June 16, 2026 – Board of Public Works – Video & Transcript
June 16, 2026 - Board of Public Works
Welcome to tonight's Board of Public Works meeting.
It's June 16th, 2026, 6.02 p.m. now.
Our meeting is being conducted via remote access only via Zoom.
Let me see. This meeting, I believe, is being recorded and will be available later on WACAM.
Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, we're conducting this meeting remotely. In accordance with the applicable law, there is no in-person attendance tonight.
There was a meeting link available in our agenda, available to the public, I believe, three days prior to the meeting. Let's see.
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, well, I'm sorry, remotely as applicable and will have that public comment coming up. And it should be limited to two minutes per person. We have an agenda that's been posted. And with that, we'll conduct a call to order. Let's see. We're joined by Tom Holder, DPW Director, Carol Martin, our Select Board Chair and Liaison. And who else do we have attending? And Matt Abrahams, Don Millett, our Water Superintendent, Joe Doucette, our Highway and Parks, assistant superintendent or assistant director, and Matt Abrahams, who is our Water Enterprise Fund financial consultant. So in terms of roll call, Judy? Yeah. Great. Mike Spelman? Yeah. John Storer? Yeah. Great. And Ed Chang, who is, I think, listed as Julie here. Ed, can you just raise your hand or say here?
Can you hear us, Ed? The audio was working earlier. He did it. He did it. Just as you said, roll call before it was you called on him. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Great. All right. So any announcements, Tom? Staff have none.
Any board members or liaisons have any announcements?
Okay. I have no announcements. So hearing none, we can move to public comment. Let me see. We do have two folks with their hands raised. So it looks like I am the host. Okay. So I will promote Bonnie Marion. Great. And for anyone with public comment, please just say your street name, your name and street name. Hello, everyone. This is Bonnie Marion. And I live on Hazelbrook Lane. Just here to make a public comment regarding a past letter on concerns about dust on the Hazelbrook Lane and Lincoln Road. We, I know, have been in correspondence through email and are happy to be on the agenda tonight. Wanted to say that the calcium chloride application has worked great. That happened about two weeks ago and there's been almost no dust on the road. So that has been great. And just here interested to hear kind of the, any findings you've had about what materials have been used in the past and what's currently being used. Um, I did hear from Joe today and, um, got a little more information on, um, kind of the material spec and what's being used and want to understand if that's, um, appropriate for a top layer and what the plans are for kind of short-term and long-term management of the road. So thanks all for, um, asking the agenda here today. I understand today's agenda item is more for board discussion, but, um, happy to hear what, what's going to be said. Great. Uh, yeah. Thank you for your comments and the update on the, um, findings from the application from your standpoint. Um, and yes, we're, we're looking for an update tonight and we'll have a board discussion at that point. Um, it looks like we do have another person with a hand raised, just initials, KC. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. Um, this is Kim Cook from Lincoln Road and, um, I'm calling on the same topic. I noticed that you had a discussion scheduled for 725 on Hazel Brook Lane and Lincoln Road and the road dust and the calcium chloride is a good short-term solution. Um, but I really wanted to focus in on one thing when you have the discussion and clear up some, um, uh, inaccurate information and, and maybe, um, help you guys guide, um, Mr. Doucette a little bit and, um, and hopefully this will guide your discussion more. Um, uh, the, there's a difference between a spec and a report on a lot of material. Um, Briggs Engineering, uh, gave the town, um, in fact, their laboratory supervisor, Shang Chen, um, provided what was called a, um, a test report. And it was on a lot of material of this, uh, um, mass dot M one dot O three dot one processed gravel for sub base for actually a lot of material that was being delivered to the Boston public works department in Boston. So that wasn't even our pile of, um, uh, gravel and, um, this gravel, as you guys have heard from us, it's, uh, this process gravel for sub base, 50% of it comes from demolition, comes from demolition of concrete, um, garages and, and other, um, pavement, old roads, you name it. Um, this, um, mister, I spoke directly with Mr. Shen Chen. I don't know. Cheng Chen, S H E N G S H E N. Um, I don't know if any of you have, but he said that this material is absolutely inappropriate to be put on top of a dirt road. It only belongs under, under road, road surfaces, be them, uh, asphalt or concrete. He also confirmed for me that this is a test report for a lot of material and how it was conducted for, not even for the material that was delivered to our town. That's a test report on material. It's very different from a spec, a spec provides, and I'm assuming some of you were in engineering and in construction, it provides ranges of things for this particular stuff that Joe, um, you said is, is quoting, uh, that we're getting the M dot M one. Oh, three dot one. It is up to 50% is recycled concrete aggregate and up to 5% can be asked, recycled asphalt pavement RAP and the recycled concrete aggregate is RCA. These two items are, yes, I'll wrap it up. These two items are what creates respirable crystalline silica, which gets into your lungs can cause cancer and it doesn't go out of your lungs. It's so fine. And, um, that's why the neighbors are very, very concerned. Um, you know, the short term application that we're starting to see some dust, uh, germinate as cars go by. So very short term, but what I want to ask of you is please promise that you're not going to put any more of this toxic material on Lincoln road or hazel book plane, and that we're going to, um, keep putting the calcium chloride down until we come up with a better solution and buy gravel that's, that's, that's, um, safe, safe for people in the neighborhood. Thank you so much. Have a good night. Thank you. You too. Okay. Do we have any other comments?
I see one more. Janet Haspel. Okay. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. Um, yes, I've lived on Hazelbrook since 1994. And so just to representing, um, the street and, and hopefully we can come to a long-term solution for what's appropriate for the road. We've raised our concerns about the dust and also possibly it not being a healthy solution. We're looking, you know, towards the future at this point and hoping to come up with something that we better understand what's going on. And also I would just add, I would, I don't have any idea after 30 years, I probably should like, when, when is this decision made to actually fill the road? Is it done on a regular schedule? Is it done based on, on, um, neighbors calling? We've, none of us really know, but to look towards, you know, sort of a more planned execution of it. We know when it's happening. We have some information regarding what it, what's being put down, um, and what the short, you know, what the long-term plan is to continue to service this scenic road. Um, thank, thank you. Great. Thank you.
Okay.
Any other comments?
That's all I see. Okay. Great. All right. That's all good information to have for our discussion later. All right. Um, so with that, we'll move on to the water enterprise financials, fiscal year, 27 rates. And as mentioned, we have Matt Abrahams here, uh, from the Abraham, Abraham's group, um, uh, who's, uh, for the past several years now has helped us prepare the model, um, from which we look at several scenarios and then come up with and vote on water rates, um, but not before having an open hearing, which we'll have, I believe it's next week, Tom. Next Tuesday night. Next Tuesday. Yeah. So we're not setting, uh, rates tonight. We'll set rates after we have that hearing and get public input. Um, but tonight we get to play with the model a little bit and maybe get closer to, um, having those rates. Tom, we might, I'm not sure if you're the host. We might need to de-promote some of the folks. Uh, uh, so I see Matt is a, uh, a panelist, so he just has to, uh, what I'm saying is de-promote some of the folks that were here for public comment. If you know how to do that, if not, and it might jeopardize our situation here. Yeah, we have that happening here. I think I've, I think I've muted them. Okay. I still see them here, which is, that's fine. But I think we're, I would be afraid to do anything more because we might lose them. Um, and then I know people had a difficult time getting back on the last time that happened. Yes. All right. All right, Matt. So, um, I'm assuming that you'll share your screen and, uh, we'll start walking through the model with some scenarios. And I, I've, I have one scenario that I'd like to present unless someone else would like to start with their scenario.
Um, Matt, are you there? Oh yeah. I was just waiting to see if anyone responded to that. Okay.
Okay. So, Mr. Chairman, where would you like to start? I guess maybe the question should be, is there anything that, that you feel like we should review prior to playing around with the model, as you mentioned? Well, I think at this point you've loaded in the updated projections for revenue, the updated projections for the additional MWRA water that we've had to purchase now that we're on our third emergency, um, uh, connection usage. Um, is there anything else to be updated or, uh, I mean, we got this just recently, so I'm assuming this is the very latest and greatest. Yes, it is. Okay. Okay. Okay. So that allows us to begin playing around with, uh, scenarios. Um, as I mentioned, I have one, um, that I'd like to, um, um, present to the board, but I'm also open if others have one that they'd like to start with.
Okay. Well, I'll take the silence as, um, I can, we'll move ahead with at least my initial scenario. Um, go to the bottom of the spreadsheet so we can, can you go down a little more? Um, Matt. Yeah, I'm listening. Where would you like to go? Uh, so I just want to go to the bottom line. So the current projection is a negative two. Let's just say rounding up to 234. Correct? Yes. Yes. So that's, that's what we're currently projecting for FY26. Um, it assumes that the full budget is spent for FY26. And also, um, we're still, I think there's still going to be a discussion on where we think the water meter charges will end up for FY26. I think that my projection in here is slightly understated. Um, so it's possible that this projection deep, this projected deficit decreases after we get a little bit more comfortable. Um, so I just wanted to make those comments. So this 234 is our current projected deficit for FY26. Again, it assumes the full spending of the budget, which may not happen, but considering the contingency expenses that have happened this year, maybe it will. Um, and then also I think our revenue numbers are slightly understated. Um, we're just struggling to get comfortable with them because there's a lot of balls in the air, so to speak. Um, you got the new meters in place. You got, um, the, the quarterly billing transition took, uh, just recently took place. Um, so getting comfortable with the timing of all that has been a little bit trickier than projecting this in past years. Um, so hopefully we get comfortable, but for now, I thought it was best to keep that just slightly understated. Um, so that's what we're using for now. So when you see this next week, it might look slightly different, but that's what we have in there for now. Thank you. So second question, line 58, the 310, that's the latest and greatest in the MWRA bill. Is that correct? Yeah. Okay. So if you look up here in the formula bar, um, there are three things that make up this number. The first number is a $57,000 number. And I have that information. Hang on. Um, it's for interest on temporary loans that were not in the budget. So that's not even related to the MWRA water usage. Okay. Um, but that was something that, um, when we first started working, working on the model for this year, we identified as something that needed to go on the contingency line. Um, and then the other two numbers are related to the MWRA water. The first number being the 227,000, actually it's more like $228,000 that has been known for some time, as well as the recent bill that was about $25,000. So my question, and maybe this isn't the right time to ask, but you do have an MWRA water purchase dollar on line 56. Should that be broken out so that it goes there instead of line 58 or is that for future? Yeah, that's more for future because that's not part of your current budget. So this, this row was meant to represent what the MWRA will charge you for water going for once you're connected. Once you're connected, I'm like, you know, as a member rather than your temporary connection. I see. Okay. Um, so because you're not there yet, we're just holding, um, any expenses related to that in the contingency line. We just thought that it made the most sense to do it that way. Okay. Um, because that is a current budget line item that you have. Okay. Thank you. But whether we put on the other line or leave it there, it's going to have the same impact on the bottom line. Yep. All right, Mike, take it away. Those are good questions because the, you know, the, we, we have kind of an actual for the contingency fund. We typically, uh, come in under budget on the general expenses. Um, and, you know, if we're assuming full, fully spending the budget this year, which is unusual, we don't typically do that, not including contingency, um, that seems a little conservative on the expense side. Um, unless Matt, you're, you're thinking that we are going to spend all those line items in our standard expenses and our standard expenses other than contingency. Are you feeling, are you projecting that we're going to reach our budgeted amounts for those? I might be able to answer that better. Um, so right now we have about $242,000, uh, of encumbrances in our expense lines and in working with Don, uh, a majority of those, um, encumbrances are spread over three line items, uh, chemicals, contracted services, and repairs and maintenance. And I can, if, if, you know, people want to see this later on, when I bring up the year to date reports, it's on our agenda, you'll see some of these things, but, um, we are thinking that we are likely going to spend much of those encumbrances. And so to answer the question, it is likely that we would be spending, uh, the budgeted, uh, amount. And in the next couple of weeks. Also Tom chemicals as well, um, you know, both the chemicals and electricity may come a little bit under what's encumbered, but it's, you know, we still have a month and a half left. Um, so that's four or five more chemical deliveries. So, um, it's, it's probably going to be right, right there. Yeah. We will receive invoices up into July for encumbered, um, you know, assigned, assigned, uh, costs, assigned expenses. So that's why we're, even though we've only got a couple of weeks left in the fiscal year, we still will receive, um, invoices for services and for commodities that we've actually already used. So how much does the pool owe us?
It's in the order of magnitude of, uh, it's north of 10,000. Oh, okay. So, uh, but, but if you say four to five deliveries and, and, uh, over the next six weeks and we have about two weeks left here and we're a cash basis, I would have think two of those deliveries to maybe three will fall in fiscal year 26. The others will fall into fifth fiscal year 27. You're correct, Mike. I, I'm, I was off on my, uh, I, you're right. We only have two weeks left. So, so roughly, you know, probably two more chemical deliveries. Um, and, uh, I can get a better handle on that from the board, uh, tomorrow morning. Okay. So all I'm saying is it sounds like we're going to come in under budget on our standard expenses or over budget on our contingency expense, but, um, it, it, it sounds like we have some room there. Um, so again, I think we're, we're being conservative if we're saying that we're going to spend the entire budget, um, from the standard expenses. Okay.
Anyone else with questions?
Okay. All right. Um, this first one might be a little controversial with Judy. Um, but what I'd like to do is, um, in L7, and I've, I've already shared these with Matt. So I think he kind of knows what we're doing, uh, or what I'm wanting to look at for one scenario. Um, I'd like to take that average. Um, originally I wanted to include 2018. Um, but I don't think we need to do that, but if we can just assume a 3% increase from the water meters now that they're all in, um, just for the, uh, fiscal year 27, L7 through L10, that wouldn't include river's edge because they already had new meters. Um, but I, I think, um, all the reports that we've read tell us that we should see a 12% increase based on, on new meters, a 12% increase in recording of water. Um, I know we haven't yet seen that and it's hard to tell because it really depends on if people are using water as, as they did last year, then it would, uh, we'd see that increase. Um, but now that all the water meters are in, I think, uh, seeing a 3% increase for this coming year, because we didn't see that increase yet this year, um, I think is somewhat conservative and we can come back to this at the end of, of the, um, scenario.
Okay. So which years would you like me to include then? Uh, let's, let's just include the, the same years that we have included 2018. We, we excluded 2021 because that's an anomaly for some reason we haven't included 2018 in the past. Um, maybe because that we're including just the prior five years. Um, it, maybe that was the idea. So let's just stick with the same years, 2019, 20, 22, 23, 24, and 25, I think. So when we did this last year, we didn't know what the actuals for 25 were. So, um, I defaulted this formula to be what we used last year. So it wouldn't have included 25 because we didn't know them at the time. Okay. But we can add it if you feel like that's the right call. Is, is 2025 a solid, a solid number at this time? Yeah. 2025 is actually what was billed in FY25. Yes. Then we should include it. I think. Yeah. Yeah. So let's add that one in that.
And then you want to inflate it by 3%. Yes. Okay. And then I'm going to give you some funky numbers for percentages of increases by tier. And let's just say at the outset, we've got a lot more expense this year, um, mainly in the, uh, in the debt category. So, um, so our, our rates are going up quite a bit this year. They're going to have to. Um, so let me, uh, give you some kind of funky percentages because I'm kind of trying to get us to some, uh, more standardized numbers on the rates. So for tier one, 28.9% increase, uh, for tier two, 34.8 for tier three, 35.4 and for tier four, 23.8. And then I left, uh, the PFOS remediation charge surcharge the same at 7.5%. 5% of the total water bill. And then suggest an increase to, since we're billing quarterly to $25 quarterly, which would be a hundred dollars annually. Okay. And if you, uh, scroll down a little bit, you'll see that that moves our rates to $8, $11.50, $14 and $22. And if we move down a little bit further, we can see this, um, looks like it would yield, uh, an ending balance of about $1,084, 938. Did we put 300 in line 58 since we are buying water and emergency times now? That's from this year. So that's already deducted from this year's expenses in the model. Oh, but maybe she's saying that is it necessary to assume a similar expense for 27? I don't want to put words in your mouth, Judy, but is that what you're asking? I think what you said made more sense than what I said. So we had to buy water from MWRA this year. I assume we have to buy it next year too. Well, this year we had three emergencies. Um, and, and one of those, uh, we reconstructed the piping for our PFAS treatment at Happy Hollow. So I expect that we'll have no emergencies there. Um, and we've made improvements using, using those funds. Um, I'm not saying that we won't have any emergencies, but I would think that our, our, uh, systems are now improved and we're at less risk. So the 310 number was made up of three things. Two of them were buying water from MWRA and the third one was debt. Am I correct? Interest on, interest on temporary loans that were not part of the budget. Okay. So I would feel more comfortable if we don't leave that line blank. That's what I'm trying to say. Line 58. Yeah. So, um, just so board members are aware when this model was built this way, the reason why it's in yellow was because, um, it was considered an input. And when I say it, I'm talking about the contingency line. Um, in other words, if you think it would be part of the budget for FY27, there should be a number here. If it's zero, that means we're assuming nothing contingency. Tom, what do you think? It is true that we have new pipe work at Happy Hollow, but none of that equipment, uh, in that temporary treatment system is getting any younger. Baldwin Pond has been regularly giving us trouble where we've had to take it offline as recently as last week. So if I were a betting man and knowing that equipment is not getting any younger and we regularly experience malfunctions and equipment shutdown, I would plan on using MWRE water a number of times in FY27. Well, it would be a good number. I mean, everything's a guess. We budget 200. All right. So should we put 200 there then?
Judy. So this gets back to the reason we have the contingency line item. It's, um, it's to allow us to use our emergency funds, which are our retained earnings in case of emergency. Um, we can always, next year, if we do use those funds, target, uh, recovering those in, in updating our target. But what, to what degree do we want to start predicting emergencies? We have an emergency rainy day fund, which is our retained earnings. Um, in this, this scenario that I'm proposing, we would be ending the year at a little over about 1.1 million. If we do have some emergencies, we would use a portion of that to cover those emergencies, uh, which is what it's intended for. So Matt, what would you suggest? Sorry. I would be more comfortable if, if there was a number in there, if you think it might be spent, but that's me. Well, what's, what's in the, actually, let me ask you a different way. Your 27 budget is, is set, right? So is there anything for contingency in there now? 200. Well, and in our line items, our standard line items, we typically do not fully spend our typical standard line item budgets. This year we're coming close because we spent a lot in terms of, um, so this contingency line includes the MWRA water. Correct me if I'm wrong, Tom, but all of the expenses and repairs were covered under our standard budget. So that's why we're close to hitting our standard budget. Right. And that's, that's why the times that we're living in now are different than the times several years ago. Um, we just continue to experience failures today alone. Don can probably tell you the price of this switch up at the, uh, Reeves Hill booster station. Um, we're currently operating on auxiliary power because, uh, an electrical switch failed and we weren't able to, um, use grid power. You know, so it's those types of things that the system is pretty, uh, I don't want to say complex. I mean, it's a small town and it's, it's a pretty standard water system, but there are many components that are getting older that are failing that we can't predict. Um, so our historic ability to underspend our expense lines, those days may be over. You know, the one thing that's really a safety net is, you know, when speaking with Brian Keveney over the last, uh, several weeks, you know, in knowing that it may be likely that we actually overspend our FY 26 budget, since we do have a relatively healthy fund balance, that fund balance will fill that gap. It will fill that overage on expenses. You know, so we do know that we have that ability. So it is a bit of a safety net. It's just whether or not you want to plan to fill a contingency line and knowing that these times are, you know, we're regularly making unanticipated repairs, or do you leave it blank and rely on using a fund balance at the end of FY 27 as a safety net? Well, I'm not saying we're relying on using it. Uh, because, uh, as we just went through, it sounds like we're going to come in, even with all the issues we had this year, all of those issues, we're still looking like our standard budget will come in under our standard budget items. We have 242k left and two weeks left. So even with all those expenses, there's some contingency, it seems to me, within the line items of the standard budget are ready. And this contingency fund, uh, line item is really for those, um, is really as a means to access our rainy day funds. So from the beginning, we coupled the retained earnings expense with, um, funding from retained earnings, specifically to allow that usage. Anyways, uh, so, and it sounds like we're, we're being a little bit conservative in terms of what our projected revenue is this year. And it's understated slightly is the comment or, or maybe, um, that said, what do you propose, Judy? So what is the average of 21, 22, 23, 25, and I guess 26? I just want to know what the average is for that. Well, for many years, we didn't even use the contingency. Right. Yeah. Just staring at it right now. What is the average there? If you average those five years, you're at a hundred, just under 143,000. So I have a couple of suggestions. I would feel more comfortable. We had some money in this line because, um, every time we access the emergency connection to MWRA, the rate of the water they charges goes up. Right, Tom? Yes. Yeah. So it's only going to, we cannot predict when things break down and, but we can know that what we have to buy from MWRA is going to cost more. So that's why I would feel more comfortable if we put something into line 58. Um, is it 58? Yeah. So maybe let's, let's just say 50,000. If you have 50,000, which is eyeballing it pretty low, it's certainly half of the average. Okay. We're looking at scenarios here. So let's, uh, let's add that in. Um, so that would bring us to actually, I think that subtracted, um, oh, I see. No, it did subtract, but that's what it's supposed to do. Okay. Correct. So our retained earnings would still be a little over a million. Now, is it likely that that 3% will happen or is that, is that, is that a safe bet is my question? Well, we don't know. I, I, I mean, all of the reports that we've read, staff has advised us that 12% is what can be expected from new water meters. They'll record 12% more water going through. Um, we use 6% last year. It doesn't look like we've seen that, but then again, we didn't have the meters in at the beginning of the year. This year we'll have all of the meters in, uh, at the beginning of the year. Um, and it, it's, it's something that's a little difficult to gauge because people use water differently every year. So it's a little bit of a moving target. If they use the same amount of water each year, then we could say, yes, it's worked. Yes, it is increased, uh, the readings or no, it hasn't because the, uh, usage varies. It's hard to tell. If we increase the $100 a year to $25 per quarter to 30, how much of a difference? So it'd be $120 for the year. How much of a difference would that make to the bottom line?
Let's try. I'm just writing down the number now so we can compare it. Well, I guess we could look at the bottom line number, but okay. So you're saying $30 per quarter? Yeah.
So that was a difference of six, three, three, six, um, 107,000.
So I know you guys have heard me talk about this, which is I worry that as rates go up, people use less water. Um, and therefore having the standard dollar amount go from currently 15 to 25 is good. And I'm just hedging a little in case the 3% doesn't happen. You know what I mean?
That's, um, quite an increase, a 50% increase for that. Yes. But okay.
I'm worried about the, uh, visual, uh, I'm worried about that percentage, but also that,
um, that it's going to hit hardest for that, those folks that use the least amount of water. So the percentage increase is going to hit folks who use the least amount of water harder, the low use folks. Right. But you're still talking about, you're still talking about 15 bucks difference, right? To go from $25 to, well, to go from 15 to, to dollars to $30. No, it's from 15 to 25 was $10. It's 20. Right. Yeah. It's a $20. Yeah. And then now we're talking going from 15 to 30, which doubles it. You're right. But you're still talking about a $15 difference, which is $5 a month, even if though it's hitting the people who use the least. Well, and, and by that, I'm trying to say that it's also hitting the folks that are likely on fixed incomes. So yeah. So that's, that's my comment there. I'd like to try to keep things affordable for everyone if as much as possible, but you're right. I mean, it's only $20 for a year. So we have people that ask for small bags at the transfer station because they don't want to use the 14 gallon bags. So to save money. So, okay. Any other thoughts or comments, John, Mike, Ed? I'm nothing, nothing here other than I, I think I'd rather see the 3% in and, and keep the 50,000 as part of our contingency expenses. I understand exactly what you're saying, Judy, but I, I think we're, if we go conservative across the board, we're going to end up with huge water rate increase. I think we, we have to use common sense and just average things out in, for the majority of this.
And just remember this is annual, so we don't always get it right. Exactly. And we'll be here 12 months. Uh, and we can adjust for, you know, it, and we have, it's such a, such a, um, difficult thing to try and predict usage over the year, weather patterns and all, and such. So, um, John or Ed? Okay. Okay. Do we have any other, um, comments on water model? Again, we're, we're going to have our water hearing coming up next week. We'll hear from the public, their comments. Um, and then we can, uh, kind of work to finalize the rates. Mr. Chair, may I ask one question? Yes. Thank you. Carol Martin. Thank you. Carol Martin, um, Lake Road, um, member of the select board. I think we better ask, I don't know if Matt would know this, but we should ask Brian. Somehow this is buzzing in my head. I believe when we vote the enterprise funds articles, we vote a revenue, um, amount. And I think that the budgets have to match that. Should you raise more than that? That's a different story. But so for example, we voted at town meeting for you to have a 6.2, 4, 6, 3, 5, 2 budget. And I see this with this model that we could currently, we're looking at 6, 3, 3, 6. I don't disagree that you probably should raise that. I think we should just confirm with Brian that it's okay for us to establish rates that generate on greater revenue than was approved at town meeting. Well, in, in meeting with DOR, uh, myself, they're, they're happy as long as our expenses are managed to our revenue. Right. I just think we should check with, cause we voted this at town meeting and I think the select board recommends a revenue at what they call an expense limit. Um, and I think that's how the article is just food, good thing to follow up on and find out if we can do the model that way. And then I think on this model that you're looking at right now, assuming we can raise the 6, 3, you would still have about a 20% on the retained earnings, which is the target. So that's also good because the 6 million would be one too. Yeah. And again, that I'll say it again and again, this is just a projection. We have no idea what's going to happen. We don't even know yet what's going to happen this year. We may come up with an extra 150,000 in our retained earnings, right? Right. Because we, we spend less and we get more revenue. So we may end up with 200,000 more than we're looking at here. So, um, you know, we do the best we can. And, uh, my question might be one for Matt to follow up with Brian on, and I'm just make sure we we're going page 20. All right. Page 23. So, uh, let's move on to thank you. Uh, thank you. Uh, let's move on to the review of actual expense, uh, expenses and revenue first budget based on percent of year completed. If, if you don't mind, can we, can we just have Matt scroll the spreadsheet? I just want to see the tiered rate, you know, the, uh, there we go. Yeah. I just wanted to see that. Okay. Sounds good. So that's for the time being or whatever, that's what we're going to, um, consider for next Tuesday and, and tinker around a little bit more with some new information that Matt gets. Sounds good. Got it. All right. And you'll, you'll send this out before, the hearing, Matt, the updated one, once we've it updated. Yeah. As long as we, we do end up updating it, but yes. Okay. Sounds good. Awesome. Thank you. Sure. Okay. So, Tom, I think you're up on this one. Yep. Thank you, Matt. Thanks, Matt. All righty. I will attempt to share my screen.
Bear with me here. All righty. So, in the packet and on the screen are what we call our year to date budget figures. And this, these figures were created on June 10th. So 95% of the year complete. And you can see from the tabs, as I scroll down here with my cursor, it's the DPW transfer station, water and engineering. Those are the four budgets that we maintain in public works. So what we do really on a biweekly basis is take a look at where we are in our spending trends, see what we have for encumbrances, see what our balance percent of the year use compared to a percent of the value used based upon the completion of the year. And not all expenses are linear. Many are seasonal. So we take that into account. And, you know, you can see that, you know, we have some overages, some under expense. We, this is a bottom line budget. So we thankfully have the ability to overspend some while we underspend others, just to make sure it balances out. And in DPW, we're all very comfortable staff are comfortable with the way that things are, are wrapping up here in FY26.
I've got really nothing too much to, to highlight on the, the public works side, you will see, you know, in snow and ice, I'm circling a 614,000 deficit spend that we had this particular year in snow and ice. And the finance team has worked with department heads throughout town. And they have compiled accounts that can assist with paying this off. So we are, we're able to make this whole. So highway looks like it came, it'll come in around, we're not quite sure yet, but around 200,000 less, less than budget highway, uh, row 29 highway expense total. Yeah. So 231, um, that's what the encumbrances. Yes. Yep. At 95%. Okay. That is indeed the case. So I can go through the other ones. If, uh, the board is agreeable transfer station, um, you know, on, on, on the enterprise funds, we have expense lines, and then we also have below, we have the revenue as well. Um, but you can see, we're actually, uh, we're doing okay in the, uh, expense line for transfer station.
The one thing that, uh, as I review this is that I see, um, you know, the FY 26, the revenue is, uh, quite healthy, but on June 10th, um, we are, and this is the way this always works. We talk about it every year is that, uh, uh, you know, in June, we obtain revenue from the sale of stickers for the following season, the following fiscal year. So some of, some of this sticker revenue, um, is actually, you know, four stickers that are sold for FY 27. And you can see, we have the $50,000, uh, that we have transferred in. And with that, you'll see about a similar, but
depending upon, you know, what kind of a finance person looks at this, this figure is part of the FY 27, really, you know, income, which would offset, this would cause us to come a little bit lower, but, um, that's where we stand on transfer station. What's the typical number in terms of revenue in, in June that's applied to the following year? So I spoke with Anita late last week, and, uh, it looked like it was around 55,000 was what we had taken in, in those first couple of weeks, you know, so, um, you know, so it might be around 210 would be, you know, if you wanted to try to compare and keep it within the same fiscal year. So it would, it would, you know, it would almost offset depending upon how you look at it this, this figure here. Got it. So it's kind of on target is how I would describe it. Scroll over to water. This is what we just got done. Speaking of, uh, the $241,000 in encumbrances that we're speaking of, um, what, there's the $57,000, Judy, that was an interest on temporary loans that was not budgeted. So we have that in here now. And then what we also have to include is this, um, indirects 486 and change, and then the OPEB. So our, these are my little notes. It's, it's actually not in your packet. I was just really preparing for today. If we were to spend the $241,000, we would have 125, $121,000 in an expense overage. And, um, just kind of gives you a sense of, of, of where I was at least worst case scenario. So all of these include the encumbrances and they're not the actuals. So the, the only, so the balances, some items we encumber funds for some items we don't, um, you know, so, um, the balance is with the, uh, they include the encumbrances.
Okay. So the, you know, obviously an encumbrance, sorry, if I'm stating the obvious is that this, these are monies that we actually preserve and we open our purchase orders to make sure that we have enough to get us to the end of the fiscal year. So they're, they're funds that may not be spent. Uh, they're just encumbered. So just like the chemical deliveries, we'll probably have two more instead of five more that, that would use up the encumbered for that line item. And then we also have invoices that we have not yet received on chemical deliveries. Um, you know, so it's, and, and we work very closely with the treasurer department, um, you know, in, in posting, you know, all of these payments and posting all of the revenue. So, uh, this was put together June 10th and, you know, so there's a little bit of, there's a lot of activity, a lot of money coming in, a lot of money going out next to the schools. This is the second largest budget the town has. Yeah. Great. And then the small one is, uh, engineering. And what you'll see is that, uh, you know, the, the biggest disparity here is contractual services. Um, we worked with the finance group, um, on trying to predict what we're going to have, uh, contracted services. And the reason that this year, uh, it's much higher than budgeted was the fact that, um, we are now including the GIS, the Esri platform, uh, near maps, which is our, um, a 3D GIS platform that we utilize as well as our AutoCAD licenses for our town surveyor. So all of those now come out of that year to date, uh, in contractual services. So that's why you're going to see a tremendous increase, uh, in that. And then that's offset by some of the underages that we have. You know, we work, we work hard to, to offset these things. So we are, we are in good shape with engineering as well. Great. Great. And that's what, uh, yeah, that's what things look like. We, uh, we work on this, you know, throughout the year, as the year and gets closer, you know, we're, we're doing it a lot more frequently. Looks good. Any questions? Uh, any of the board members? Um, yeah, this helps and vehicle gasoline year to date spend, you haven't spent any money on gas. So we have a system, it's called WEX, W E X. So yes, we have actually spent, uh, uh, money on vehicle gasoline. We've got, we've got four or five vehicles. Um, we have a real tough time with this company. Uh, it's, it's one of these situations where there's such a large group. They actually have my predecessor down as being the director, um, having a, um, business manager that hasn't been here in six years. And we've, I guess the point I'm making, it's really difficult to, uh, we actually reconcile all of this year end using journal entries, but the card system, the way it works is that every vehicle has a gas card. And when they pull up to a service station anywhere in and around Wayland that has that WEX system, they use that card and trying to work with that WEX system to have that card properly assigned to that vehicle is it's difficult. So, um, we know where the gas goes and this will all be reconciled. Okay. Yeah. I figured as much. Yeah. I, I looked at that and noticed that makes no sense whatsoever. Say one more time, Sean, I'm having a hard time. Is the diesel fuel?
I think he's asking if diesel fuel is included under gasoline. Yes. Yes. Engineering, engineering doesn't have, um, a diesel unit, but, uh, uh, in highway and water, um, the diesel included in that line item. Yes. Okay. Great. All right. I will stop sharing. Thanks, Tom. Yep. Sure. So, uh, the next item was our transfer station fund consideration. Um, I'm not sure we're quite ready for this, but we can at least look at, uh, uh, I've, I've made some edits, George and I were to work on this and, and he prepared something and I've made some edits to it, but it's not, it's not ready for prime time because I need to check some facts, um, before I send it off to you, Tom, um, for review and then we can include in a future board meeting, but, um, um, I think at least we can look at George's financial spreadsheet, which you shared. Um, do you want me to try to share that? I think I have it ready. Oh, great. Okay. Let's see what this looks like. How about that? Excellent. So, so there's a draft memo that George had put together. Um, I've modified it, updated it, um, and what were the memos intended to be sent to the select board, uh, to let them know that we're concerned about the viability of the transfer station as an enterprise fund. Um, essentially each, each year we have to increase prices. Each year we increase prices, uh, to, to try and hit the revenue target. We lose sticker holders. Um,
and if we look, if we scroll down a little bit and just look at the bottom line in fiscal year 27, this is the first year, um, the finance director or finance committee has added to our expenses a new line item, which is the indirect costs. So this is the first time we've ever had this. We've had, um, an unwritten agreement, unfortunately unwritten, um, uh, since the inception of the transfer station, uh, that because all of the prior profits and there were some significant profits, what went back to the general fund that the transfer station would not be charged for indirect costs. Um, but this year, um, again, I'm not sure if it was the finance director or finance committee, uh, they put this, added this to our expenses. So with that new expense and the reduction in the subsidy from 75,000 to 50,000, um, we're looking at, uh, a likely loss of about 131,000 this year. And it's a continual cycle. Um, each year we're, we're bringing in about the same amount of revenue, um, but expenses are going up. Um, and then we're losing it. And as expenses go up, we have to increase the fees. We increase the fees. We lose the fees, natural fees. We appreciate it directly from us. The fee is sheep. Um, so we're implementing those kind of payments in between our Singleton, uh, and that's just what you're doing to get so what we're going up omit 바로 for us.
Uh, through your career personnel and there, um, with your order pleased they and the All right, so this will come back to us. Tom, I'll share with you a draft. I just want to make sure all of the numbers that we have in there are accurate. Sure.
Cool. Mr. Chair? Yes. Thank you, Carol Martin. Thank you for recognizing me. I had this conversation, I think, offline with you, maybe Mr. Holder as well, that this number, this transfer from the general fund, I saw it on another place, it's not a transfer from the general fund, it is for the town to pay for the services rendered by the transfer station, you know, the trash pickups at the fields or what have you. And I think you've done some work on this in the past, and it's closer to 60, 65, $5,000. I raised this question when the indirects were added, and again, I have said this is not a transfer, and I see it as subsidy, it's not, we're paying our bill. But I think that one thing that I have heard is that the transfer station needs to bill the town if it's more than $50. So as you process this, what you would like to address, you might want to put that either in the memo to the select board that there is no subsidy, this is to pay for the trash collection, and as a matter of fact, we're probably not paying the accurate amount. And so we, that might be one, I don't know how much it is, somebody else would know how much it is, seven, maybe it's 70. It was about 61,000, I think, was the last number I thought I saw in that range. But that's a few years ago, too, and since then our cost, our employee employment costs have gone up, and now we have an indirect cost, so our costs have gone up, so perhaps it's closer to 65 or 70, and this is what we should be thinking about, billing the town. So, yes. In other words, we need to reconcile this. Yes. I think this is. Similar to the way we bill for water, bill the town for water, yeah. We need to reconcile this. This is what the cost is. This is what you owe us, period. That might help this. It'll help, but we're still in the same spiral. Right. And that's the challenge. And it is a service that I think is participated in by a large percentage of the town compared to other services and amenities in town and supported by the members who utilize it monetarily. So, yeah, so that's a good point. We'll have to figure out how to handle that verbiage and or direct billing to the town. Yeah, and I think the flip side of that, just to maybe help a little bit, is that's the cost for us doing the work in-house. What would the cost be if there was no transfer station to handle this trash collection and other duties that we perform for them? Maybe it's closer to 100. So the numbers might look different. Just food for thought. Yeah, and then when I get the letter, I'll put it on the agenda. Awesome. Thank you. All right. Yeah, if you let us know, I'd be happy to join or maybe some of the other members might want to as well.
Okay. Yes. Thank you again. And thanks to George for his parting financials. Transversation mattress disposal fee, the fee has been increased by our hauler. Tom can provide some more detail on that. And the proposal is, or his suggestion is, that we increase our fee to match the increase in the cost to dispose of the mattresses. That is correct, yes. So the details of that is, we currently pay and charge $60 per mattress or box spring. We were notified that our hauler will now charge us $80 for that. So our ask is that the board would approve a $20 increase beginning in FY27, beginning in two weeks, whereby we would charge $80 for mattresses and box springs in the bulky fee. So I would suggest we make a motion to increase the cost of the fee for disposal of mattresses to $80 to match the cost of the hauling fee. So moved. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second.
Great. Roll call vote, John. Yes. Thank you. Ed. Yes. Thank you. Judy. Yes. Thank you. Mike. Yes. Wigget Power. Yes. Okay. It's unanimous.
Great. Thank you for bringing that to us, Tom. And so that will be effective for the new fiscal year. Correct. Great. Next agenda item. We would like to have a volunteer to sign cemetery deeds. Someone to head into the DPW building, period. Periodically to sign on behalf of the board. What does that mean? So the board has to sign the cemetery deeds because we sell the plots. And there's actually a deed associated with each of those sales and it is a legal document. And so generally speaking, we have several each month. And so if a member that's voted acting on behalf of the full board could come in periodically, we've got three or four of them sitting on the counter right now. I told Pam in our office that whoever was selected tonight might be kind enough to come in tomorrow and offer their signature quickly on those. But, yeah, it's if you came in every three or four weeks, that would be adequate. I can do it. Great. Tom, is there any reason we wouldn't vote two folks? Nope. In case one's away. Okay. Nope. I'm happy also. So, okay, great. So I'll take a motion to nominate Mr. Spellman and Mr. Storer to grant them the authority to sign the cemetery deeds. So moved. As required. Thank you. Do we have a second?
Second. Thank you. Roll call. John. Yes. Mike. Yes. Judy. Yes. Ed. Yes. And Wagonbower. Yes. Right. So if one of the fellows could come in tomorrow.
Yeah, I can run in there tomorrow. Beautiful. Thank you. Awesome. Okay. Okay. Hazelbrook Lane and Lincoln Road update. So what I had suggested we do here is just Joe's put together a letter. We also have some comments that we've heard from the neighbors. If we can ask Joe to give us a quick update on where this stands and how we're coordinating with the Board of Health, I think that would be great. And then we can ask a few questions if we have any.
And the letter that we received should be in the packet.
Yes, it definitely was. Great. Can you put it on screen? You might be quicker at this one than me.
Let me see if I can try.
Okay. Yeah, I have it.
Okay.
So this was the letter. You would have received this via email already, Judy. And then it was also in our packet. So Joe had sent this out to us.
So the intent really, I guess, isn't to read it here. But Joe, if you have any updates or you want to highlight where we're at and what is outstanding. So the update we have is we did treat the roadway a couple of weeks ago, calcium chloride. We had a vendor take care of that. It seems to have stabilized it for a while. We've also working with tech right now to come up with maybe a denser grade material, something that may not have as much dust. Tom and I did drive it, and he did drive it again today. It seems to have calmed down quite a bit, but that doesn't mean that we're going to stop looking at alternatives and different materials to try to eliminate some of this dust issue. Okay. You were also – Yeah, I drove it today as well, and it didn't seem – I mean, the dust levels – it's dusty, but not outrageously. But, of course, I wasn't driving it when it was super dusty. So go ahead, Tom. Yeah, I know Joe was also mentioning we have a vehicle that has a tank that we use calcium chloride during winter months to pre-treat the roadways, and we're looking to perhaps retrofit that. It is quite pricey to have a contractor come in and do that. We would prefer to be able to do it, but to be able to lessen the cost. So if we can just buy the material, use our equipment, it would make for more financially effective to do it that way. So we're kind of staying tuned right now to see whether we can retrofit that vehicle with nozzles that will actually – it's applicable for this type of work. Great. With regards to the materials that we're using down there, that concern, do we have – before we move on to that, is there any – what's our resurfacing schedule? Do we have a steady schedule? So not on the dirt roads. The last time that was reclaimed was 2020, and essentially what is used and what was used is just what was there. It just gets basically turned up, and what we've used in the past to maybe add or take away or whatever is just reclaimed from any roadway that we primarily would do prior. You know, we'd store in-house and utilize that material.
So that sounds like it may be a concern, the materials we're using from the other roadways. No, actually, well, the concern is what we used this past winter coming into the spring, which I'm not disagreeing. It is primarily used for sub-base. But, you know, MassDOT and our engineers said, yes, it can be used for top, even though it hasn't primarily – that's not as primal – primal used, you know, item to do. But, you know, talking with tech, it can be used, but, you know, based on the complaints, we're looking at the alternatives, so. You know, and I know there was a speaker during public comment that was talking about they had reached out to, you know, somebody that had good knowledge in the specification and, you know, the public health risk. And we are not of any understanding that what we're utilizing out there exposes anybody to any health risk. In talking with Joe, he's been doing this for 26 years and speaking with some of our predecessors, this same specification, this Boston City specification, has been used throughout a number of decades. And I think that there have been some conversations by others with MassDEP and their air quality unit that says that, you know, the recent number of years where we've had these significant droughts is definitely having a negative impact and causing, you know, the dust conditions. They take a lot of concerns at the MassDEP office and follow through with these, so, you know, I want to at least express that we are having conversations with them. We are evaluating this, but I'm happy to talk with this gentleman that was referenced to hear directly from him on how he feels that this is inappropriate. We're not hearing that. Okay. Great. And you're coordinating with Julie in Board of Health. Correct. And John. John, John as well. So, great. Yeah, we just want to make sure. I think the Board of Health would take the lead on the health concerns and coordination to make sure the materials we're using there are suitable. And when, so do we do any minor treatment annually or? So, we used to do it anyways from one to maybe two times a year, depending, and even speaking with, I had a former employee who worked here 40 years, and I asked him what, you know, the history was. And he had said they were lucky if they did it once or twice a year, but, you know, we had been doing it, I want to say since this last treatment, we haven't done it in quite a while. So, you know, when this concern came up, you know, we reached out to our vendor.
So, will we have maybe a more standard schedule for looking at this? We're going to, as of right now, we're looking at, you know, we're going to see how long this holds up, but we are looking at different materials. So, if we end up using a different material as a top, we may not have to, you know, use that chemical on it as often. What does each treatment cost? Well, the vendor charged us, it was just under $9,000. For one treatment? Correct. That can get expensive fast. Exactly. Well, it's over a dollar a gallon, and, you know, we're talking thousands of gallons.
Just to give you an idea of magnitude, that's basically minus the trucking. That's kind of what, you know, when we used to, or when we pre-treat roads, we're, you know, spending that as well. Any other questions on this topic?
And I think the question about conditioning was, how often do we look at repairing the roadway, not just covering for dust?
So, the dirt roads are looked at probably once every six to eight weeks, or as if we get a complaint. I mean, we do have several dirt roads. A lot of them are private. And, you know, to send the equipment out to do this is costly. So, you know, we try to do, you know, different sides of town. You know, if we go to the south side, we'll try to do them all at once, et cetera. The grader that does it, or the front-end loader, it's quite an operation to get them out to do this. So, that's often, once every six to eight weeks. It's a lot. Sounds mainly like we should pave it.
You know, what I found interesting is, you know, a lot of folks there move there because it's a dirt road. But if I look at all their driveways, there's no gravel driveways or a few gravel driveways. They're all paved. I think it's a difficult road. Just from a grading perspective, it's always going to be a problem with potholes just because there isn't room for ditches on either side. And it's just, it's a difficult road. It's hilly.
It's going to be, it's a maintenance. It is a cut-through road, too, unfortunately, you know, since, you know, modern technology now, you know, Waze, and they'll send you down whatever road might take a minute off your time. And if you've ever gone down that road at, you know, between 8.30 and 9.30 in the morning, it's quite remarkable how many cars go down it and how fast they go.
Is that a public road or private road? I never drive in that area. It's a public, it's a public road. Yeah, why, what's the reason we have a patient? It's a public road.
I mean, I think there's a strong desire by the residents to have it kept as a dirt road. I think if you were to take a poll, I think a majority of people like having the bucolic, you know, setting of having a dirt road. Okay, that's fine.
Great. Anything else on Hazelbrook?
If not, we can move on to the minutes, review and approve minutes. We have, I believe, just May 19th minutes.
Does anyone have any comments on these?
Any updates?
If none, I'll take a motion to approve the minutes of May 16th as presented. So moved. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you, Ed. All in favor, Ed? Aye. Thank you. Judy? Aye. Thanks. Mike? Mike. Thank you. John? John? Yes. Wiggetbauer, aye.
And let's see.
That brings us to board member concerns. Do we have any concerns that folks would like to raise at this point? Anything that has come up recently? Go ahead, Judy. Mike, I was just wondering, do we have a schedule for the bridge repair? Is it supposed to start in July or something? Yeah, I can offer a schedule. So we just got the shop drawings approved by MassDOT, our engineer, and the fabricator of the glue lamb. So an email that I received today stated that they were making the order. So the order would take 60 to 90 days for delivery. MassDOT has prepared their contractor to mobilize, we're hoping, somewhere mid-September. So the material has been ordered. We are currently working with the conservation commissions for both towns. Sudbury approved their order of conditions last night. We're going before Wayland's conservation commission tomorrow night. It will be the second meeting of the hearing. We're hopeful that they'll issue their order of conditions. We've got things pretty well squared away relative to the conservation front. We are also going before the Zoning Board of Appeals on July 14th, both communities, to address some fill that has to be brought in to match the grades for the bridge deck. So that, along with an anticipated permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, the permitting should be complete in line with a materials delivery, and then a two- to three-month construction duration, having the project completed by Christmas. So that means the school buses will have to look for somewhere else. Unfortunately, we tried. We took that into consideration, but it just wasn't possible. Okay, thank you. Great. Any other concerns, questions?
If none, we can look at the upcoming dates we have next week, June 23rd. That's our water rate public hearing. We may have a few other agenda items. We'll have to discuss that, Tom, to see if there's anything else we need to add. Yeah, we'd want to probably have that conversation tomorrow, just because we have to post it. So if you're, I know your schedule allows for a midday conversation. Let me just, if you don't mind, I'm going to take a quick peek and see what I'll bump to tomorrow on 17th. Yeah, what is your availability? Do you want to commit to something right now?
Let me connect with you afterwards. Okay. All right, fine. I'm free for the afternoon. Okay, great. I think our focus will be on setting the rates. Does anyone else, while we're here, have anything else that they'd like to add for that meeting? Any topic?
Will it be a Zoom meeting like this, or is it? Okay. Yes, yeah.
Okay. If you have any ideas for topics or things you'd like to cover, please let us know, and we'll see if we can get it on to next week's meeting, otherwise the meeting after that. Which I show is July 21st. Does that still work for most folks? Yes. I thought there were some that it didn't work for. Awesome.
And let's see. So I will be away that evening. Okay. You know, not saying that you couldn't hold it without me, but I am away that week. Okay. Yep.
Ed, are you away that week? I thought we had a couple folks that might not be able to make it that way. I'm around. Okay. Good here. Judy? John? Okay. As far as I know, I'm here. Okay, Tom, we'll try to get it done without you. So you'll get a reprieve. July 21st, I wouldn't be here. Ah, okay. So you're the one. I have to go to San Francisco to, it's my father's birthday. But we have to go to the graveyard. Oh, wow.
Do we want to look at the 28th instead?
Does that work for you, John, Mike? Yeah, 28th, no problem. It's fine. Okay. 28th is okay with me. Great. Why don't we move that to the 28th then? And August 18th, we don't have to nail that one down quite yet. But any early issues with the 18th, hearing none, we can leave that for now and we can adjust if we need to.
Great. Any last comments before I take a motion to adjourn? Great job, Mike. Thank you, guys. You moved this right along. All right. Yeah, thanks, Tom, Joe, Don, and Matt. I think Matt may have jumped off. And thank you, Carol, for joining as well. So with that, I will take a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second?
Yes. Second. Seconded. Okay. Mike. Yes. Judy. Yes. John. Yes. Ed.
Oh, yeah. He said yes. And Mike, yes. Excellent. All right. Thank you, everyone. Very good.
Let me see. This meeting, I believe, is being recorded and will be available later on WACAM.
Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, we're conducting this meeting remotely. In accordance with the applicable law, there is no in-person attendance tonight.
There was a meeting link available in our agenda, available to the public, I believe, three days prior to the meeting. Let's see.
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, well, I'm sorry, remotely as applicable and will have that public comment coming up. And it should be limited to two minutes per person. We have an agenda that's been posted. And with that, we'll conduct a call to order. Let's see. We're joined by Tom Holder, DPW Director, Carol Martin, our Select Board Chair and Liaison. And who else do we have attending? And Matt Abrahams, Don Millett, our Water Superintendent, Joe Doucette, our Highway and Parks, assistant superintendent or assistant director, and Matt Abrahams, who is our Water Enterprise Fund financial consultant. So in terms of roll call, Judy? Yeah. Great. Mike Spelman? Yeah. John Storer? Yeah. Great. And Ed Chang, who is, I think, listed as Julie here. Ed, can you just raise your hand or say here?
Can you hear us, Ed? The audio was working earlier. He did it. He did it. Just as you said, roll call before it was you called on him. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Great. All right. So any announcements, Tom? Staff have none.
Any board members or liaisons have any announcements?
Okay. I have no announcements. So hearing none, we can move to public comment. Let me see. We do have two folks with their hands raised. So it looks like I am the host. Okay. So I will promote Bonnie Marion. Great. And for anyone with public comment, please just say your street name, your name and street name. Hello, everyone. This is Bonnie Marion. And I live on Hazelbrook Lane. Just here to make a public comment regarding a past letter on concerns about dust on the Hazelbrook Lane and Lincoln Road. We, I know, have been in correspondence through email and are happy to be on the agenda tonight. Wanted to say that the calcium chloride application has worked great. That happened about two weeks ago and there's been almost no dust on the road. So that has been great. And just here interested to hear kind of the, any findings you've had about what materials have been used in the past and what's currently being used. Um, I did hear from Joe today and, um, got a little more information on, um, kind of the material spec and what's being used and want to understand if that's, um, appropriate for a top layer and what the plans are for kind of short-term and long-term management of the road. So thanks all for, um, asking the agenda here today. I understand today's agenda item is more for board discussion, but, um, happy to hear what, what's going to be said. Great. Uh, yeah. Thank you for your comments and the update on the, um, findings from the application from your standpoint. Um, and yes, we're, we're looking for an update tonight and we'll have a board discussion at that point. Um, it looks like we do have another person with a hand raised, just initials, KC. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. Um, this is Kim Cook from Lincoln Road and, um, I'm calling on the same topic. I noticed that you had a discussion scheduled for 725 on Hazel Brook Lane and Lincoln Road and the road dust and the calcium chloride is a good short-term solution. Um, but I really wanted to focus in on one thing when you have the discussion and clear up some, um, uh, inaccurate information and, and maybe, um, help you guys guide, um, Mr. Doucette a little bit and, um, and hopefully this will guide your discussion more. Um, uh, the, there's a difference between a spec and a report on a lot of material. Um, Briggs Engineering, uh, gave the town, um, in fact, their laboratory supervisor, Shang Chen, um, provided what was called a, um, a test report. And it was on a lot of material of this, uh, um, mass dot M one dot O three dot one processed gravel for sub base for actually a lot of material that was being delivered to the Boston public works department in Boston. So that wasn't even our pile of, um, uh, gravel and, um, this gravel, as you guys have heard from us, it's, uh, this process gravel for sub base, 50% of it comes from demolition, comes from demolition of concrete, um, garages and, and other, um, pavement, old roads, you name it. Um, this, um, mister, I spoke directly with Mr. Shen Chen. I don't know. Cheng Chen, S H E N G S H E N. Um, I don't know if any of you have, but he said that this material is absolutely inappropriate to be put on top of a dirt road. It only belongs under, under road, road surfaces, be them, uh, asphalt or concrete. He also confirmed for me that this is a test report for a lot of material and how it was conducted for, not even for the material that was delivered to our town. That's a test report on material. It's very different from a spec, a spec provides, and I'm assuming some of you were in engineering and in construction, it provides ranges of things for this particular stuff that Joe, um, you said is, is quoting, uh, that we're getting the M dot M one. Oh, three dot one. It is up to 50% is recycled concrete aggregate and up to 5% can be asked, recycled asphalt pavement RAP and the recycled concrete aggregate is RCA. These two items are, yes, I'll wrap it up. These two items are what creates respirable crystalline silica, which gets into your lungs can cause cancer and it doesn't go out of your lungs. It's so fine. And, um, that's why the neighbors are very, very concerned. Um, you know, the short term application that we're starting to see some dust, uh, germinate as cars go by. So very short term, but what I want to ask of you is please promise that you're not going to put any more of this toxic material on Lincoln road or hazel book plane, and that we're going to, um, keep putting the calcium chloride down until we come up with a better solution and buy gravel that's, that's, that's, um, safe, safe for people in the neighborhood. Thank you so much. Have a good night. Thank you. You too. Okay. Do we have any other comments?
I see one more. Janet Haspel. Okay. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. Um, yes, I've lived on Hazelbrook since 1994. And so just to representing, um, the street and, and hopefully we can come to a long-term solution for what's appropriate for the road. We've raised our concerns about the dust and also possibly it not being a healthy solution. We're looking, you know, towards the future at this point and hoping to come up with something that we better understand what's going on. And also I would just add, I would, I don't have any idea after 30 years, I probably should like, when, when is this decision made to actually fill the road? Is it done on a regular schedule? Is it done based on, on, um, neighbors calling? We've, none of us really know, but to look towards, you know, sort of a more planned execution of it. We know when it's happening. We have some information regarding what it, what's being put down, um, and what the short, you know, what the long-term plan is to continue to service this scenic road. Um, thank, thank you. Great. Thank you.
Okay.
Any other comments?
That's all I see. Okay. Great. All right. That's all good information to have for our discussion later. All right. Um, so with that, we'll move on to the water enterprise financials, fiscal year, 27 rates. And as mentioned, we have Matt Abrahams here, uh, from the Abraham, Abraham's group, um, uh, who's, uh, for the past several years now has helped us prepare the model, um, from which we look at several scenarios and then come up with and vote on water rates, um, but not before having an open hearing, which we'll have, I believe it's next week, Tom. Next Tuesday night. Next Tuesday. Yeah. So we're not setting, uh, rates tonight. We'll set rates after we have that hearing and get public input. Um, but tonight we get to play with the model a little bit and maybe get closer to, um, having those rates. Tom, we might, I'm not sure if you're the host. We might need to de-promote some of the folks. Uh, uh, so I see Matt is a, uh, a panelist, so he just has to, uh, what I'm saying is de-promote some of the folks that were here for public comment. If you know how to do that, if not, and it might jeopardize our situation here. Yeah, we have that happening here. I think I've, I think I've muted them. Okay. I still see them here, which is, that's fine. But I think we're, I would be afraid to do anything more because we might lose them. Um, and then I know people had a difficult time getting back on the last time that happened. Yes. All right. All right, Matt. So, um, I'm assuming that you'll share your screen and, uh, we'll start walking through the model with some scenarios. And I, I've, I have one scenario that I'd like to present unless someone else would like to start with their scenario.
Um, Matt, are you there? Oh yeah. I was just waiting to see if anyone responded to that. Okay.
Okay. So, Mr. Chairman, where would you like to start? I guess maybe the question should be, is there anything that, that you feel like we should review prior to playing around with the model, as you mentioned? Well, I think at this point you've loaded in the updated projections for revenue, the updated projections for the additional MWRA water that we've had to purchase now that we're on our third emergency, um, uh, connection usage. Um, is there anything else to be updated or, uh, I mean, we got this just recently, so I'm assuming this is the very latest and greatest. Yes, it is. Okay. Okay. Okay. So that allows us to begin playing around with, uh, scenarios. Um, as I mentioned, I have one, um, that I'd like to, um, um, present to the board, but I'm also open if others have one that they'd like to start with.
Okay. Well, I'll take the silence as, um, I can, we'll move ahead with at least my initial scenario. Um, go to the bottom of the spreadsheet so we can, can you go down a little more? Um, Matt. Yeah, I'm listening. Where would you like to go? Uh, so I just want to go to the bottom line. So the current projection is a negative two. Let's just say rounding up to 234. Correct? Yes. Yes. So that's, that's what we're currently projecting for FY26. Um, it assumes that the full budget is spent for FY26. And also, um, we're still, I think there's still going to be a discussion on where we think the water meter charges will end up for FY26. I think that my projection in here is slightly understated. Um, so it's possible that this projection deep, this projected deficit decreases after we get a little bit more comfortable. Um, so I just wanted to make those comments. So this 234 is our current projected deficit for FY26. Again, it assumes the full spending of the budget, which may not happen, but considering the contingency expenses that have happened this year, maybe it will. Um, and then also I think our revenue numbers are slightly understated. Um, we're just struggling to get comfortable with them because there's a lot of balls in the air, so to speak. Um, you got the new meters in place. You got, um, the, the quarterly billing transition took, uh, just recently took place. Um, so getting comfortable with the timing of all that has been a little bit trickier than projecting this in past years. Um, so hopefully we get comfortable, but for now, I thought it was best to keep that just slightly understated. Um, so that's what we're using for now. So when you see this next week, it might look slightly different, but that's what we have in there for now. Thank you. So second question, line 58, the 310, that's the latest and greatest in the MWRA bill. Is that correct? Yeah. Okay. So if you look up here in the formula bar, um, there are three things that make up this number. The first number is a $57,000 number. And I have that information. Hang on. Um, it's for interest on temporary loans that were not in the budget. So that's not even related to the MWRA water usage. Okay. Um, but that was something that, um, when we first started working, working on the model for this year, we identified as something that needed to go on the contingency line. Um, and then the other two numbers are related to the MWRA water. The first number being the 227,000, actually it's more like $228,000 that has been known for some time, as well as the recent bill that was about $25,000. So my question, and maybe this isn't the right time to ask, but you do have an MWRA water purchase dollar on line 56. Should that be broken out so that it goes there instead of line 58 or is that for future? Yeah, that's more for future because that's not part of your current budget. So this, this row was meant to represent what the MWRA will charge you for water going for once you're connected. Once you're connected, I'm like, you know, as a member rather than your temporary connection. I see. Okay. Um, so because you're not there yet, we're just holding, um, any expenses related to that in the contingency line. We just thought that it made the most sense to do it that way. Okay. Um, because that is a current budget line item that you have. Okay. Thank you. But whether we put on the other line or leave it there, it's going to have the same impact on the bottom line. Yep. All right, Mike, take it away. Those are good questions because the, you know, the, we, we have kind of an actual for the contingency fund. We typically, uh, come in under budget on the general expenses. Um, and, you know, if we're assuming full, fully spending the budget this year, which is unusual, we don't typically do that, not including contingency, um, that seems a little conservative on the expense side. Um, unless Matt, you're, you're thinking that we are going to spend all those line items in our standard expenses and our standard expenses other than contingency. Are you feeling, are you projecting that we're going to reach our budgeted amounts for those? I might be able to answer that better. Um, so right now we have about $242,000, uh, of encumbrances in our expense lines and in working with Don, uh, a majority of those, um, encumbrances are spread over three line items, uh, chemicals, contracted services, and repairs and maintenance. And I can, if, if, you know, people want to see this later on, when I bring up the year to date reports, it's on our agenda, you'll see some of these things, but, um, we are thinking that we are likely going to spend much of those encumbrances. And so to answer the question, it is likely that we would be spending, uh, the budgeted, uh, amount. And in the next couple of weeks. Also Tom chemicals as well, um, you know, both the chemicals and electricity may come a little bit under what's encumbered, but it's, you know, we still have a month and a half left. Um, so that's four or five more chemical deliveries. So, um, it's, it's probably going to be right, right there. Yeah. We will receive invoices up into July for encumbered, um, you know, assigned, assigned, uh, costs, assigned expenses. So that's why we're, even though we've only got a couple of weeks left in the fiscal year, we still will receive, um, invoices for services and for commodities that we've actually already used. So how much does the pool owe us?
It's in the order of magnitude of, uh, it's north of 10,000. Oh, okay. So, uh, but, but if you say four to five deliveries and, and, uh, over the next six weeks and we have about two weeks left here and we're a cash basis, I would have think two of those deliveries to maybe three will fall in fiscal year 26. The others will fall into fifth fiscal year 27. You're correct, Mike. I, I'm, I was off on my, uh, I, you're right. We only have two weeks left. So, so roughly, you know, probably two more chemical deliveries. Um, and, uh, I can get a better handle on that from the board, uh, tomorrow morning. Okay. So all I'm saying is it sounds like we're going to come in under budget on our standard expenses or over budget on our contingency expense, but, um, it, it, it sounds like we have some room there. Um, so again, I think we're, we're being conservative if we're saying that we're going to spend the entire budget, um, from the standard expenses. Okay.
Anyone else with questions?
Okay. All right. Um, this first one might be a little controversial with Judy. Um, but what I'd like to do is, um, in L7, and I've, I've already shared these with Matt. So I think he kind of knows what we're doing, uh, or what I'm wanting to look at for one scenario. Um, I'd like to take that average. Um, originally I wanted to include 2018. Um, but I don't think we need to do that, but if we can just assume a 3% increase from the water meters now that they're all in, um, just for the, uh, fiscal year 27, L7 through L10, that wouldn't include river's edge because they already had new meters. Um, but I, I think, um, all the reports that we've read tell us that we should see a 12% increase based on, on new meters, a 12% increase in recording of water. Um, I know we haven't yet seen that and it's hard to tell because it really depends on if people are using water as, as they did last year, then it would, uh, we'd see that increase. Um, but now that all the water meters are in, I think, uh, seeing a 3% increase for this coming year, because we didn't see that increase yet this year, um, I think is somewhat conservative and we can come back to this at the end of, of the, um, scenario.
Okay. So which years would you like me to include then? Uh, let's, let's just include the, the same years that we have included 2018. We, we excluded 2021 because that's an anomaly for some reason we haven't included 2018 in the past. Um, maybe because that we're including just the prior five years. Um, it, maybe that was the idea. So let's just stick with the same years, 2019, 20, 22, 23, 24, and 25, I think. So when we did this last year, we didn't know what the actuals for 25 were. So, um, I defaulted this formula to be what we used last year. So it wouldn't have included 25 because we didn't know them at the time. Okay. But we can add it if you feel like that's the right call. Is, is 2025 a solid, a solid number at this time? Yeah. 2025 is actually what was billed in FY25. Yes. Then we should include it. I think. Yeah. Yeah. So let's add that one in that.
And then you want to inflate it by 3%. Yes. Okay. And then I'm going to give you some funky numbers for percentages of increases by tier. And let's just say at the outset, we've got a lot more expense this year, um, mainly in the, uh, in the debt category. So, um, so our, our rates are going up quite a bit this year. They're going to have to. Um, so let me, uh, give you some kind of funky percentages because I'm kind of trying to get us to some, uh, more standardized numbers on the rates. So for tier one, 28.9% increase, uh, for tier two, 34.8 for tier three, 35.4 and for tier four, 23.8. And then I left, uh, the PFOS remediation charge surcharge the same at 7.5%. 5% of the total water bill. And then suggest an increase to, since we're billing quarterly to $25 quarterly, which would be a hundred dollars annually. Okay. And if you, uh, scroll down a little bit, you'll see that that moves our rates to $8, $11.50, $14 and $22. And if we move down a little bit further, we can see this, um, looks like it would yield, uh, an ending balance of about $1,084, 938. Did we put 300 in line 58 since we are buying water and emergency times now? That's from this year. So that's already deducted from this year's expenses in the model. Oh, but maybe she's saying that is it necessary to assume a similar expense for 27? I don't want to put words in your mouth, Judy, but is that what you're asking? I think what you said made more sense than what I said. So we had to buy water from MWRA this year. I assume we have to buy it next year too. Well, this year we had three emergencies. Um, and, and one of those, uh, we reconstructed the piping for our PFAS treatment at Happy Hollow. So I expect that we'll have no emergencies there. Um, and we've made improvements using, using those funds. Um, I'm not saying that we won't have any emergencies, but I would think that our, our, uh, systems are now improved and we're at less risk. So the 310 number was made up of three things. Two of them were buying water from MWRA and the third one was debt. Am I correct? Interest on, interest on temporary loans that were not part of the budget. Okay. So I would feel more comfortable if we don't leave that line blank. That's what I'm trying to say. Line 58. Yeah. So, um, just so board members are aware when this model was built this way, the reason why it's in yellow was because, um, it was considered an input. And when I say it, I'm talking about the contingency line. Um, in other words, if you think it would be part of the budget for FY27, there should be a number here. If it's zero, that means we're assuming nothing contingency. Tom, what do you think? It is true that we have new pipe work at Happy Hollow, but none of that equipment, uh, in that temporary treatment system is getting any younger. Baldwin Pond has been regularly giving us trouble where we've had to take it offline as recently as last week. So if I were a betting man and knowing that equipment is not getting any younger and we regularly experience malfunctions and equipment shutdown, I would plan on using MWRE water a number of times in FY27. Well, it would be a good number. I mean, everything's a guess. We budget 200. All right. So should we put 200 there then?
Judy. So this gets back to the reason we have the contingency line item. It's, um, it's to allow us to use our emergency funds, which are our retained earnings in case of emergency. Um, we can always, next year, if we do use those funds, target, uh, recovering those in, in updating our target. But what, to what degree do we want to start predicting emergencies? We have an emergency rainy day fund, which is our retained earnings. Um, in this, this scenario that I'm proposing, we would be ending the year at a little over about 1.1 million. If we do have some emergencies, we would use a portion of that to cover those emergencies, uh, which is what it's intended for. So Matt, what would you suggest? Sorry. I would be more comfortable if, if there was a number in there, if you think it might be spent, but that's me. Well, what's, what's in the, actually, let me ask you a different way. Your 27 budget is, is set, right? So is there anything for contingency in there now? 200. Well, and in our line items, our standard line items, we typically do not fully spend our typical standard line item budgets. This year we're coming close because we spent a lot in terms of, um, so this contingency line includes the MWRA water. Correct me if I'm wrong, Tom, but all of the expenses and repairs were covered under our standard budget. So that's why we're close to hitting our standard budget. Right. And that's, that's why the times that we're living in now are different than the times several years ago. Um, we just continue to experience failures today alone. Don can probably tell you the price of this switch up at the, uh, Reeves Hill booster station. Um, we're currently operating on auxiliary power because, uh, an electrical switch failed and we weren't able to, um, use grid power. You know, so it's those types of things that the system is pretty, uh, I don't want to say complex. I mean, it's a small town and it's, it's a pretty standard water system, but there are many components that are getting older that are failing that we can't predict. Um, so our historic ability to underspend our expense lines, those days may be over. You know, the one thing that's really a safety net is, you know, when speaking with Brian Keveney over the last, uh, several weeks, you know, in knowing that it may be likely that we actually overspend our FY 26 budget, since we do have a relatively healthy fund balance, that fund balance will fill that gap. It will fill that overage on expenses. You know, so we do know that we have that ability. So it is a bit of a safety net. It's just whether or not you want to plan to fill a contingency line and knowing that these times are, you know, we're regularly making unanticipated repairs, or do you leave it blank and rely on using a fund balance at the end of FY 27 as a safety net? Well, I'm not saying we're relying on using it. Uh, because, uh, as we just went through, it sounds like we're going to come in, even with all the issues we had this year, all of those issues, we're still looking like our standard budget will come in under our standard budget items. We have 242k left and two weeks left. So even with all those expenses, there's some contingency, it seems to me, within the line items of the standard budget are ready. And this contingency fund, uh, line item is really for those, um, is really as a means to access our rainy day funds. So from the beginning, we coupled the retained earnings expense with, um, funding from retained earnings, specifically to allow that usage. Anyways, uh, so, and it sounds like we're, we're being a little bit conservative in terms of what our projected revenue is this year. And it's understated slightly is the comment or, or maybe, um, that said, what do you propose, Judy? So what is the average of 21, 22, 23, 25, and I guess 26? I just want to know what the average is for that. Well, for many years, we didn't even use the contingency. Right. Yeah. Just staring at it right now. What is the average there? If you average those five years, you're at a hundred, just under 143,000. So I have a couple of suggestions. I would feel more comfortable. We had some money in this line because, um, every time we access the emergency connection to MWRA, the rate of the water they charges goes up. Right, Tom? Yes. Yeah. So it's only going to, we cannot predict when things break down and, but we can know that what we have to buy from MWRA is going to cost more. So that's why I would feel more comfortable if we put something into line 58. Um, is it 58? Yeah. So maybe let's, let's just say 50,000. If you have 50,000, which is eyeballing it pretty low, it's certainly half of the average. Okay. We're looking at scenarios here. So let's, uh, let's add that in. Um, so that would bring us to actually, I think that subtracted, um, oh, I see. No, it did subtract, but that's what it's supposed to do. Okay. Correct. So our retained earnings would still be a little over a million. Now, is it likely that that 3% will happen or is that, is that, is that a safe bet is my question? Well, we don't know. I, I, I mean, all of the reports that we've read, staff has advised us that 12% is what can be expected from new water meters. They'll record 12% more water going through. Um, we use 6% last year. It doesn't look like we've seen that, but then again, we didn't have the meters in at the beginning of the year. This year we'll have all of the meters in, uh, at the beginning of the year. Um, and it, it's, it's something that's a little difficult to gauge because people use water differently every year. So it's a little bit of a moving target. If they use the same amount of water each year, then we could say, yes, it's worked. Yes, it is increased, uh, the readings or no, it hasn't because the, uh, usage varies. It's hard to tell. If we increase the $100 a year to $25 per quarter to 30, how much of a difference? So it'd be $120 for the year. How much of a difference would that make to the bottom line?
Let's try. I'm just writing down the number now so we can compare it. Well, I guess we could look at the bottom line number, but okay. So you're saying $30 per quarter? Yeah.
So that was a difference of six, three, three, six, um, 107,000.
So I know you guys have heard me talk about this, which is I worry that as rates go up, people use less water. Um, and therefore having the standard dollar amount go from currently 15 to 25 is good. And I'm just hedging a little in case the 3% doesn't happen. You know what I mean?
That's, um, quite an increase, a 50% increase for that. Yes. But okay.
I'm worried about the, uh, visual, uh, I'm worried about that percentage, but also that,
um, that it's going to hit hardest for that, those folks that use the least amount of water. So the percentage increase is going to hit folks who use the least amount of water harder, the low use folks. Right. But you're still talking about, you're still talking about 15 bucks difference, right? To go from $25 to, well, to go from 15 to, to dollars to $30. No, it's from 15 to 25 was $10. It's 20. Right. Yeah. It's a $20. Yeah. And then now we're talking going from 15 to 30, which doubles it. You're right. But you're still talking about a $15 difference, which is $5 a month, even if though it's hitting the people who use the least. Well, and, and by that, I'm trying to say that it's also hitting the folks that are likely on fixed incomes. So yeah. So that's, that's my comment there. I'd like to try to keep things affordable for everyone if as much as possible, but you're right. I mean, it's only $20 for a year. So we have people that ask for small bags at the transfer station because they don't want to use the 14 gallon bags. So to save money. So, okay. Any other thoughts or comments, John, Mike, Ed? I'm nothing, nothing here other than I, I think I'd rather see the 3% in and, and keep the 50,000 as part of our contingency expenses. I understand exactly what you're saying, Judy, but I, I think we're, if we go conservative across the board, we're going to end up with huge water rate increase. I think we, we have to use common sense and just average things out in, for the majority of this.
And just remember this is annual, so we don't always get it right. Exactly. And we'll be here 12 months. Uh, and we can adjust for, you know, it, and we have, it's such a, such a, um, difficult thing to try and predict usage over the year, weather patterns and all, and such. So, um, John or Ed? Okay. Okay. Do we have any other, um, comments on water model? Again, we're, we're going to have our water hearing coming up next week. We'll hear from the public, their comments. Um, and then we can, uh, kind of work to finalize the rates. Mr. Chair, may I ask one question? Yes. Thank you. Carol Martin. Thank you. Carol Martin, um, Lake Road, um, member of the select board. I think we better ask, I don't know if Matt would know this, but we should ask Brian. Somehow this is buzzing in my head. I believe when we vote the enterprise funds articles, we vote a revenue, um, amount. And I think that the budgets have to match that. Should you raise more than that? That's a different story. But so for example, we voted at town meeting for you to have a 6.2, 4, 6, 3, 5, 2 budget. And I see this with this model that we could currently, we're looking at 6, 3, 3, 6. I don't disagree that you probably should raise that. I think we should just confirm with Brian that it's okay for us to establish rates that generate on greater revenue than was approved at town meeting. Well, in, in meeting with DOR, uh, myself, they're, they're happy as long as our expenses are managed to our revenue. Right. I just think we should check with, cause we voted this at town meeting and I think the select board recommends a revenue at what they call an expense limit. Um, and I think that's how the article is just food, good thing to follow up on and find out if we can do the model that way. And then I think on this model that you're looking at right now, assuming we can raise the 6, 3, you would still have about a 20% on the retained earnings, which is the target. So that's also good because the 6 million would be one too. Yeah. And again, that I'll say it again and again, this is just a projection. We have no idea what's going to happen. We don't even know yet what's going to happen this year. We may come up with an extra 150,000 in our retained earnings, right? Right. Because we, we spend less and we get more revenue. So we may end up with 200,000 more than we're looking at here. So, um, you know, we do the best we can. And, uh, my question might be one for Matt to follow up with Brian on, and I'm just make sure we we're going page 20. All right. Page 23. So, uh, let's move on to thank you. Uh, thank you. Uh, let's move on to the review of actual expense, uh, expenses and revenue first budget based on percent of year completed. If, if you don't mind, can we, can we just have Matt scroll the spreadsheet? I just want to see the tiered rate, you know, the, uh, there we go. Yeah. I just wanted to see that. Okay. Sounds good. So that's for the time being or whatever, that's what we're going to, um, consider for next Tuesday and, and tinker around a little bit more with some new information that Matt gets. Sounds good. Got it. All right. And you'll, you'll send this out before, the hearing, Matt, the updated one, once we've it updated. Yeah. As long as we, we do end up updating it, but yes. Okay. Sounds good. Awesome. Thank you. Sure. Okay. So, Tom, I think you're up on this one. Yep. Thank you, Matt. Thanks, Matt. All righty. I will attempt to share my screen.
Bear with me here. All righty. So, in the packet and on the screen are what we call our year to date budget figures. And this, these figures were created on June 10th. So 95% of the year complete. And you can see from the tabs, as I scroll down here with my cursor, it's the DPW transfer station, water and engineering. Those are the four budgets that we maintain in public works. So what we do really on a biweekly basis is take a look at where we are in our spending trends, see what we have for encumbrances, see what our balance percent of the year use compared to a percent of the value used based upon the completion of the year. And not all expenses are linear. Many are seasonal. So we take that into account. And, you know, you can see that, you know, we have some overages, some under expense. We, this is a bottom line budget. So we thankfully have the ability to overspend some while we underspend others, just to make sure it balances out. And in DPW, we're all very comfortable staff are comfortable with the way that things are, are wrapping up here in FY26.
I've got really nothing too much to, to highlight on the, the public works side, you will see, you know, in snow and ice, I'm circling a 614,000 deficit spend that we had this particular year in snow and ice. And the finance team has worked with department heads throughout town. And they have compiled accounts that can assist with paying this off. So we are, we're able to make this whole. So highway looks like it came, it'll come in around, we're not quite sure yet, but around 200,000 less, less than budget highway, uh, row 29 highway expense total. Yeah. So 231, um, that's what the encumbrances. Yes. Yep. At 95%. Okay. That is indeed the case. So I can go through the other ones. If, uh, the board is agreeable transfer station, um, you know, on, on, on the enterprise funds, we have expense lines, and then we also have below, we have the revenue as well. Um, but you can see, we're actually, uh, we're doing okay in the, uh, expense line for transfer station.
The one thing that, uh, as I review this is that I see, um, you know, the FY 26, the revenue is, uh, quite healthy, but on June 10th, um, we are, and this is the way this always works. We talk about it every year is that, uh, uh, you know, in June, we obtain revenue from the sale of stickers for the following season, the following fiscal year. So some of, some of this sticker revenue, um, is actually, you know, four stickers that are sold for FY 27. And you can see, we have the $50,000, uh, that we have transferred in. And with that, you'll see about a similar, but
depending upon, you know, what kind of a finance person looks at this, this figure is part of the FY 27, really, you know, income, which would offset, this would cause us to come a little bit lower, but, um, that's where we stand on transfer station. What's the typical number in terms of revenue in, in June that's applied to the following year? So I spoke with Anita late last week, and, uh, it looked like it was around 55,000 was what we had taken in, in those first couple of weeks, you know, so, um, you know, so it might be around 210 would be, you know, if you wanted to try to compare and keep it within the same fiscal year. So it would, it would, you know, it would almost offset depending upon how you look at it this, this figure here. Got it. So it's kind of on target is how I would describe it. Scroll over to water. This is what we just got done. Speaking of, uh, the $241,000 in encumbrances that we're speaking of, um, what, there's the $57,000, Judy, that was an interest on temporary loans that was not budgeted. So we have that in here now. And then what we also have to include is this, um, indirects 486 and change, and then the OPEB. So our, these are my little notes. It's, it's actually not in your packet. I was just really preparing for today. If we were to spend the $241,000, we would have 125, $121,000 in an expense overage. And, um, just kind of gives you a sense of, of, of where I was at least worst case scenario. So all of these include the encumbrances and they're not the actuals. So the, the only, so the balances, some items we encumber funds for some items we don't, um, you know, so, um, the balance is with the, uh, they include the encumbrances.
Okay. So the, you know, obviously an encumbrance, sorry, if I'm stating the obvious is that this, these are monies that we actually preserve and we open our purchase orders to make sure that we have enough to get us to the end of the fiscal year. So they're, they're funds that may not be spent. Uh, they're just encumbered. So just like the chemical deliveries, we'll probably have two more instead of five more that, that would use up the encumbered for that line item. And then we also have invoices that we have not yet received on chemical deliveries. Um, you know, so it's, and, and we work very closely with the treasurer department, um, you know, in, in posting, you know, all of these payments and posting all of the revenue. So, uh, this was put together June 10th and, you know, so there's a little bit of, there's a lot of activity, a lot of money coming in, a lot of money going out next to the schools. This is the second largest budget the town has. Yeah. Great. And then the small one is, uh, engineering. And what you'll see is that, uh, you know, the, the biggest disparity here is contractual services. Um, we worked with the finance group, um, on trying to predict what we're going to have, uh, contracted services. And the reason that this year, uh, it's much higher than budgeted was the fact that, um, we are now including the GIS, the Esri platform, uh, near maps, which is our, um, a 3D GIS platform that we utilize as well as our AutoCAD licenses for our town surveyor. So all of those now come out of that year to date, uh, in contractual services. So that's why you're going to see a tremendous increase, uh, in that. And then that's offset by some of the underages that we have. You know, we work, we work hard to, to offset these things. So we are, we are in good shape with engineering as well. Great. Great. And that's what, uh, yeah, that's what things look like. We, uh, we work on this, you know, throughout the year, as the year and gets closer, you know, we're, we're doing it a lot more frequently. Looks good. Any questions? Uh, any of the board members? Um, yeah, this helps and vehicle gasoline year to date spend, you haven't spent any money on gas. So we have a system, it's called WEX, W E X. So yes, we have actually spent, uh, uh, money on vehicle gasoline. We've got, we've got four or five vehicles. Um, we have a real tough time with this company. Uh, it's, it's one of these situations where there's such a large group. They actually have my predecessor down as being the director, um, having a, um, business manager that hasn't been here in six years. And we've, I guess the point I'm making, it's really difficult to, uh, we actually reconcile all of this year end using journal entries, but the card system, the way it works is that every vehicle has a gas card. And when they pull up to a service station anywhere in and around Wayland that has that WEX system, they use that card and trying to work with that WEX system to have that card properly assigned to that vehicle is it's difficult. So, um, we know where the gas goes and this will all be reconciled. Okay. Yeah. I figured as much. Yeah. I, I looked at that and noticed that makes no sense whatsoever. Say one more time, Sean, I'm having a hard time. Is the diesel fuel?
I think he's asking if diesel fuel is included under gasoline. Yes. Yes. Engineering, engineering doesn't have, um, a diesel unit, but, uh, uh, in highway and water, um, the diesel included in that line item. Yes. Okay. Great. All right. I will stop sharing. Thanks, Tom. Yep. Sure. So, uh, the next item was our transfer station fund consideration. Um, I'm not sure we're quite ready for this, but we can at least look at, uh, uh, I've, I've made some edits, George and I were to work on this and, and he prepared something and I've made some edits to it, but it's not, it's not ready for prime time because I need to check some facts, um, before I send it off to you, Tom, um, for review and then we can include in a future board meeting, but, um, um, I think at least we can look at George's financial spreadsheet, which you shared. Um, do you want me to try to share that? I think I have it ready. Oh, great. Okay. Let's see what this looks like. How about that? Excellent. So, so there's a draft memo that George had put together. Um, I've modified it, updated it, um, and what were the memos intended to be sent to the select board, uh, to let them know that we're concerned about the viability of the transfer station as an enterprise fund. Um, essentially each, each year we have to increase prices. Each year we increase prices, uh, to, to try and hit the revenue target. We lose sticker holders. Um,
and if we look, if we scroll down a little bit and just look at the bottom line in fiscal year 27, this is the first year, um, the finance director or finance committee has added to our expenses a new line item, which is the indirect costs. So this is the first time we've ever had this. We've had, um, an unwritten agreement, unfortunately unwritten, um, uh, since the inception of the transfer station, uh, that because all of the prior profits and there were some significant profits, what went back to the general fund that the transfer station would not be charged for indirect costs. Um, but this year, um, again, I'm not sure if it was the finance director or finance committee, uh, they put this, added this to our expenses. So with that new expense and the reduction in the subsidy from 75,000 to 50,000, um, we're looking at, uh, a likely loss of about 131,000 this year. And it's a continual cycle. Um, each year we're, we're bringing in about the same amount of revenue, um, but expenses are going up. Um, and then we're losing it. And as expenses go up, we have to increase the fees. We increase the fees. We lose the fees, natural fees. We appreciate it directly from us. The fee is sheep. Um, so we're implementing those kind of payments in between our Singleton, uh, and that's just what you're doing to get so what we're going up omit 바로 for us.
Uh, through your career personnel and there, um, with your order pleased they and the All right, so this will come back to us. Tom, I'll share with you a draft. I just want to make sure all of the numbers that we have in there are accurate. Sure.
Cool. Mr. Chair? Yes. Thank you, Carol Martin. Thank you for recognizing me. I had this conversation, I think, offline with you, maybe Mr. Holder as well, that this number, this transfer from the general fund, I saw it on another place, it's not a transfer from the general fund, it is for the town to pay for the services rendered by the transfer station, you know, the trash pickups at the fields or what have you. And I think you've done some work on this in the past, and it's closer to 60, 65, $5,000. I raised this question when the indirects were added, and again, I have said this is not a transfer, and I see it as subsidy, it's not, we're paying our bill. But I think that one thing that I have heard is that the transfer station needs to bill the town if it's more than $50. So as you process this, what you would like to address, you might want to put that either in the memo to the select board that there is no subsidy, this is to pay for the trash collection, and as a matter of fact, we're probably not paying the accurate amount. And so we, that might be one, I don't know how much it is, somebody else would know how much it is, seven, maybe it's 70. It was about 61,000, I think, was the last number I thought I saw in that range. But that's a few years ago, too, and since then our cost, our employee employment costs have gone up, and now we have an indirect cost, so our costs have gone up, so perhaps it's closer to 65 or 70, and this is what we should be thinking about, billing the town. So, yes. In other words, we need to reconcile this. Yes. I think this is. Similar to the way we bill for water, bill the town for water, yeah. We need to reconcile this. This is what the cost is. This is what you owe us, period. That might help this. It'll help, but we're still in the same spiral. Right. And that's the challenge. And it is a service that I think is participated in by a large percentage of the town compared to other services and amenities in town and supported by the members who utilize it monetarily. So, yeah, so that's a good point. We'll have to figure out how to handle that verbiage and or direct billing to the town. Yeah, and I think the flip side of that, just to maybe help a little bit, is that's the cost for us doing the work in-house. What would the cost be if there was no transfer station to handle this trash collection and other duties that we perform for them? Maybe it's closer to 100. So the numbers might look different. Just food for thought. Yeah, and then when I get the letter, I'll put it on the agenda. Awesome. Thank you. All right. Yeah, if you let us know, I'd be happy to join or maybe some of the other members might want to as well.
Okay. Yes. Thank you again. And thanks to George for his parting financials. Transversation mattress disposal fee, the fee has been increased by our hauler. Tom can provide some more detail on that. And the proposal is, or his suggestion is, that we increase our fee to match the increase in the cost to dispose of the mattresses. That is correct, yes. So the details of that is, we currently pay and charge $60 per mattress or box spring. We were notified that our hauler will now charge us $80 for that. So our ask is that the board would approve a $20 increase beginning in FY27, beginning in two weeks, whereby we would charge $80 for mattresses and box springs in the bulky fee. So I would suggest we make a motion to increase the cost of the fee for disposal of mattresses to $80 to match the cost of the hauling fee. So moved. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second.
Great. Roll call vote, John. Yes. Thank you. Ed. Yes. Thank you. Judy. Yes. Thank you. Mike. Yes. Wigget Power. Yes. Okay. It's unanimous.
Great. Thank you for bringing that to us, Tom. And so that will be effective for the new fiscal year. Correct. Great. Next agenda item. We would like to have a volunteer to sign cemetery deeds. Someone to head into the DPW building, period. Periodically to sign on behalf of the board. What does that mean? So the board has to sign the cemetery deeds because we sell the plots. And there's actually a deed associated with each of those sales and it is a legal document. And so generally speaking, we have several each month. And so if a member that's voted acting on behalf of the full board could come in periodically, we've got three or four of them sitting on the counter right now. I told Pam in our office that whoever was selected tonight might be kind enough to come in tomorrow and offer their signature quickly on those. But, yeah, it's if you came in every three or four weeks, that would be adequate. I can do it. Great. Tom, is there any reason we wouldn't vote two folks? Nope. In case one's away. Okay. Nope. I'm happy also. So, okay, great. So I'll take a motion to nominate Mr. Spellman and Mr. Storer to grant them the authority to sign the cemetery deeds. So moved. As required. Thank you. Do we have a second?
Second. Thank you. Roll call. John. Yes. Mike. Yes. Judy. Yes. Ed. Yes. And Wagonbower. Yes. Right. So if one of the fellows could come in tomorrow.
Yeah, I can run in there tomorrow. Beautiful. Thank you. Awesome. Okay. Okay. Hazelbrook Lane and Lincoln Road update. So what I had suggested we do here is just Joe's put together a letter. We also have some comments that we've heard from the neighbors. If we can ask Joe to give us a quick update on where this stands and how we're coordinating with the Board of Health, I think that would be great. And then we can ask a few questions if we have any.
And the letter that we received should be in the packet.
Yes, it definitely was. Great. Can you put it on screen? You might be quicker at this one than me.
Let me see if I can try.
Okay. Yeah, I have it.
Okay.
So this was the letter. You would have received this via email already, Judy. And then it was also in our packet. So Joe had sent this out to us.
So the intent really, I guess, isn't to read it here. But Joe, if you have any updates or you want to highlight where we're at and what is outstanding. So the update we have is we did treat the roadway a couple of weeks ago, calcium chloride. We had a vendor take care of that. It seems to have stabilized it for a while. We've also working with tech right now to come up with maybe a denser grade material, something that may not have as much dust. Tom and I did drive it, and he did drive it again today. It seems to have calmed down quite a bit, but that doesn't mean that we're going to stop looking at alternatives and different materials to try to eliminate some of this dust issue. Okay. You were also – Yeah, I drove it today as well, and it didn't seem – I mean, the dust levels – it's dusty, but not outrageously. But, of course, I wasn't driving it when it was super dusty. So go ahead, Tom. Yeah, I know Joe was also mentioning we have a vehicle that has a tank that we use calcium chloride during winter months to pre-treat the roadways, and we're looking to perhaps retrofit that. It is quite pricey to have a contractor come in and do that. We would prefer to be able to do it, but to be able to lessen the cost. So if we can just buy the material, use our equipment, it would make for more financially effective to do it that way. So we're kind of staying tuned right now to see whether we can retrofit that vehicle with nozzles that will actually – it's applicable for this type of work. Great. With regards to the materials that we're using down there, that concern, do we have – before we move on to that, is there any – what's our resurfacing schedule? Do we have a steady schedule? So not on the dirt roads. The last time that was reclaimed was 2020, and essentially what is used and what was used is just what was there. It just gets basically turned up, and what we've used in the past to maybe add or take away or whatever is just reclaimed from any roadway that we primarily would do prior. You know, we'd store in-house and utilize that material.
So that sounds like it may be a concern, the materials we're using from the other roadways. No, actually, well, the concern is what we used this past winter coming into the spring, which I'm not disagreeing. It is primarily used for sub-base. But, you know, MassDOT and our engineers said, yes, it can be used for top, even though it hasn't primarily – that's not as primal – primal used, you know, item to do. But, you know, talking with tech, it can be used, but, you know, based on the complaints, we're looking at the alternatives, so. You know, and I know there was a speaker during public comment that was talking about they had reached out to, you know, somebody that had good knowledge in the specification and, you know, the public health risk. And we are not of any understanding that what we're utilizing out there exposes anybody to any health risk. In talking with Joe, he's been doing this for 26 years and speaking with some of our predecessors, this same specification, this Boston City specification, has been used throughout a number of decades. And I think that there have been some conversations by others with MassDEP and their air quality unit that says that, you know, the recent number of years where we've had these significant droughts is definitely having a negative impact and causing, you know, the dust conditions. They take a lot of concerns at the MassDEP office and follow through with these, so, you know, I want to at least express that we are having conversations with them. We are evaluating this, but I'm happy to talk with this gentleman that was referenced to hear directly from him on how he feels that this is inappropriate. We're not hearing that. Okay. Great. And you're coordinating with Julie in Board of Health. Correct. And John. John, John as well. So, great. Yeah, we just want to make sure. I think the Board of Health would take the lead on the health concerns and coordination to make sure the materials we're using there are suitable. And when, so do we do any minor treatment annually or? So, we used to do it anyways from one to maybe two times a year, depending, and even speaking with, I had a former employee who worked here 40 years, and I asked him what, you know, the history was. And he had said they were lucky if they did it once or twice a year, but, you know, we had been doing it, I want to say since this last treatment, we haven't done it in quite a while. So, you know, when this concern came up, you know, we reached out to our vendor.
So, will we have maybe a more standard schedule for looking at this? We're going to, as of right now, we're looking at, you know, we're going to see how long this holds up, but we are looking at different materials. So, if we end up using a different material as a top, we may not have to, you know, use that chemical on it as often. What does each treatment cost? Well, the vendor charged us, it was just under $9,000. For one treatment? Correct. That can get expensive fast. Exactly. Well, it's over a dollar a gallon, and, you know, we're talking thousands of gallons.
Just to give you an idea of magnitude, that's basically minus the trucking. That's kind of what, you know, when we used to, or when we pre-treat roads, we're, you know, spending that as well. Any other questions on this topic?
And I think the question about conditioning was, how often do we look at repairing the roadway, not just covering for dust?
So, the dirt roads are looked at probably once every six to eight weeks, or as if we get a complaint. I mean, we do have several dirt roads. A lot of them are private. And, you know, to send the equipment out to do this is costly. So, you know, we try to do, you know, different sides of town. You know, if we go to the south side, we'll try to do them all at once, et cetera. The grader that does it, or the front-end loader, it's quite an operation to get them out to do this. So, that's often, once every six to eight weeks. It's a lot. Sounds mainly like we should pave it.
You know, what I found interesting is, you know, a lot of folks there move there because it's a dirt road. But if I look at all their driveways, there's no gravel driveways or a few gravel driveways. They're all paved. I think it's a difficult road. Just from a grading perspective, it's always going to be a problem with potholes just because there isn't room for ditches on either side. And it's just, it's a difficult road. It's hilly.
It's going to be, it's a maintenance. It is a cut-through road, too, unfortunately, you know, since, you know, modern technology now, you know, Waze, and they'll send you down whatever road might take a minute off your time. And if you've ever gone down that road at, you know, between 8.30 and 9.30 in the morning, it's quite remarkable how many cars go down it and how fast they go.
Is that a public road or private road? I never drive in that area. It's a public, it's a public road. Yeah, why, what's the reason we have a patient? It's a public road.
I mean, I think there's a strong desire by the residents to have it kept as a dirt road. I think if you were to take a poll, I think a majority of people like having the bucolic, you know, setting of having a dirt road. Okay, that's fine.
Great. Anything else on Hazelbrook?
If not, we can move on to the minutes, review and approve minutes. We have, I believe, just May 19th minutes.
Does anyone have any comments on these?
Any updates?
If none, I'll take a motion to approve the minutes of May 16th as presented. So moved. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you, Ed. All in favor, Ed? Aye. Thank you. Judy? Aye. Thanks. Mike? Mike. Thank you. John? John? Yes. Wiggetbauer, aye.
And let's see.
That brings us to board member concerns. Do we have any concerns that folks would like to raise at this point? Anything that has come up recently? Go ahead, Judy. Mike, I was just wondering, do we have a schedule for the bridge repair? Is it supposed to start in July or something? Yeah, I can offer a schedule. So we just got the shop drawings approved by MassDOT, our engineer, and the fabricator of the glue lamb. So an email that I received today stated that they were making the order. So the order would take 60 to 90 days for delivery. MassDOT has prepared their contractor to mobilize, we're hoping, somewhere mid-September. So the material has been ordered. We are currently working with the conservation commissions for both towns. Sudbury approved their order of conditions last night. We're going before Wayland's conservation commission tomorrow night. It will be the second meeting of the hearing. We're hopeful that they'll issue their order of conditions. We've got things pretty well squared away relative to the conservation front. We are also going before the Zoning Board of Appeals on July 14th, both communities, to address some fill that has to be brought in to match the grades for the bridge deck. So that, along with an anticipated permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, the permitting should be complete in line with a materials delivery, and then a two- to three-month construction duration, having the project completed by Christmas. So that means the school buses will have to look for somewhere else. Unfortunately, we tried. We took that into consideration, but it just wasn't possible. Okay, thank you. Great. Any other concerns, questions?
If none, we can look at the upcoming dates we have next week, June 23rd. That's our water rate public hearing. We may have a few other agenda items. We'll have to discuss that, Tom, to see if there's anything else we need to add. Yeah, we'd want to probably have that conversation tomorrow, just because we have to post it. So if you're, I know your schedule allows for a midday conversation. Let me just, if you don't mind, I'm going to take a quick peek and see what I'll bump to tomorrow on 17th. Yeah, what is your availability? Do you want to commit to something right now?
Let me connect with you afterwards. Okay. All right, fine. I'm free for the afternoon. Okay, great. I think our focus will be on setting the rates. Does anyone else, while we're here, have anything else that they'd like to add for that meeting? Any topic?
Will it be a Zoom meeting like this, or is it? Okay. Yes, yeah.
Okay. If you have any ideas for topics or things you'd like to cover, please let us know, and we'll see if we can get it on to next week's meeting, otherwise the meeting after that. Which I show is July 21st. Does that still work for most folks? Yes. I thought there were some that it didn't work for. Awesome.
And let's see. So I will be away that evening. Okay. You know, not saying that you couldn't hold it without me, but I am away that week. Okay. Yep.
Ed, are you away that week? I thought we had a couple folks that might not be able to make it that way. I'm around. Okay. Good here. Judy? John? Okay. As far as I know, I'm here. Okay, Tom, we'll try to get it done without you. So you'll get a reprieve. July 21st, I wouldn't be here. Ah, okay. So you're the one. I have to go to San Francisco to, it's my father's birthday. But we have to go to the graveyard. Oh, wow.
Do we want to look at the 28th instead?
Does that work for you, John, Mike? Yeah, 28th, no problem. It's fine. Okay. 28th is okay with me. Great. Why don't we move that to the 28th then? And August 18th, we don't have to nail that one down quite yet. But any early issues with the 18th, hearing none, we can leave that for now and we can adjust if we need to.
Great. Any last comments before I take a motion to adjourn? Great job, Mike. Thank you, guys. You moved this right along. All right. Yeah, thanks, Tom, Joe, Don, and Matt. I think Matt may have jumped off. And thank you, Carol, for joining as well. So with that, I will take a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second?
Yes. Second. Seconded. Okay. Mike. Yes. Judy. Yes. John. Yes. Ed.
Oh, yeah. He said yes. And Mike, yes. Excellent. All right. Thank you, everyone. Very good.