November 3, 2025 – Finance Committee – Video & Transcript
November 3, 2025 - Finance Committee
So, we have come together for our Finance Committee meeting.
Pursuant to Chapter 2, the meeting will be conducted in person and via remote means.
In accordance with that, the law may be recorded and may be made available as soon as practicable afterwards.
Public comments, seeing no one on the line, no one here.
Moving to the review of the agenda. So, we have four sort of main topics in the half hour that's available to us before we will recess this, or I'm not sure if the phrase will be on temporary pause, while we've joined the Select Committee and School Board Committee to review. The main topic for our review with them is the financial outlook, I guess, is what I would describe it. So, let's see, two, four, six, let me see, oh, there's, welcome, Pam. Thank you. Welcome, Rob. This is Rob's first name. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
And, Rob, are you now on the email trail? Yes. Okay, yeah. Yeah, one email. That's okay. Okay, that's okay. You'll get more. Okay.
The first order of business is minutes. That's, that's, uh, Carl drafted. Thank you, Carl. Welcome.
No, I heard you had no changes to the bill in April. I had some changes. Good. I think the HAXA, um, do a spell check on, on, or find, replace, I think. Whoops, okay. HA, to XHA, I think there was an S in several places. Um, um, I, I really had just, like, knits in a few places, and just, sort of, like, conditional, um, so I can go through page, my page, if anyone, um, on the first, actually, sorry, it's the second page, um, the first full paragraph that's not, not in bold, B. Kevney described, um, the second to last sentence, starting with, um, on the line before, B. Kevney noted that even if these two measures are adopted, the budget, I think it should be likely, would also require $300,000 to $500,000.
Well, that's, on page three, um, at the top of the page, that first paragraph, we have the school pay, this is the second sentence, the school payroll budget and overall school budget are conservatively, I mean, maybe, I just, I might just take out conservatively, estimate it at, I believe, I believe that was actually the statement, but either, either one, if I'm right, either one's correct, so, yeah, yeah, I think, I think he probably stated it as such, but, yeah, TBD, um, and then, then the next sentence, um, well, I guess it's part of the same sentence, is town budget increasing approximately three percent, I think there should be both of which are levels, which is all of which, sorry, I did this well, I guess. That was payroll, overall school budget. Budget and, oh, got it, the next paragraph, this was, the P. Roman comment observes that, although these obligations are significant, the town has done better, I was specifically stating, at addressing these long-term liabilities, and many of its fears, just at addressing these liabilities, that's funny, I guess, it refers to that, but, and then the other point being, and OPEB funding is often noted as a positive in the credit rating, for the town's credit rating, that kind of, that, that all went together. I'm sorry, I'm not pulling it out. So, um, so it's really inserting, um, observe that, although these obligations are significant, the town has done better, I would just insert, at addressing these long-term liabilities,
and many of its peers, just at, and OPEB funding is often noted as a positive for the town's credit rating. And then, two paragraphs down from that, the discussion then returned to the issuance of bans. Um, the second sentence, the savings in fiscal year 27 from issuing those bans, and I think it should also be, and delaying other debt issuance, because, remember, we talked about it, it wasn't just, that's right, the bans, it was, the other delay. That comes up with the next sentence, but I can, I can clarify that. It does, it does, it's just like, as you read it, if you just kind of are skimming it, it's, it's, it's more than one factor, but, or, yeah, I guess you do. So, I think, but the savings is, the savings is 800,000 from the two things, right? Yes. So, yeah, I think it should be, it should be. I agree. Okay. Um, and then, the only other thing I had is topics not, not reasonably anticipated on the last page, or the, um, federal budget, the government becomes potentially that's a firm. Massachusetts reduced resources at the state level could versus will go through every town, and that are relatively wealthy towns such as Whale and would likely be required to bear. Well, I mean, it, it, it, I think it is probable. Um, and then in the last sense, members that expressed a preference for future overrides that may be required. I think it, it should be cover, um, not to cover, but cover a minimum of three years. Okay. Rather than holding a new, I, I guess, just qualify, um, override vote, a new override vote every year.
Change is just noted to see one want to move to. Second thing. Okay. In favor of people. I'm going to abstain. No. All right. Sure. Good deal. And Rob's going to abstain as well.
Next topic. WRA, Carl. Sure. Um, so, the Board of Public Works is, um, voted, it's five nothing to, to recommend to the select board that we, that we have a hybrid solution for financing the hybrid solution. Um, and, uh, what I, what I provide, I've provided two things, um, in this regard. One of which is the actual, the actual, um, um, thank you. That's where I'm looking at the recommendation, um, which is to fund the, the Happy Holland Wells and, and that upgrade through water rates and the MWRA connection through, uh, taxation. Um, I think it speaks for itself. I don't know how much more I need to say about that, uh, here, but I want to make sure, make sure you're aware of it. The other thing I, I sent out includes, um, the DPW analysis of impact on the water rates. And if you have that handy, great. If not, you'll have it in that package. What they've shown is that, um, and they've broken this down for the first time. We've been hearing 32% of, uh, increases coming from just from other projects and 74% if you add in the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the debt for, for the, to have the Happy Holland project and the NWRA project into, into, uh, water rates. Now they broke that down. And what they've shown is, um, again, if you have, if you have it handy, um, in the residential section up on top, there's a, there's some headings with, um, there's a, in the middle of the page, A, B, C, and B, um, um, column A shows four, five different, sorry, seven different, um, levels of water usage. The, uh, the, uh, the average, the average debt service plus, including, sorry, the average water bill and yet the debt service from these other projects. If you do the math in every case, that's 32% of the average water bill. So $87 is a, is 32% of 271. Then they show the amount for, uh, of the debt service for Happy Hollow and finally the NWRA in column C. Cumulative, cumulatively, they add up to, and again, using that first line item to set to a, to a total increase of $200. Um, so for a person with a water bill of $271, the total increase would be $200 or 74%. With this new proposal, however, we're going to ignore column C and it would just be the 32% for the other debt service and the 17%, that's what that column B is. $46, for example, is 17% of 271. So the total increase for water rates would be 49%. This is all starting sometime in probably 20, 29. Um, that is their proposal. Um, the only other information I have is actually something I'd put together, you know, completely on my own, but in the, in the actual proposal, they break out. We've seen these numbers before, $20.5 million for the, for the, uh, cost of the NWRA connection. Um, if you finance that over 20 years without interest, that comes out to a little over a million dollars a year. And that means taxation would have to go up by a million dollars a year on a school, on, on an operating budget of $108 million, which is what we had this year. That's about 0.95% of an increase in our taxes. And it looks to me, um, they have a figure here, um, under a number of residential accounts, 4,859 accounts. That's actually lower than I think the number of households of the town is, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I guess some, maybe some people are completely, completely on well water, but if you take that number and, and then divide the, um, divide the, um, 100 and well, it's $1,025,000 a year, by that number of households, you come up with an average tax increase of about 200, $210 a year. Right. Um, and in both cases, it looks to me as though that's simply spread out evenly among all participants. You know, it's not progressive, not regressive. It's just the property tax portion. Yeah. Adding on, that has the weight of the water rates as well. Right. So that's kind of what we have today. Does anyone think municipal buildings are really low? Or what? Low as in usage? The forecast of like what their average bills are? Is that normal? I don't, can't speak to it. It actually, I believe that, um, they talk about municipal irrigation as separate from municipal buildings. So that's one, but no, but I believe George might have actually been asked, um, Tom Holder to double check those municipal numbers because it looked low to him too. Yeah. So then where would the irrigation be? So I don't know why it's not on this page, but there was a separate page in the select board packet for tonight, because this is a topic that the slide board's going to be talking about. And it showed just the DPW water rate increases on town. And so there was a category broken out of municipal buildings, municipal irrigation, schools, and in total. Okay. Yep. But I'm not sure why it's not on the measure for sheets, but. Oh, that's funny. It is the last note. It appears to be very low. Okay. So the, but, um, I think that we don't have a role here. Um, so it's more of for our information. And if there's something that, you know, we want to weigh in on, we're invited to, but, um, rates get set by the board of public works and property taxes basically it's set by select. So when you said it's not more progressive or regressive, how does that compute out? I don't know. Is if they put it the same on everybody's and that actually makes it less progressive percentage wise, I guess that's the issue of it, the percent or is it now? You're right about that. Maybe progressive right, right there, because if you have a low tax bill and you have $200, $200 added to it, it's a very much higher percentage than if you have a very high tax bill. That's absolutely right. I think, but it, that's right. I assume this is a, it's a rate change either way, right? Either property tax rates are going to go up by some percent or water rates are going to go up by some percent. And as proposed, it's both. Yeah. So then I guess essentially like progressive or regressiveness would just have to do with sort of relative water consumption to house household value, right? If you have a very expensive house and you don't use a lot of water, you'd rather the water rates go up and vice versa. Intuitively, I would guess, absolute guess, right? That water rates are probably more regressive and property taxes are probably more progressive. Well, the water rates are progressive. I think, you know, my point has always been that in our climate action plan, we're supposed to make them more progressive, not less progressive. So I think these are considered some of the most progressive in the state, as far as the levels, but the other problem, which is separate from all of this, is they actually don't collect enough revenues from this, especially the takeover, the cost from the lowest tiered levels. So I think water rates are an interesting conversation. And I guess I'm more, I'm more friendly, as far as what we're going to change by what percentage, right? I don't know, does there's someone with a house that's four times four times as expensive means, on average, four times as much water. That seems like that's kind of the crux of the Western here. Yeah, that's my guess, right? My guess is that like, and I don't know, it would probably come down like... I think in the last meeting, Michael McCaw had the example of his parents that have a big house and live alone with as much water, so... Yeah. So my guess would be that the property tax approach is going to make people who have expensive houses pay more relative to the water rate approach. The, just for context, the initial suggestion was to put it all in property taxes. Yeah. And so this is, this hybrid approach, you know, it's a part in part, and this is good. It makes sense to the hybrid. I guess the other question is on, um, well, they had recommended that the MWR, whatever it is, section, oh, not, no, MGL section. There was the K and the N. Yes. They were recommending, I think, section K, which is permanent, permanent addition of tax.
Consideration of would they consider using N, they have more flexibility in the future if they, for whatever reason, needed to, you know, push it back. Yeah. I mean, there's a select board. Yeah. Push it back to, um... It will let the select board decide which way, but I hear you. They, in conversations, as I understand it, they, they're not sure they want that flexibility to have to revisit it every year. But that's my understanding too. It's an annual... All right. I think it is an annual determination, potentially. Okay. So, but I hear you. I mean, as you said, we don't really have a role in this. I think it's nice to have an opinion with it. Yeah. The select board does, it will turn toes around property taxes and around two and a half override, and so all of this ripples into the broader questions. Well, I, I think also, whether we make a formal recommendation or I think we need to have an opinion on this, because people will ask the financing, you know, how we got here. Yeah. And, and to be clear, it was, you know, the reason it's a hybrid is, is Carla. Okay. In conversation, we said, we ought to look at it and not just put it all in, in water, in, uh, property taxes and so... I don't remember if that's true or not, but I do know that there was some pushback by, uh, some of the people on the, on the select board to the original recommendation as well. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, a hybrid, I think is a lot easier to sell to people because everybody gets a little bit, it's like, if it's a hundred percent one way or the other, it's easy to get complaints, but it's in the middle. It's like, how can you really complain? We'll still get complaints, but... Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, but the arguments are, gee, we should put a hundred percent in one. So, that's all... I just decided to write it out. And it was a good point in the way to sort of separate with the ROWR action on fuel. Happy Halloween. Anything else? Yep. That's what I got. And the select board's actually, uh, addressing this matter at the conclusion of the finance today, pending 15. So, to the degree folks want to hang around for the next 15 minutes, that's where it's slotted. I don't know if they're taking action in planning to. The third item on the agenda is a request for qualifications for a finance committee person to participate in the review process. So, about for residential rubbish in recycling collection program, is how this is framed. It is actually to also look at the transfer station and make a determination is that there are changes that would be appropriate, operational, financial, and so forth. Um, it's, we're not driving the, uh, process, but there, uh, Tom Holder emailed or called me to ask if there would, might be a finance committee member who would like to join the team. Um, I think it's going to be, I think, I don't remember this, I don't have his email in front of me right now. Um, I thought it was going to be monthly zoom calls, uh, one, one a month through the process of getting some responses. And the question they're trying to answer is whether to keep the transfer station open. Well, so they're looking at options, including the possible curbside both recycling and trash pickup, but they're also going to look at, you know, what is the financial soundness? I, in my response to Tom, I said, what about also combining Sudbury and Whiteland get some economies there. He said, you know, all that we could include that. Um, it had been looked at in the past and for reasons that we didn't go into was not seemed as feasible at that time, but so it may be, and they're, we're targeting to try and do it during business hours, whatever works for the folks that are being volunteers to join zoom call once a month. Yeah. I have an interest, but I'm not sure I have the time. So that's, you know, I can do that. Okay. Thank you. The last item was FinCom meetings. What were you doing? Uh, during the select board. Um, and this came up in particular because, uh, the economic development committee has asked me to meet with the FinCom to talk about their perspectives on kind of growth and the like, and they wanted to target that. I can't remember exactly why before our December meeting in preparation for the day, I think our meeting with select board. And so I wanted to meet with us first. So I thought of trying to see, and they confirmed to me today that they could meet with us on November 17th, two weeks from tonight. Um, so I would like to hear what they say. We are one of the lowest growth communities in the Commonwealth in terms of tax revenue and be interested to see what perspectives they have on that. I'm thinking seven o'clock for an hour and a hybrid meeting. I'm not sure there would be any other topics that we'd want to address together, but if there are, we could consider that. I was going to get back to, uh, EDC and say, does a half hour seem appropriate for their slot? Sorry. You said November 17th or you said our December meeting? Uh, November 17th, two weeks from tonight, a new meeting on our calendar. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I won't be able to be there. I have another, another finance committee meeting, different organization. Rob, you can be able to meet. Okay. Boom. Yeah. Cool. I'm available in PAM? Yes. Good.
Yeah. My meeting of the meeting starts at 7 30. So to the extent we started at 7, I'll be there for the first time. Okay. Great. Great. Great. Any other topics to raise today? It's going to come once. So do we adjourn now or do we pause? We pause. I think I'm going to, I'm going to argue that we're recessing. That's the better word. Yeah. True. Just have to have someone make a, that's a better word. Motion. Motion. Once. Well, make a motion to adjourn once we finish. Okay. So we are going to go find the select order. The group. They're in the, I think they're in the select board meeting room. Okay. Which will make it nice and crowded. Yeah. Oh, it's a good evening. Well, if you don't know the room, it's not very big. You know, I'll send us to the board now. By the way, the next meeting, the next regularly scheduled meeting is December 1st, right? First Monday. After that, January 5th, again, first Monday of the month. After that, we've, we've arranged, um, Monday and Wednesdays, um, because things will heat up in February. Um, you're not required to meet then, but I just, we have them in the book. Yes. Good. Good. Thanks. Okay. So 12-1, the first? 12-1. Okay. And then you get 1-5. January 5th.
We are in recess.
Thank you all.
Moving to the review of the agenda. So, we have four sort of main topics in the half hour that's available to us before we will recess this, or I'm not sure if the phrase will be on temporary pause, while we've joined the Select Committee and School Board Committee to review. The main topic for our review with them is the financial outlook, I guess, is what I would describe it. So, let's see, two, four, six, let me see, oh, there's, welcome, Pam. Thank you. Welcome, Rob. This is Rob's first name. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
And, Rob, are you now on the email trail? Yes. Okay, yeah. Yeah, one email. That's okay. Okay, that's okay. You'll get more. Okay.
The first order of business is minutes. That's, that's, uh, Carl drafted. Thank you, Carl. Welcome.
No, I heard you had no changes to the bill in April. I had some changes. Good. I think the HAXA, um, do a spell check on, on, or find, replace, I think. Whoops, okay. HA, to XHA, I think there was an S in several places. Um, um, I, I really had just, like, knits in a few places, and just, sort of, like, conditional, um, so I can go through page, my page, if anyone, um, on the first, actually, sorry, it's the second page, um, the first full paragraph that's not, not in bold, B. Kevney described, um, the second to last sentence, starting with, um, on the line before, B. Kevney noted that even if these two measures are adopted, the budget, I think it should be likely, would also require $300,000 to $500,000.
Well, that's, on page three, um, at the top of the page, that first paragraph, we have the school pay, this is the second sentence, the school payroll budget and overall school budget are conservatively, I mean, maybe, I just, I might just take out conservatively, estimate it at, I believe, I believe that was actually the statement, but either, either one, if I'm right, either one's correct, so, yeah, yeah, I think, I think he probably stated it as such, but, yeah, TBD, um, and then, then the next sentence, um, well, I guess it's part of the same sentence, is town budget increasing approximately three percent, I think there should be both of which are levels, which is all of which, sorry, I did this well, I guess. That was payroll, overall school budget. Budget and, oh, got it, the next paragraph, this was, the P. Roman comment observes that, although these obligations are significant, the town has done better, I was specifically stating, at addressing these long-term liabilities, and many of its fears, just at addressing these liabilities, that's funny, I guess, it refers to that, but, and then the other point being, and OPEB funding is often noted as a positive in the credit rating, for the town's credit rating, that kind of, that, that all went together. I'm sorry, I'm not pulling it out. So, um, so it's really inserting, um, observe that, although these obligations are significant, the town has done better, I would just insert, at addressing these long-term liabilities,
and many of its peers, just at, and OPEB funding is often noted as a positive for the town's credit rating. And then, two paragraphs down from that, the discussion then returned to the issuance of bans. Um, the second sentence, the savings in fiscal year 27 from issuing those bans, and I think it should also be, and delaying other debt issuance, because, remember, we talked about it, it wasn't just, that's right, the bans, it was, the other delay. That comes up with the next sentence, but I can, I can clarify that. It does, it does, it's just like, as you read it, if you just kind of are skimming it, it's, it's, it's more than one factor, but, or, yeah, I guess you do. So, I think, but the savings is, the savings is 800,000 from the two things, right? Yes. So, yeah, I think it should be, it should be. I agree. Okay. Um, and then, the only other thing I had is topics not, not reasonably anticipated on the last page, or the, um, federal budget, the government becomes potentially that's a firm. Massachusetts reduced resources at the state level could versus will go through every town, and that are relatively wealthy towns such as Whale and would likely be required to bear. Well, I mean, it, it, it, I think it is probable. Um, and then in the last sense, members that expressed a preference for future overrides that may be required. I think it, it should be cover, um, not to cover, but cover a minimum of three years. Okay. Rather than holding a new, I, I guess, just qualify, um, override vote, a new override vote every year.
Change is just noted to see one want to move to. Second thing. Okay. In favor of people. I'm going to abstain. No. All right. Sure. Good deal. And Rob's going to abstain as well.
Next topic. WRA, Carl. Sure. Um, so, the Board of Public Works is, um, voted, it's five nothing to, to recommend to the select board that we, that we have a hybrid solution for financing the hybrid solution. Um, and, uh, what I, what I provide, I've provided two things, um, in this regard. One of which is the actual, the actual, um, um, thank you. That's where I'm looking at the recommendation, um, which is to fund the, the Happy Holland Wells and, and that upgrade through water rates and the MWRA connection through, uh, taxation. Um, I think it speaks for itself. I don't know how much more I need to say about that, uh, here, but I want to make sure, make sure you're aware of it. The other thing I, I sent out includes, um, the DPW analysis of impact on the water rates. And if you have that handy, great. If not, you'll have it in that package. What they've shown is that, um, and they've broken this down for the first time. We've been hearing 32% of, uh, increases coming from just from other projects and 74% if you add in the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the debt for, for the, to have the Happy Holland project and the NWRA project into, into, uh, water rates. Now they broke that down. And what they've shown is, um, again, if you have, if you have it handy, um, in the residential section up on top, there's a, there's some headings with, um, there's a, in the middle of the page, A, B, C, and B, um, um, column A shows four, five different, sorry, seven different, um, levels of water usage. The, uh, the, uh, the average, the average debt service plus, including, sorry, the average water bill and yet the debt service from these other projects. If you do the math in every case, that's 32% of the average water bill. So $87 is a, is 32% of 271. Then they show the amount for, uh, of the debt service for Happy Hollow and finally the NWRA in column C. Cumulative, cumulatively, they add up to, and again, using that first line item to set to a, to a total increase of $200. Um, so for a person with a water bill of $271, the total increase would be $200 or 74%. With this new proposal, however, we're going to ignore column C and it would just be the 32% for the other debt service and the 17%, that's what that column B is. $46, for example, is 17% of 271. So the total increase for water rates would be 49%. This is all starting sometime in probably 20, 29. Um, that is their proposal. Um, the only other information I have is actually something I'd put together, you know, completely on my own, but in the, in the actual proposal, they break out. We've seen these numbers before, $20.5 million for the, for the, uh, cost of the NWRA connection. Um, if you finance that over 20 years without interest, that comes out to a little over a million dollars a year. And that means taxation would have to go up by a million dollars a year on a school, on, on an operating budget of $108 million, which is what we had this year. That's about 0.95% of an increase in our taxes. And it looks to me, um, they have a figure here, um, under a number of residential accounts, 4,859 accounts. That's actually lower than I think the number of households of the town is, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I guess some, maybe some people are completely, completely on well water, but if you take that number and, and then divide the, um, divide the, um, 100 and well, it's $1,025,000 a year, by that number of households, you come up with an average tax increase of about 200, $210 a year. Right. Um, and in both cases, it looks to me as though that's simply spread out evenly among all participants. You know, it's not progressive, not regressive. It's just the property tax portion. Yeah. Adding on, that has the weight of the water rates as well. Right. So that's kind of what we have today. Does anyone think municipal buildings are really low? Or what? Low as in usage? The forecast of like what their average bills are? Is that normal? I don't, can't speak to it. It actually, I believe that, um, they talk about municipal irrigation as separate from municipal buildings. So that's one, but no, but I believe George might have actually been asked, um, Tom Holder to double check those municipal numbers because it looked low to him too. Yeah. So then where would the irrigation be? So I don't know why it's not on this page, but there was a separate page in the select board packet for tonight, because this is a topic that the slide board's going to be talking about. And it showed just the DPW water rate increases on town. And so there was a category broken out of municipal buildings, municipal irrigation, schools, and in total. Okay. Yep. But I'm not sure why it's not on the measure for sheets, but. Oh, that's funny. It is the last note. It appears to be very low. Okay. So the, but, um, I think that we don't have a role here. Um, so it's more of for our information. And if there's something that, you know, we want to weigh in on, we're invited to, but, um, rates get set by the board of public works and property taxes basically it's set by select. So when you said it's not more progressive or regressive, how does that compute out? I don't know. Is if they put it the same on everybody's and that actually makes it less progressive percentage wise, I guess that's the issue of it, the percent or is it now? You're right about that. Maybe progressive right, right there, because if you have a low tax bill and you have $200, $200 added to it, it's a very much higher percentage than if you have a very high tax bill. That's absolutely right. I think, but it, that's right. I assume this is a, it's a rate change either way, right? Either property tax rates are going to go up by some percent or water rates are going to go up by some percent. And as proposed, it's both. Yeah. So then I guess essentially like progressive or regressiveness would just have to do with sort of relative water consumption to house household value, right? If you have a very expensive house and you don't use a lot of water, you'd rather the water rates go up and vice versa. Intuitively, I would guess, absolute guess, right? That water rates are probably more regressive and property taxes are probably more progressive. Well, the water rates are progressive. I think, you know, my point has always been that in our climate action plan, we're supposed to make them more progressive, not less progressive. So I think these are considered some of the most progressive in the state, as far as the levels, but the other problem, which is separate from all of this, is they actually don't collect enough revenues from this, especially the takeover, the cost from the lowest tiered levels. So I think water rates are an interesting conversation. And I guess I'm more, I'm more friendly, as far as what we're going to change by what percentage, right? I don't know, does there's someone with a house that's four times four times as expensive means, on average, four times as much water. That seems like that's kind of the crux of the Western here. Yeah, that's my guess, right? My guess is that like, and I don't know, it would probably come down like... I think in the last meeting, Michael McCaw had the example of his parents that have a big house and live alone with as much water, so... Yeah. So my guess would be that the property tax approach is going to make people who have expensive houses pay more relative to the water rate approach. The, just for context, the initial suggestion was to put it all in property taxes. Yeah. And so this is, this hybrid approach, you know, it's a part in part, and this is good. It makes sense to the hybrid. I guess the other question is on, um, well, they had recommended that the MWR, whatever it is, section, oh, not, no, MGL section. There was the K and the N. Yes. They were recommending, I think, section K, which is permanent, permanent addition of tax.
Consideration of would they consider using N, they have more flexibility in the future if they, for whatever reason, needed to, you know, push it back. Yeah. I mean, there's a select board. Yeah. Push it back to, um... It will let the select board decide which way, but I hear you. They, in conversations, as I understand it, they, they're not sure they want that flexibility to have to revisit it every year. But that's my understanding too. It's an annual... All right. I think it is an annual determination, potentially. Okay. So, but I hear you. I mean, as you said, we don't really have a role in this. I think it's nice to have an opinion with it. Yeah. The select board does, it will turn toes around property taxes and around two and a half override, and so all of this ripples into the broader questions. Well, I, I think also, whether we make a formal recommendation or I think we need to have an opinion on this, because people will ask the financing, you know, how we got here. Yeah. And, and to be clear, it was, you know, the reason it's a hybrid is, is Carla. Okay. In conversation, we said, we ought to look at it and not just put it all in, in water, in, uh, property taxes and so... I don't remember if that's true or not, but I do know that there was some pushback by, uh, some of the people on the, on the select board to the original recommendation as well. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, a hybrid, I think is a lot easier to sell to people because everybody gets a little bit, it's like, if it's a hundred percent one way or the other, it's easy to get complaints, but it's in the middle. It's like, how can you really complain? We'll still get complaints, but... Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, but the arguments are, gee, we should put a hundred percent in one. So, that's all... I just decided to write it out. And it was a good point in the way to sort of separate with the ROWR action on fuel. Happy Halloween. Anything else? Yep. That's what I got. And the select board's actually, uh, addressing this matter at the conclusion of the finance today, pending 15. So, to the degree folks want to hang around for the next 15 minutes, that's where it's slotted. I don't know if they're taking action in planning to. The third item on the agenda is a request for qualifications for a finance committee person to participate in the review process. So, about for residential rubbish in recycling collection program, is how this is framed. It is actually to also look at the transfer station and make a determination is that there are changes that would be appropriate, operational, financial, and so forth. Um, it's, we're not driving the, uh, process, but there, uh, Tom Holder emailed or called me to ask if there would, might be a finance committee member who would like to join the team. Um, I think it's going to be, I think, I don't remember this, I don't have his email in front of me right now. Um, I thought it was going to be monthly zoom calls, uh, one, one a month through the process of getting some responses. And the question they're trying to answer is whether to keep the transfer station open. Well, so they're looking at options, including the possible curbside both recycling and trash pickup, but they're also going to look at, you know, what is the financial soundness? I, in my response to Tom, I said, what about also combining Sudbury and Whiteland get some economies there. He said, you know, all that we could include that. Um, it had been looked at in the past and for reasons that we didn't go into was not seemed as feasible at that time, but so it may be, and they're, we're targeting to try and do it during business hours, whatever works for the folks that are being volunteers to join zoom call once a month. Yeah. I have an interest, but I'm not sure I have the time. So that's, you know, I can do that. Okay. Thank you. The last item was FinCom meetings. What were you doing? Uh, during the select board. Um, and this came up in particular because, uh, the economic development committee has asked me to meet with the FinCom to talk about their perspectives on kind of growth and the like, and they wanted to target that. I can't remember exactly why before our December meeting in preparation for the day, I think our meeting with select board. And so I wanted to meet with us first. So I thought of trying to see, and they confirmed to me today that they could meet with us on November 17th, two weeks from tonight. Um, so I would like to hear what they say. We are one of the lowest growth communities in the Commonwealth in terms of tax revenue and be interested to see what perspectives they have on that. I'm thinking seven o'clock for an hour and a hybrid meeting. I'm not sure there would be any other topics that we'd want to address together, but if there are, we could consider that. I was going to get back to, uh, EDC and say, does a half hour seem appropriate for their slot? Sorry. You said November 17th or you said our December meeting? Uh, November 17th, two weeks from tonight, a new meeting on our calendar. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I won't be able to be there. I have another, another finance committee meeting, different organization. Rob, you can be able to meet. Okay. Boom. Yeah. Cool. I'm available in PAM? Yes. Good.
Yeah. My meeting of the meeting starts at 7 30. So to the extent we started at 7, I'll be there for the first time. Okay. Great. Great. Great. Any other topics to raise today? It's going to come once. So do we adjourn now or do we pause? We pause. I think I'm going to, I'm going to argue that we're recessing. That's the better word. Yeah. True. Just have to have someone make a, that's a better word. Motion. Motion. Once. Well, make a motion to adjourn once we finish. Okay. So we are going to go find the select order. The group. They're in the, I think they're in the select board meeting room. Okay. Which will make it nice and crowded. Yeah. Oh, it's a good evening. Well, if you don't know the room, it's not very big. You know, I'll send us to the board now. By the way, the next meeting, the next regularly scheduled meeting is December 1st, right? First Monday. After that, January 5th, again, first Monday of the month. After that, we've, we've arranged, um, Monday and Wednesdays, um, because things will heat up in February. Um, you're not required to meet then, but I just, we have them in the book. Yes. Good. Good. Thanks. Okay. So 12-1, the first? 12-1. Okay. And then you get 1-5. January 5th.
We are in recess.
Thank you all.