee is that if ultimately this group were to coalesce around whatever recommendations were in the report that led to an increase in staffing is going to have clear budgetary impact. So my guess is that they were interested in having at least someone present you know maybe not contributing that much but at least unreceived and that would be very helpful ultimately for the full FinCom and I think as you said Carl it doesn't necessarily need to be somebody from this committee and I suspect those meetings will likely be during the day as there are a number of staff kind of staff on them but again they don't know that. Is it more attending those meetings or just keeping an eye on the output from these meetings? I think you'd have to determine that by going to I don't know if they've had any meetings yet and the difference for teachers benefit and any of the rest of you that don't exactly know you have boards and committees that are subject to the open meeting law and then you have so-called working groups typically under the town manager finance director in this case could be the fire chief that if they're under a staff personally they aren't necessarily subject to the open meeting law in which case you could meet in this room you could close the door you don't have to take minutes they're just a different format and tend to be a bit more efficient in getting certain things done
to find its way to the select board as part of the budgeting process and ultimately to this committee so you know Carl one approach would be if someone on this committee might want to volunteer to or you could make the contact with fire chief if he's the point of contact see when they're planning to meet and have somebody from this committee if they're able to attend and then figure out can they attend without necessarily feeling a need to be a total contributor but rather be absorbing or not because again I'm not sure what anybody here would know about what's in the report to fire staffing so I think it's going to be an important working group in the output particularly if it does result in increased staffing at a time we're facing overrides it would be helpful to have a set of eyes and ears in this actual committee in there so general expectation is kind of almost raising its hand I take away good I guess I wonder I mean we have the opportunity we can do this I don't know who here has an informed view of what the proper staffing should be I know I don't so I don't know what we will add I think we will listen I think we'll know more than we would if we don't attend but I don't know how much we can contribute to this other than depending on the discussions that occur over the coming few months to the extent there's a majority view that we're going to have some difficulties with our budget going forward having a voice at the table expressing that when you have union representation at that working group meeting I think the union has a representative expressing that we have from the finance committee that we have great concerns over the budget at least I do personally we'll find out if everybody else knows differently I think that in and of itself may be part of the calculus as to what the Fincom's role even if it's limited just to that could be helpful and then bringing back what's the realistic possibility there could be staffing implications and I'm happy to do it as I said before because if it's during the day I can do it but again I don't want to deny anybody else the opportunity to participate and you know I think it's going to be important one thing we could do one thing I will do is learn more about when and how often they're meeting because I think that's useful information to anybody who might be on the fence about that so I'll take that as an action item and you know there's
has put together for the last couple of years you know frankly I think that's much more important if you could only do one we should have a presence there I plan to be part of
so Iris that lets you out even though you're now the vice chair so you too I mean I started thinking about it well working from home but you're still working right you don't have the I get it so I don't know that hasn't started yet right now there has been a less formal more preliminary working group if you will that has been meeting with Michael to begin talks about the budget we'll get into that in a few minutes but the actual sitting down with Brian and going through it's not started yet it's probably sometime I think in August again just
as it turned out just because Michael worked he attended less of the meetings than two of us attended I think I went to everyone last year when I was no longer on the FinCon the year prior to that a fellow Bill Steinberg who years ago had been on the finance committee was serving as a former FinCon member on the working group and his wife Kathy Steinberg who had been a former school committee member was serving in that capacity Bill passed away unfortunately and so Brian Keveney contacted me and said would you care to be the former FinCon member that serves on the budget working group and I agreed and that's what I did last year the meetings generally were on Friday mornings from 10 o'clock to noon roughly and occasionally he would attempt to do a virtual so Carol Martin could connect and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't work and as Carl said I think it's important to have at least two people designated whoever they
couldn't go it's fine for two people to go but in the event Carl couldn't be there it would be important to have another person go and as I said it's important to experience the other thing I would suggest is that whomever goes and I already expressed this to Carl and I think he
each agenda should have an item for an update on the budget working group because that allows us to not be sitting around waiting until January or February next year and finally receive the budget right and so to the extent we're getting reasonably I think Phil was doing those updates for you last year I watched them I
and the second component of that and you need to clear with Brian I have a copy of Brian's forecasting Excel workbook from last year and well it's not this committee's job to create the budget there's nothing that says this committee can't take Brian's forecasting model and to extent again we're trying to stay ahead of the curve we can at least a member is conversant in it can change some assumptions we could do it in a meeting live or whatever and we could see what happens so my view is between Carl and
updated each meeting it's possibly being conversant enough in the model the alternative to that is inviting Brian which I'm not saying you probably shouldn't be doing as well at a very early stage is inviting Brian Keveney he used to come to our meetings fairly regularly I don't know how many times he came last year but it's really his job to keep the finance committee in the loop and this year is going to be particularly complicated because of potential for overwrite so having said all that I'm again perfectly happy to volunteer for that role but again I don't want to deny anybody else who has the time and wants to do it to actually at least try to do it and if they're not able to deal with it
it a short okay you're going to Friday mornings yeah it's Friday you know when yeah it's Friday mornings Friday mornings well it has been I don't I haven't started yet last year it was but the finance director is to when he thinks he can get whoever he decides he's having on it no I just ask because what I'm hearing is probably you're planning on going right I'm hearing you say you've got the capacity to go as well I'm also hearing you say hey if anyone else new wants to take a turn at being there and I'm hearing probably two people formally and so the question is do I make a motion do we need to actually appoint someone do you want me to make
exactly there's nothing that you can't vote and what you could do is have two people other than me designated and then understanding that if Carl you couldn't happen to go to a meeting and Steve you're just getting up to speed Carl you could ask me can you go with Steve to the next meeting because I can't be there I have no issue stepping into it I don't know what the situation my only reservation about that is first of all I think continuity is important you have it right it's not nothing perfect and you know that model as well as anybody and so this would be great to get to know each other I I would I'm looking forward to that I just I feel like this might be a Brian thing if you don't mind this is a type of issue the chair should express himself or herself so do you want me to make a motion are we doing it to vote I don't object to vote I don't know why we really need one okay if we don't need it then I won't do it sounds great Brian and Carl thank you for spending the time doing that you're welcome will you be the lead on it Carl so you'll find out when Brian start meeting you do that I will do that and then I would suggest we defer the fire department staffing working group not because I agree with your note about it being important but until we maybe have more details about how frequently absolutely you know this so you thank us for doing this I
if we wait until we get a budget that's fully baked it's much tougher to make changes and to have our views reflected in there the one issue that I had when I first went on the fincom it was the chair and the vice chair so it
and Kelly was vice chair Kelly focused on capital Steve and Pam focused on the operating budget my concern at the time and I thought they all did a great job and I got along well with all of them was just when I watched fincom meetings in prior years it just wasn't clear to me how much transparency there was between whoever was going on behalf of fincom to those meetings and the rest
period is almost a fee to complete and I voiced myself in my very first meeting three or years ago to Pam and Steve saying I have a problem with getting a smaller group to move the thing along but this ultimately is a finance committee decision on the budget and that's when I
talk particularly when it's sensitive information about we might have to cut the budget and what positions and all that type of you can have that conversation in a working group but if you have that conversation here it's on
it's a very valid point so I think we can still bring back to this committee a lot of information and frankly it's all circular because we want to take your views back to the working group right it's not just a one way street all right appreciate that next item on the agenda is to come up with a meeting schedule for this year I look back at the various dates we met twice over the summer last year roughly twice a month from September through January and then twice a
time to to spread out the work of the year and so standard warrant articles where the language probably doesn't change much from year to year the numbers might but we could start and work through those we know they're coming and maybe even have the time with fresh eyes to decide whether what's in there is actually useful or helpful it can be shortened lengthened I hope it will be shortened but we could do that we I don't feel a burning need to start meeting
over the summer and people had different schedules anyway during summers but what do you think what do you guys want to do in terms of I like the cadence you just mentioned I agree about getting ahead of things and agree with me it's a little bit of using the time we have together in a slightly different way and I agree with the idea that maybe starting in September we come to some of those meetings with here are general warrant articles that always appear selling trading cars every year there's no reason potentially for us to add a bunch to that revolving funds there's so much that it's pretty general there will need to be tweaks but we should standard it seems like if there were seven of us I don't know how many of these we took the bucket called standard but if we each took three article or two over the month of September we could make a long way I think so and then I also wonder to be very honest if part of that process we have these standard articles if when it comes time and numbers have to be updated or particular details might have to be updated if that's something that we can offload and ask for help with so then we can actually focus on so like the revolving funds for example like the numbers change I can't change the article but are we then if we've created a standard article where basically in brackets there's just this changes this changes this changes
make those updates they send it to us and then we all just vote on it make sure it looks good I think that's right and we're jumping ahead a little bit but no that's absolutely fine I think that one way the town can help us is actually doing drafting of some of those articles not even the non-standard articles you know somebody can it doesn't have to be we have to the town code says basically we make a report doesn't say we have to draft it in the first place so I'm going to be looking for help from the town on a lot of this stuff so I think twice a month sounds great for the fall I think it
December 15th right end of the year so in anticipation of that it might be nice to get slightly more instead of jumping from twice a month to twice a week immediately it might be nice to have like maybe December or January a little bit more but otherwise I think that cadence for the fall at least feels right to me I don't know what you guys think I guess in my head I'm just trying to kind of rationalize it like you said against what is
the town about the override right like if that's something that we think is going to take a lot of time then I should probably start sooner rather than later right so I guess it feels like your decision is a little abstract without getting into like at this point in time this is what we need to accomplish and
so that we have them right that I can get done tomorrow I think by October the budget is cooking I mean we really should be seeing a lot of numbers and you know so I think well let's see thinking out loud it's what does the code say when are they supposed to deliver the budget December 31st I had originally thought it was the 15th but I think I got a date mixed up there's one unknown at the moment that's going to
which ballot and their initial recommendation from the finance director and town manager several weeks ago was encouraging the select board to consider getting that question on the November 5th state election ballot and the rationale for that is because 80% of the town voters show up as opposed to 10% in January or 10% next April and the select board wasn't clearly prepared to say yes or no to that but if the decision is made that that's the target the second thing everybody should be aware of because you haven't been through you sort of are on the fringes of it with a debt exclusion recommendation you made is that the select board has a policy that requires if the select board or another board or committee is asking the select board to put an override question on the ballot the select board first has to ask the finance committee to make a financial presentation to
they want to vote to put something on the ballot because they're the only ones that can do that and if they then vote to put something on the ballot the finance committee based on
they've been pretty in depth to your point if we knew they were planning to go on the ballot this committee really needs to start thinking about putting together the outline and ultimately the bare bone report knowing that we don't have the full budget information yet I'm sure there's a forecast and if they defer that until January special election it's maybe a month or two months more time we have but that presentation itself is going to require a large effort and I know it's coming it's just a question of when and so my view is this committee could designate one or two people to begin possibly start by looking at prior presentations that are buried in an archived folder on the fincom webpage and then take a fresh perspective and say okay if I was a member of the select board or the public what information would I
think about the public because I thought I heard you say this Carl at the meeting with the select board when I watched if a majority of this committee on whatever basis it has this opinion is resistant to an override or resistant to an override of the magnitude that's being discussed at the moment this committee should figure that out as
resist a certain level doesn't mean it won't happen or at a certain level I think this committee is best to figure that out quickly as you can so that's the fly in the ointment of setting up I guess so so then do we need weekly I think what I'm hearing is in terms of the work right we're trying to get ahead of the warrant around communication it's not just communication to the public but a tangible output we have to do the state of the state and why we needed and on top of that we have to do the budget review we need to be combing through the numbers and looking at the operational and the in which maybe two budgets right I guess of two operating budgets that's right because one if the override passes one if it does not I'm starting to pencil on milestones here which is how I think about this it sounds like the first realistic milestone we have is at some point the select board needs to vote on whether they want to put this on the November ballot which presumably needs to happen some amount of time before November in the next four or five weeks right so I guess that's kind of like if we need to make a
so I guess maybe I'm kind of so do we have any idea when we think they would be probably never say never but the sense of the select board and that's the phrase that Carol uses because they haven't taken any votes yet is that they cannot get that done for the November ballot that they
vote probably on at their September 8th meeting to put it on the ballot if there's going to be one again I don't want to presume that for the moment in January or February yeah we think they're voting on November 8th September 8th that's right probably and the only feedback that I
personal comment so take it for what it's worth many years ago I put in a petitioner's article the town meeting with respect to exclusion debt exclusion questions that they'd be put on presidential ballots presidential elections if there's one that is forthcoming because I felt it important to get the sense of as much of the voting public as you could versus putting it on the ballot in January when a lot of the senior citizens in Florida and while they can do absentee ballots just anticipated there would be a lesser turnout that petitioner's article failed the following year another person who thought that was a good idea petitioned it again and it failed again I happen to
great to get 80% of the public casting a vote because it's likely going to be more than a single year and I think one of the reasons that I heard the select board gave for wanting to possibly push it
statute that allows the town to put information on the ballot that's informative which we can't do right now and that won't be something the town can do until the attorney general has completed its review or failed to review within 75 days of town meetings approval and then it has to be posted twice newspaper so there's a good chance that they won't know if that's available to them much before the end of August and my sense was that was at least one reason I'm not sure they had a big discussion about it and if my view is if this committee again putting aside whether this committee is supportive of an override at all and not sure we have a basis on which to formulate that opinion if this committee was of the view that there's value to having the most number of voters in town vote on an override there's nothing that says we couldn't between now and September 8th if we came to that conclusion expressed that conclusion to the chair of the select board saying we're not saying we're recommending an override but we see value if it can be done in getting it done at the November election people around this table may say that's too much work can't be
saying go ahead Bill yeah I was just I mean it seems like we're getting the cart before the horse because I think I mean I guess if you put it on the ballot as a placeholder of but I don't think we'd be able to explain to
you know I kind of figured we were going to wait to see the budgets and discuss what cuts were necessary to not do an override and then say look it's really overwhelming I think we're going to need to do an override so I mean I guess one
year you need to reference covering more than one year I think your point Bill since I have not been a party to what the town manager and this other smaller group has been up to my sense is that they have concluded otherwise they wouldn't have gone to the select board I don't think to recommend both an override and doing in November that they
needed in the budget to avoid an override understand that the two or three things that the budget working group came up with last year that allowed the town to avoid having to do an override aren't available to
those numbers are probably in a sufficient form that after the first budget working group meeting I think maybe Bill's point was less the belief that there will need to be an override and more that when you're telling someone do you want to pay more in taxes they say no when you tell them do you want to pay more in taxes or have these
I have no basis on that this is true but I have to believe it's true based on where we got to last year and the things we did last year some of them are going to come back and double up in fiscal 28 like deferring issuing long term debt that got simply punted one year so we're going to get a double dose of levy debt fiscal 28 we don't have the highway department moving levy debt to excluded debt to rely on so those type of things so my expectation is
60 or 70 percent from the schools and 40 percent from the town and the schools would have to figure out where that would come from and either the town or the schools whatever portion of it will fall in personal not enough expenses you could eliminate and so again I'm not saying that I'm a fan I'm not saying that there aren't still places that the Fincom couldn't weigh in and say look we get it it appears an override is inevitable and it is I'm just telling you it is but we still think make the sell to the town there needs to be some sort of cuts that get made in combination with the override my sense is they have the finance director and town manager school superintendent have a set of macro numbers that they're prepared to offer up both to us and the select board and if they got the green light my sense is they would then work at hyperspeed to produce the two budgets and so you could then say to the public and by the way if this doesn't pass we got to lay off X number teachers Y number of police officers Z number of firefighters and oh by the way forget that study it's a call order no doubt but I have to is this something town manager former government I have to at least initially tilt toward the town manager saying he wouldn't have come forward if he wasn't prepared to be able and he may still make that case again I'm just saying we need to to your point obviously as soon as Carl can get his hands around what the secretary will be doing but if we have to wait till September 8th we're not going to be anywhere close to having a presentation we're going to have to do the presentation anyway that was going to be my point is the
is going to happen but again I think the presentation is going to be different depending on the inputs to it right the more detail there is in
overriding experience with other communities background information the types of things that all of us will be likely relying on to come to our own individual and then collective judgment it seems like the macro numbers are there right and if you scramble and get it on November maybe that's better than in January and then scramble after right I think I guess one thing is I don't think we are the ones doing as much of the scrambling can we just maybe like schedule a meeting and have Michael and tell them about all this I really am almost certain the members are the table they're not they're meeting the select board is meeting with the town manager and the finance director on August 17th that's a month from now and then the school committee on August 31st there is and I can't tell you I can't cite chapter and verse but there's some something has to happen by mid August that we can in order for us to even have a hope of putting this on a ballot finalized and in order to get this question on the state ballot there's a date in August that simple for so yeah it is a long time all I'm saying is if that were a possibility we'd have to work in hyper speed right lots of meetings it sounds like when you're saying Carl the
he he's of the view generally he likes a lot of towns just do them right before their town meeting as the town of Wayland did in the past he likes the concept of if you do it you know what the outcome of that vote was then you can do whatever you have to
there there's a little more time but not a whole lot yeah that's what I was thinking so I changed my recommendation I almost wonder if in the fall we really need and plan for that and if the agendas are looking really light at back but presentation I suspect will be significant we want to get ahead of the warrant and we'll be doing twice as many budgets I have a third reason to agree with you I mentioned the capital and plan committee by bylaw has to complete its recommendation issue a report to the town manager that's where it goes it doesn't go to the thing you get you can look at a copy but we're not directing it to you and that has by October 15th we failed miserably last year because we had our first meeting in September because we had to wait the attorney general to move the bylaw so my recommendation was going to be that and I'm happy as the agendas are put together to be the one helping you can all again if you have the time watch our meetings you can all read the minutes eventually when the report's produced you can read the report but I can also on each agenda carve out a piece of time there's no reason why we can't review first four out of five years of the five year capital plan because if the finance director has this way they're not going to
recommend and if we do hopefully a better job this year coordinating with finance director and town manager there won't be near the variances that occurred in pretty substantive ones last year so the capital budget could be well out of
it is unlikely that there are two versions of the capital budget given the override one in which capital projects occur on an expected timeline one in which perhaps they're more spread out to try to reduce the amount of
being discussed as to where they're going to appear and if they do appear as excluded debt which could be on the ballot next spring as well as the fiscal 28 anything that's in the fiscal 28 capital budget won't affect the operating budget fiscal 28 because the debt service pushed out a year so I'm not expecting a dual capital budget but I want to say it's not impossible that when they're looking around rather than personnel someone says oh we you know I just bring it up like if you think of you know if your personal income was cut you're going to you're going to slow down on capital expenditures right you're going to slow down
and I have hard copies of people didn't look at the charts slides that I sent out Carl's request the town did single year overrides back when I was on the board of select I had three of them then there's two after I left the board of of late in other communities I see people bundling them over two or three years and I think that's where the town manager and the finance director are leaning and one of the things I wanted to just we need to as we begin to talk about this whole override concept is what I've seen a couple other communities do is there's been a negotiated MOU memorandum of understanding between the select board the school committee the finance committee presumably the town manager administrator and finance director that if a multi-year override is passed it will you know people are going to live with the budgets that override request was made because what you don't want to do is ask so they actually went as far as creating multi-year MOUs which I happen to think is a good idea and so again my view is stuff like that to the extent we're aware other communities have done it and we think it would be helpful those are the kind of things that play a role saying if you want art support you're going to need to for a multi-year you're going to put something in writing that you're not going to do other than this right and it's a really good idea so anyway I you know again those of you that work I understand because I was there many years ago it is hard doing many meetings but I think given what I heard all of you do in your debrief after last year and understand it really was largely out of your
more frequently this committee could meet between now and December and get a lot of work done in all these areas the better off we'll all be mentally but that's because I have all the time in the world that can do that but it doesn't mean we all have to be at every meeting either right no it doesn't at all and I'm I'm fine with meetings I think there's a lot to be done there'll be a lot more this year than last year right are Mondays still preferable we've been doing that for years Brian you're going to have some conflicts right Monday should be fine absent us maybe having to meet
tape typically we haven't moved to meeting twice a week until much later I'll be off by October okay and I think again I would highly encourage you reach out to Brian Kevin and request that he make himself available perhaps a bit more and you need to put him on the agenda so that you can
and he works through the town staff later on Monday so the only issue with that is if he's got to go to a select board meeting there could be a conflict select board generally meets every other week I believe so we could certainly ask him on the off cycle we can also you know I mentioned those two dates the August 17th and 31st I don't know whether we've been formally invited to a joint meeting but they're certainly inviting us to be at those select board meetings so I can clarify that with Carol as well so I think we've worked up a consensus I think to certainly by fall meeting to be meeting weekly would it make sense to try to get Brian Kevin in here to talk to us in the next week two weeks just to hear directly from him what I'm trying to pencil in a spreadsheet over here is what we're actually going to be doing right and I think it would be helpful to get that perspective on what shape we realistically think the operating budgets are going to be in
whether there's probably a lot or not that said I would love to spread the meetings out so if we actually think we're going to have 90% of the capital budget in the middle of October start planning meetings to review the capital budget in October so if Brian could weigh in on how far down the budgeting process we're going to be at what point in the year that can inform this conversation of capital budget at the next meeting we could look at the first four years of the five year capital budget because I'm feeling pretty comfortable that 90% of it will be the same and while you looked at it last year I don't think you had that much information and what we're doing is we're asking for a capital program form to be filled out not just for the upcoming fiscal year but for every fiscal year in the five years which they haven't done before so within the next three or four weeks we should have Excel files that I'm happy to share with all the PINCOM members and you'll have all the requests that come in you'll have five year summaries we have the five year summary and so we could literally for the rest of you you can have the benefit of me walking you through and answering questions rather than have to drive Brian and Kevin in to ask questions we could do that prepper and we did that two years ago we spent the better part of September and October getting through most of the capital budget well before we saw the actual budget I just think so that could be done if people want to
person or persons and on the operating budget again my having seen the model from last year which I'm sure he just rolled forward we could if I share that with you we could talk about even though it won't have been updated with his latest thinking there's only a handful of numbers that are actually going to move around and he generally budgets very conservatively at the outset and so we could look at a budget and again I sent you all two slides one of which shows unused tax levy for 10 years right that hasn't changed and it's just going to get worse than what you're looking at the slide that I sent to you and so that could immediately have us start talking about philosophically how do each of us feel about overrides how do overrides we don't need Brian Keveney for that and again I'm happy to help us through that process I just don't want to wait myself until they start to deliver to your point Rob a bit more certain product because that's what happened last year right so we'll just wait wait you know we still have the health number and then you got jammed and you
we can meet with the school committee at any time which I don't know if you went to a school committee because they were in transition last year for the new finance director on their side so I just think there's lots of things it just depends on your appetite and we may have to multitask because I was going to say I'm looking at I'm sure you were too Rob right if you look at those three general pieces or maybe four right if you look at the general articles I think we could get after that immediately right so that could be like an August September August we identify the ones we want to do September we start going through them maybe by October they're done the capital budget we can also start going through by October 15th there's a recommendation certainly from SIPC to the town manager we could take that as 90% completion hopefully this year even more than that personally I'll say for myself last year the largeness of the disparity between the number that was originally reported by SIPC and what we originally then got from the town manager I think caused me great concern and part of that is because we put in the effort to stand up this process I would like
I appreciate there will always probably be some variability but not 40 50 60 so October 15 they are making their formal recommendation we probably could effectively be done I say that in air quotes but done by November done with that the PowerPoint I think we need to the point Brian was making we need to start combing through that maybe have a couple people take the lead on that of looking at what was previously documented and start putting slides together even if we don't have the numbers right it's slide header slide header here's how we sent this that can start immediately and then if that's going to go to the ballot maybe in January February if I've understood everything correctly like we would need to be making presentations in October November okay so and then the operating budget is the one thing that we could also get started on but I
moves forward for October November December January et cetera and then starting in January we look at the warrant articles that were non-standard and that we have to dole out and you be getting routine updates on the agenda from Carl and maybe about budget working group which is right not necessarily focusing on here the budget at least the higher level issues that are going to move the needle I would like weekly starting in September maybe a meeting at least one meeting certainly in August if not maybe two but I think that makes sense is everyone else okay with that yeah same weekly starting in September is August right and September weekly is that sound okay with you all what we're talking about here yeah Mondays are good okay the number of meetings you'll obviously you might have conflicts here or there but as long as we get a quorum I think the goal is we keep pushing forward I would think we're in the middle of July right now next meeting first Monday of August let's see two weeks is July 27 I was going to suggest August 3rd we could do August 3rd August 17th and maybe even the 31st of August since August we're going to go to those is that what you're suggesting I think Carl was suggesting maybe we do off Mondays from when the sun board is meeting got it okay all right so then if we're not going to do them every week then we can meet as often as we as we wish if if you didn't meeting Carl on the 27th with just some of the follow-up items in terms of the appointment like to the fire department staffing working group I mean if they're getting going I think we should get somebody on there quickly and maybe between now and then people could look at in the archive file on the FinCom website themselves and pick off a couple of the presentations that were made over the years and you just make it a little shorter meeting and then maybe do like the 10th and the 24th or something like that the third works for me and 7th 10th and 24th seems like a reasonable 27th of July two weeks basically every two weeks starting now 27th July 10th of August 24th of August and then we would start the 7th is Labor Day I'm assuming we would start weekly when exactly would we do a Wednesday that week or would we start weekly on the 14th I think we probably ought to try to is that one of your Wednesdays no I can do that Wednesday you probably ought to try for that Wednesday nice and then weekly on Mondays okay I'll reserve I'll get that reserved for us all you know going into that same schedule we had you available Robbie yeah okay so going through October right and then going going through the rest of the fall I think I mean or were you all thinking we would move to twice a week in
and for Carl's purpose and even into next year Carl getting a rooms book all the way I guess that's true and then maybe we can touch base and see how it's going in October November and see when we double up but I don't know I'm slightly hopeful for the minutes I'm going to reflect July 27th August 10th August 24th September 9th and then weekly thereafter starting on the 14th September and then in January we're still weekly for what the first couple weeks and then you go every Monday Wednesday or Monday Wednesday didn't happen until February I would suggest that we reconvene on that I don't think we could possibly accurately predict that I'll take it through December but we'll book rooms sounds like Wednesday starting in January speaking of timing I actually think I do need to run the whole other topic on the agenda is future topics for future meetings I think we've actually pretty well we're going to defer discussion on the 830 item I think we should include it on the next meeting there's a little more to be said around our role in reviewing the warrant and for our next meeting I can commit to doing a first pass at looking at the warrant articles from last year and
the plan agendas what do we think the agenda is at a high level for all of the meetings we just scheduled I can't start that personally before I look at the warrant articles I can take a stab at the agenda I
we want to talk about the standard articles about how many meetings that's going to take I think that's a discussion for next week yeah well I
I mean the online historical presentations for overrides ideally we all should but yes I'll do that all right and then I think there's an archive folder I took all the stuff that was all over the web page and I
I don't think they would have deleted unless somebody on this committee told them to delete it I'm sure nobody did that it's just that some of the links that you used to be able to help out if by chance you don't find two or three PowerPoint presentations in there again we haven't an operating override since 2009 so I don't believe you're going to find any of those PowerPoint presentations back then what you will find are similar presentations for excluded debt questions but it was the same concept to pair something for the select board so and I'll look at my historic files that I kept I don't think I don't think I have anything from the override years I do have one which might be helpful background for members Alan Reese who was a select board member 2008 or 9 just before one of the overrides could have been a debt exclusion did a PowerPoint presentation just on the concept of overrides and I thought it was pretty helpful so I'm going to send that to you Carl you can look at it and one of the things I did get accused of when I was on FinCon and now in the Sipsy is that I tended to overwhelm people with things that I
other possibility if we can't find something is Pam Roman I suspect probably kept I think she had to put together a couple of these with Bill Steinberg for the debt exclusion questions so my thought was again we may have a totally different view of what helpful information but why recreate the templates and things of that nature and if it's just a
lot of data on peer communities and things of that nature there was a fair amount of that type of data that was in these presentations so anyway if you
Carl is I vote yes Iris is Satish yes yes Bill yes awesome I'm zero unanimous by roll call thank thank you