October 20, 2026 – Board of Public Works – Video & Transcript
October 20, 2026 - Board of Public Works
All right, so we'll call the meeting to order. This is the Board Of Public Works meeting, Wayland Board Of Public Works, October 20th at 6.02 p.m. We're participating via remote access only tonight via Zoom. Let's see, what else do I have to read here? The meeting is being recorded and will be made available to the public on WACAM as soon as possible after the meeting. We don't have any executive sessions planned, but if we do, public will not be invited to that.
Pursuant to Chapter 2, the meeting is being conducted via remote access in accordance with applicable laws. Because it's only remote access, no in-person attendance by members of the public is permitted. The link was in our agenda. When required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so via Zoom.
And we'll be limited to two minutes per person. So with that, we'll call the meeting to order. And I'll take a roll call. Ed, are you here? Yes. John? Here. Mr. Storer? Thank you. Mr. Spellman? Here. Wegerbauer here. Great. Tom, do we have any announcements? I have nothing to announce. Okay. Any board members or?
We are joined here by Carol Martin, our liaison to the select board, as well as Tom Holder, our director, and Don Millette, our water superintendent. And Joe Doucette. Joe, your title always escapes me. DPW superintendent. DPW superintendent. Okay. Thank you. Anyone, Carol, do you have any announcements? Any board members' announcements?
I would like to thank Joe Doucette and the DPW staff for allowing the Boy Scouts and Wayland Weston Rowing for borrowing some heavy-duty straps to transport some floating docks to the town beach yesterday.
The couple of the dock sections that are owned by Wayland Recreation were sinking. And during the head of the trials, there was a vendor there that had some dock sections displayed that fit our system. And so we were able to purchase those two demo models and transport them from Cambridge to the Wayland Town Beach yesterday using the Boy Scouts trailer.
And using the staff, some of the volunteers from Wayland Western crew to get the sections there. And we saved the town about $1,500 buying the demo models and transporting them ourselves. So Katherine Brenna was helping us out with that since Recreation owns them. But everybody kind of helped out a little bit, including Joe letting us borrow the straps. Awesome. Thank you. That's a great story.
Paul wasn't supposed to know that, but okay. Oh, okay. So that sounds like a good use of our time. Okay, great. Thanks, Mike. With that, we will move to public comment. And I do see that we have some folks in the lobby, one with his hand raised. So Steve should be on. Here he is.
Hi, it's Judy. Oh, it is Judy. You're right, Carol. I don't, I guess I screwed up on the link, but anyway, I don't know if someone can put me on. So I can, let's see, what does this say? Promote to panelist. Okay, join us. All right. So Judy, you are here. We will announce that. All right. I don't know why this isn't.
I'm here. I don't know why you can't see me. Awesome. Okay. So it does not look like we have any public comment then. I am not seeing anybody in the wings now. Okay. All right. So with that, we can move on to Judy's requested agenda item, which is the water financial model and looking at how we ended up the year. We had three emergency.
Situations come up last year where we had to connect to the emergency MWRA connection. So we had expected we might be in a situation where we had gone over the budget and may have had to use some of our retained earnings. But I don't believe that's the case. But Tom, do you want me to share the spreadsheet? Yeah, if you can. Let me see if I can do that. Happy to take that offer.
All right. Here we go. So it's a large sheet, so it doesn't. So I can zoom into certain areas so we can see it better. I'm seeing a layer that's got home and it's got a bunch of your stuff that's over the top of the. Is everybody else seeing the same? So if you're able to minimize that, is that me? That's the menu for Excel.
Is that what you mean, up here, home? Nope, sorry, that was mine. Yep, my bad. That was me, that I had something on my screen. You're looking in the mirror. There we go. Good now. Okay. So, you know, if I zoom out, we can see the full sheet, but you can't really then understand what we're looking at. But I think what, Judy, you were looking to understand was where we ended the year.
And I think this has been projected by, and there's a comment here by Matt Abrahams, our consultant, financial water consultant. This is the educated guess on what the next certified amount will be based on projected surplus in fiscal year 26 plus fiscal 25 encumbrances not spent in fiscal year 26.
of about $118,000. And fiscal year 26 encumbrances expected to be spent in fiscal year 27, about $272,000. So this is a projection. Every year we get certified by the state as to our retained earnings balance. That's called our certified retained earnings. That has not occurred yet. I'm assuming all the paperwork's been submitted.
It just takes some time for them to pour through everything and say, yeah, that looks about right. So we're projected to come in about 1,090,000. Our target had been 937,846 for the end of fiscal year 26. So despite three emergency situations, it looks, Tom, unless I'm incorrect, that we came in to the positive by about 150,000.
Yes, that's what that says. Okay. Great. Thank you, Mike. One of the things I wanted to look at was, as you pointed out, where did we end up at the end of the year? And it looks like we're in the positive. And line 78 says 22.5. And past years we were higher, except for fiscal year 23.
So it seems pretty healthy to me. The other thing I was looking at is all along, one of the reasons why we had not raised the rates for the four tiers for fiscal year 26 was because we were going to the quarterly
Billing. So if you go all the way up, Mike, if you don't mind, you'll see that we, yeah, so the 44.5 mil and then 594, and so we ended up at 45 mil, 172. So that's because of the way we're billing now. And then, if I understand correctly, if you go all the way to the right,
It has the dollars. If we did not count the extra way we're billing, and it's 40 or, yeah. So the two numbers tell me that approximately by billing quarterly, we got an 11% bump in collections. And that would be a, yeah, I think that's predicted to be a one time. Yes. Increase, yes.
Right. I mean, that's why we did what we did. So I just wanted to make sure things ended up the way we thought it would. Yeah, we're hoping Carol will bring that back to the select board because they were very concerned about us not raising and increasing the rates. And we were banking on certain factors. And there are many factors that go into these rate setting discussions.
So, yeah, there had been a lot of concern on their part. And again, despite three emergency situations, we ended up to the positive. About that emergency, Mike, I think it was, I don't know what line, but it's lower in the spreadsheet where it showed 200 something thousand that we spent on the couple of emergencies.
252, 741. So that's line 58. 58. Okay. 58. Yes, right here. Yeah. And there's a little note from Matt Abrams that says that there were two bills, one for 227, the other one for 25.
So I guess one of the things I was curious about was how many gallons of water are we talking about here or whatever matrix people want to calculate by because I wanted to compare it to our own water costs. I know MWRA, especially these emergency ones, are more expensive, but I was just wondering if we had any idea what they're charging us.
Tom, do you know if we have the quantity somewhere?
I mean, I don't have it on the top of my head right now or even ready to give you tonight, but we definitely have the formula that's used. So we have the volume of water. We have the calculation. It's not really a direct calculation. There's a couple of factors. The consumption, we're paying, I don't know, four, maybe $5,000 per million gallons.
And then there's a capital fee. They've got a formula for emergency connection water. But I can provide, we have the invoices. So I can provide all of that to the board. I'll make a note to get that out during the week here. Thank you so much. It's more as a gauge of how much more expensive they are compared to our own production. Any other board members have any comments or questions?
Tom, any comments? Or Carol, any comments, questions? No, the one thing that, you know, we can talk about it now, and then I'm going to go over our year-to-date budgets shortly, is that, you know, in the water budget, you'll see, I believe it is, contractor services has got a very healthy value. And each year, for the past three years, we've been carrying about $220,000 for the replacement of the resin. at the PFAS vessels. And we have yet needed to do that. The resident has been performing, actually performing really well. And so, but we're really forced because we don't, you know, we monitor that, we take samples. It looks, you know, still pretty healthy, but just as a note that that is a reason, you know, why some of these Line items are as high as they are, is that we need to carry that expense. Good point. Didn't we rinse it? I thought we had done something recently with the resin. Or maybe it was just that we predicted we were going to replace it this year. Yeah. I mean, when we entered into this lease program, they talked about 24 months or 90,000 bed volumes. And we've far exceeded both the timeline and, I believe, the flows. And the ion exchange resin is performing beyond expectations. Wow. That's great. So it is. It is great. So we'll see. But again, you know, in this year, you'll see in contracted services, it's a very high value. And that's the reason for that. We'll likely put it in for FY28. Again, as you can see, what we just went over, we had $154,000 surplus in FY26. A large, you know, reason for that is $220,000 that wasn't spent on resin. Got it. Yeah. Sounds good. All right. Anyone else? Otherwise, we will move on to something similar. Year-to-date budget review. So this is where we look at the budgets and the percent of the year completed so far to see where we're at. Are we on track? Are there any concerns? Tom, I don't think I have that spreadsheet. So you may have to share that, or should I share it from the packet? I was going to say, if you have it from the packet, I can use that. I've got the printout, but I don't have it queued up in my system here. Okay, let me try to share it from the packet. And I can go in whatever order it is listed. Okay. Are you seeing? Okay. Yep, I can see that fine. So Public Works is the first one up. Okay, great. So just a quick overview. We have our, at the top, this is Highway and Parks we're beginning with. We have the percent of year completed. That's 29%. Oops. And then we have over to the right or left, we have all of the line items and the expense budget and our percent use date on the far right column. Right, right. So what the one thing that I noticed is missing, we've corrected that is so you'll see that the headings above they say budget and then the next one over is revised budget and then the next one over is blank and that that is year to date spend. So right where your cursor is that column should say year to date spend. Got it. So look at that column and then over, look at percent used year to date. I wouldn't focus so much on the encumbrances. It actually makes it more confusing. So in essence, just look at that 618, 780 that's in salaries and then the percent. And so what we do is... You know, we produce these reports regularly and each program manager monitors, you know, their respective budgets. And many things will follow. We hope that they follow the percent of the year complete. But there are some times when things are, you know, you know, seasonal, you know, so like seasonal employees, much of that, you know, is spent. In, you know, July, August, and then that remains dormant until June, and then we bring in some more. So there's a number of these that you'll actually see that are higher than 29. But again, there's really nothing, you know, I kind of go through, you can see, you know, uniforms, you know, protective, personal protection equipment is 100% spent at $10,200. And that's because contractually we have to purchase, in addition to a clothing allowance, we have to purchase safety equipment. Coats, jackets, sweatshirts for the staff. And we generally do that right at the beginning of the fiscal year. So you'll see that's why some of the stuff is, that one in particular is 100%. Great. We're doing good on the snow budget so far. So far, we're good. Yeah, we got oodles of money left. Yeah, what is that, $1,700, I think I saw earlier, something we spent on a vehicle repair. Yes, yeah, just about $18,000, yeah. Anyone who has questions, just jump in. We're just going to go through these fairly quickly. But if you have questions, jump in and we'll get answers. And then again, capital accounts, we need to clean this up. I work closely with both. The Capital Improvement Planning Committee and the Finance Department in closing out projects. And many of what you see here are no longer active accounts. So we need to clean that up for, you know, for really board use. We know, you know, we're pretty comfortable and familiar with some of these things, but we do not have this many capital accounts currently active. Probably if I had to take a ballpark, I'd say probably a half. To two thirds of them are closed out. Got it. Yeah. I have an unusual question. Go ahead. So I bumped into Tom the other day and there's interest in a dog park in town center. And I said to Tom, it's not our land. It's not town land. And I hope they don't expect us to go clean up after the dogs. And then Tom said that we actually have a contract with a specialty group that actually takes care of those droppings. I'm just curious, where would that go in this budget? So it actually isn't in ours. Currently, we don't have any need to pick up pet waste. Conservation does. They have, they've got those bag drops at some of their trailheads. You'll see them, these metal containers that are like three or four feet off the ground. They actually hire a company to dispose of that. So they're the ones that have that expense line, not us. Ah, okay. Thank you. Yep. Yep. The name of the company that... Disposal is amazing. It's called Duty Calls. D-O-O-D-I-E, Duty Calls. Very clever, right? Nice. It's a job for everyone. Okay. If we don't have any further questions here, yes, maybe we can clean this up so it's more usable next time. Yeah, yeah. You'll see a lot of that going on. Yep. Okay. Sounds good. Judy, did you have something else? No, that was me. Oh, Carol, do you have something else? Go ahead. Music to my ears. Clap little closeouts. Because we can use that to fund capital projects for the FY28 budget. Yeah. I appreciate it. Yeah, I issued both. Yeah, Sipsy and Brian both have the closeout recommendation report. And it was many, many, many. Projects that were still listed that could be closed out. Yeah. Takes time, and I do appreciate the effort, because it helps us. Yeah, absolutely. Oh. Yes. Okay. Oops. Yeah, so same format, you know, it's 29%, looking at all of the line items. There's really nothing that, you know, jumps out at all, really, with this. Seasonal was a little over budget. Again, same thing as Highway. Small. Yeah, but their seasonal, again, ends. Yeah, it, you know, July and August, and then they'll bring it back up again when we do sticker sales beginning, you know, kind of the latter part of May into June. Yep. Where's the truck that we talked about at our last meeting? That's a capital request? This is an operating budget? Okay. So that roll-off is in a capital budget, which is entirely separate. Yeah, so just to, I mean, speak a little bit to that. We spoke, I believe, at our last meeting about two of the capital items, the roll-off and then the water asset management plan. And so SIPC, Capital Improvement Planning Committee, I believe has issued their report to the town manager, and that's their recommendations. And then Michael and Brian Keveny will begin to hold meetings with department heads to go over that report, the recommendations. Discuss it with department heads and they will actually, you know, kind of put their final touches to it. And at that point, I then bring that back to this board. And so I would imagine likely in the November meeting, maybe in the December meeting, I will bring that full capital budget, you know, for all of these divisions before the Board of Public Works for a conversation. Do we have... Sorry. No, go ahead. For the salary line, is that for an FTE of three, or what's the FTE? So it's 2.5, and then we do have, yeah, and then we do have one employee that's shared between transfer station and highway, and I'm not sure if that's a 60-40 split, but we generally just, in trying to do the math, it's the 2.5 employees that are assigned fully to the transfer station functions. So does this include the OPEB? OPEB would be in the indirects, which you'll see at 81,464. That's down on that line. Tom? Sorry, Judy. No, no, sorry. Thank you. Just back to the roll-off truck. So an idea was floated that maybe you can look into or consider. What would it cost to... Have the items that we currently roll off picked up in weighing the cost between a capital expense of about $380,000 spread out over how many years? Maybe $15,000 or $20,000? Yeah, that vehicle, probably $20,000. Okay. So just something to maybe think about as we're looking at that expense. So outsourcing the hauling that that vehicle performs rather than do it in-house? Yes. And that certainly can be, you know, kind of derived. And then what we'll probably wind up doing is trying to, it's difficult to quantify, but our ability to mobilize immediately for something. We have that ability now. We have the ability to You know, to serve, you know, some different functions. As an example, the Household Hazardous Waste Day was just held at DPW this past Saturday, and it was a pretty successful event. That vehicle supports that and moves containers back and forth between the properties. You know, so we have the ability to really react very quickly. We're, as Mike Lauer used to say, we are nimble in our ability to... to provide services. So it's hard to quantify, but when I put together something, we'll likely kind of just throw in a factor for that too, just so people are aware. Yes. Okay. Sounds good. Anything else on the transfer station budget? I guess you could speak to our discussion last night with the select board on this topic. I think it was well-received, what we were presenting. I think it was fairly well-organized, thanks to George for the initial stab and then for the Board getting together the final memo. What we had requested was maybe the implementation of a new expense line item here, or I'm sorry, a new revenue line item for the recharge of the town costs to the town. In addition to what we've been requiring recently, which is a subsidy. So that conversation was held last night. It was kind of an initial conversation. Although when we looked at Article 5 from 2021 ATM, we realized that, Carol, thank you for putting that in the packet. We realized that there was a subsidy expected to be required at that point. So this isn't the first time it's been raised. Does anyone have a comment on that, Carol? Would you like to comment for Tom? Mike or John, who are both there, and Judy there remotely? I'll defer to everyone on the board first. Okay. Hearing none? I think, yeah, okay. So Carol Martin, Lake Road, we're on the select board. I think Article 5 from the, is it 2021? In our time meeting warrants a really good review by your board because it does talk about why the board transitioned from a revolving fund to an enterprise fund back in 21. There's some issues with being able to be, I'm going to say, nimble in order to support your suppliers. I think you might want to read that. I think you also want to read that you did pay indirects in 22. There's a lot of different things here. A lot of information from the Finance Committee. It's their opinion about a lot of these things. What... The town has done, although I've heard it before, is, and I think when Mike and Tom and I met, we did talk about, you know, the town has supported the transfer station with an initial subsidy of $75,000. And also, if you read that chart, it just sounds so confusing because when you close out a revolving fund by mass general law, all the funds fall to what we call the general fund, our checking account, right? And then when you look at this article, One of the motions was to raise a transfer, and part of it was $75,000 that the town was putting into the fund, and the $480,384, $48, that was transfer station revenues. So in other words, it's kind of like that Evers to Tinkerster chance. You had the money, the state requires it to be zeroed out, it goes into the general fund, but then that town meeting. Gave it back to you when you had the enterprise fund. So if you see that you didn't lose money, I know that's been a question that's been raised. So if you read this, I think you'll see that. It also mentions that the transfer station had been unable to pay their indirection. It doesn't say there's any agreement that you're not going to pay them. I do think that's an issue we have to grapple with. And I think that there's a lot of good information, you know, in here that talks about things they suggest. Creating a Waste Disposal Division or having an annual subsidy, but there's been no votes on any of those kinds of things. But I do think you should read that if you haven't. That's what the article said. Yes. One of our requests in our memo was that the select board consider returning us to a revolving fund. I think after we looked at that article, we realized that's probably not the best form. So the two options we had requested the select board consider was either providing a meaningful subsidy that would support the enterprise fund or returning it to a revolving fund, according to Michael McCall. We'd likely have to return it to a department, a town department, rather than a revolving fund if we were to move it out of enterprise fund status. So anyways, some technical items there from a structure standpoint. So when you read this, I don't think that, and I think Mike said it last night, that's really one of the issues. So that probably... Probably whatever we need to do or can do or should do or will do, I think you should probably stay, and Mr. Holder, you said she'd opine as an enterprise fund, keep that financial model in place so that you have that flexibility to pay your vendors. We did have, do you want me to talk about this part, Mike? We did have a fairly robust discussion about Funding the Municipal Trash Collection. And I think we're making some progress on that. Mr. McCall said he would look into it. I sent a follow-up email today about that. I believe... Is that under our study? No, this is the trash collection that the transfer station employees pick up, but that bill is funded. Oh, gotcha, the expenses. And I don't think that number is correct. I think it needs tweaking. So I think you want to look at that. But I think more importantly that the Board of Public Works needs to then sit down and say, what is it that you're looking for a subsidy? So you put together, that's your next step. In my opinion, you come back to us with that proposal, say, and you could say, you know, upon reflection, we're happy staying as an enterprise fund. We do agree that there should be a municipal trash collection revenue line or whatever you want to call it, Mike, there, and that the town should be billing and it should be adjusted annually for increases. Salaries and what have you. I don't think 61 is the right number. Maybe Mr. Holder will say yes it is. But anyway, I think you should look at your number. And I think that's, you should say the town should pay that. I personally am not in favor of having you bill everyone. I think that's a lot of wasted labor. And so, but I then think you need to, as a board, sit down now. Your next task will be, A, agree for enterprise fund. B, what is it you're looking for a subsidy? Are you looking for, you know, $500,000 a year? Are you looking for $25,000? What is it you're looking for? Yep. Is that what you think is where we left it? Absolutely. Yep. We're on the same page. Good. Yay. Yes. Yeah. I highly recommend everyone read this because I think it was wonderful for the history of it, you know, to just show. It didn't lose money. It was a good loss for making the change. But we do have a couple of things we need to look at now going forward. Yeah. Essentially, it allows us to keep the funds we take in from a revenue standpoint in that fund so that... Because when we get our sticker fees from, I don't know, in June prior to the fiscal year starting in July, there were some timing issues when we didn't have the enterprise fund. So this is to accommodate that. Great. And I think a third thing, Mike, you might want to look at is... Understanding your retained earnings balance at year end. I know we had this conversation when you and I met with Tom and there was a discussion that you have a handle on that you're bringing in in May and June, 50, 60,000. So if your net return in earnings shows 260, technically it's probably 200, but I think we need to have an understanding. What the comfort level with what your retained earnings are at your end, even though it includes future year revenue. Yeah. And in preparation for our upcoming study meeting, I'm going to be working with Joe and Anita to answer some of those questions. And that's one of them. What's our retained earnings? Okay. Great. So that's transfer station landfill related accounts. So those are actually general fund accounts, and that is for the management and regulatory compliance with the landfill on that property. Right. So we have to do quarterly sampling, reporting to the DEP, and that leachate disposal was there was actually a tank that that landfill was designed to capture any of the leachate, and that gets hauled away. So that's what those two lines are for. Great. I don't know how to stop highlighting like that. Transfer station revenue accounts, does this include the monies that came in during fiscal year 26? Yes. It does. Yep. And we're only at 48% right now. So concerns here? Yeah. Well, you'll see that the sticker fee, the top one, we're at 67%. Yes. So, you know, so we do get a, you know, a little bit of a bump at the beginning of the calendar year. There are a handful of folks that we always wind up selling a handful of stickers at the beginning. They get a, you know, a half year sticker. Okay. So that'll come up to a, you know, a smaller degree, but, you know, we are trending behind, necessary behind, you know, the budget. Okay. All right. And we're a little ahead on the pay-as-you-throw, it looks like. Yeah, it looks like people are buying, either people might buy bags or at the grocery store and they're like, you know what, I know I'm going to need, so I'm just going to drop a hundred bucks and get them all in one shot. It's hard to tell, but that could be a reason for that. Right. Okay. Just jump in, anyone, if you have questions. Otherwise, we'll move on to water. Water, you know, same. Same format. Same thing. You'll see what I'm talking about in the contractual services. That's 710,000. That's what I was referring to. So there's 220,000 for resin replacement in that. And then aside from that, it's just expected support that we need. Both that and the professional services or vendor support that we get. Maybe you can hold on until we get a new plant. Yeah, well, you can be sure we're not, we're just doing what's necessary to keep these functioning for another two or three years. Yeah. Yep. For the water salary, again, what is the FTE there? There are eight employees. Eight, nine, nine. We have an administrator that's paid out of that as well. So nine employees. Okay. And does this have the OPEB somewhere? That should have directs. It's usually down near the bottom, but. Transfer to general indirect. Yep, yep, it's $486,000. Look down below, green water debt service, total water fund, and then you see trans. Indirect fringes. Yeah. Oh, okay. There it is. Yep, that's the OPEB is loaded into that. Oh, no, the OPEB is 5863. Oh, sorry. Yeah. So I guess in this particular fund, it's actually called out separately. There we go. It's interesting. But in the other one, the 83,000 is actually a combination of those two? Yeah, that's the way that it's reported. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Again, same thing. Many of these capital projects have been closed out.
Got it. And then there's water revenue, pretty much right on mark, you know, 26.2%. The reason for the lighter ink? Water meter charges is right in line. Sorry, Judy, go ahead. Sorry. So the lighter ink is for what reason? I think that Anita just has that grayed out. That's the budget figure. When you see it in a printed format, I think it's really a personal style. I heard that she, but yeah, it doesn't really mean anything. It just, that's what the budget, that's what we're anticipating. And that obviously has to match our expenses. So the 26.2% is something to think about in terms of the fact that we're at 29% into the timeline. Right. And what I would be, it is correct. What I would be looking at is water meter charges at 25.5. The other ones, you know, fluctuate. You know, they're not exactly linear, but so the 25.5 is. Okay. And that has to do with our quarterly billing. Is that correct? That is. It is being built quarterly now. Yes, it is. Yeah.
Interesting. Thank you. Slightly below 29. Yeah, I, you know, the, when the money comes in, when the, what we call commitments, when we send out the bills, the timing is a little bit, you know, it's not right on, looking at when this was reported, what we've actually taken in. So I think, you know, the fact that we're, you know, within a couple of percentage points, I think, is not of a concern right now. Are the water liens leftovers from last year, or are they new ones? Let me just take a look here and see. Water liens. 28-20. Yeah, so that's this year. So they're new. Okay. Yep. All good. We can move on to engineering a little bit. Again, you know, salaries at... Right on target. You'll see, you know, some of the percentages or whatever, some not spent, some overspent, some. But again, it's not linear through the year. These things are, there are purchases, they're made at different points in time throughout the year. But it gives you a sense of what those line items are. Okay. Any other questions about the budget in general and where we're at operating? If not, we can move on to Tom's on again with project updates. For this, we're looking for a high-level overview of the major projects, not all of the projects in motion. Yeah, yeah. So the ones that, you know, I can go through the ones that are listed in the packet, and then I can add on one at the end that I know everybody's very interested in. So we'll start with Route 20 rehabilitation. I know I've spoken about this before, so forgive me if I keep saying the same thing over and over again, but we have $250,000 that was appropriated, I think it was actually a year or two years ago at town meeting. And we are now just getting underway. We solicited qualifications. There is a working group at one of our meetings, perhaps the last meeting. The board selected John to be a member of the working group. So we've. Completed evaluations on the proposals, and I'm in the midst right now of scheduling interviews with the two firms, very strong firms. The two firms are Tech, who you're all very familiar with. They do a lot of work in Wayland. And there's another group, Greenman Peterson, Inc., that is a prominent traffic and transportation engineer that does a lot of work with municipalities engaged in. roadway improvements and particularly the transportation improvement program, the state's TIP program, which is what we're going to be utilizing for the construction portion of the project. So we will hold interviews and then Make the difficult decision to select one of them. I think it's going to be one of those where both we would be well served by either one of them, but we'll have to pick one and contract with them and get underway. In the FY28 capital request, we've got $500,000 to continue that effort. So that will likely get us through the complete design. Effort. And then construction, like I said, it's anticipated that will be accepted into the state's TIP program, meaning that the state pays for construction. Great. Tom, when we redid the intersection Town Center some time back, the initial light sequencing was... Not yielding good results. It was very poor. The through traffic was very difficult. But then it was tweaked, and it was unbelievable, the change, how quickly you could get through the center of town. How was that done, or who worked on that? Because it made a huge difference in being able to get through that section. Yeah, well, the credit is likely due to the police department actually oversees the signals in town and they'll they'll utilize an engineering firm much like tech. And it might have actually been tech that and they take a look at and they'll do a very, you know, close. Traffic study to find out what the problems are, what those lane sequencing should be. And the police department actually, either they'll do it themselves or they've got a signal contractor that'll come in and reprogram all of those. So that's likely how that occurred at that intersection years ago. Okay, great. Well, hopefully we'll still use them again if this causes any issues there. Yeah, so that's Route 20 Rehabilitation. Long-term water supply. We just spent a fair amount of time at our last meeting hearing from Kleinfelder and talking about where we are with that. We are in the midst right now actively working with both the Conservation Commission and the Planning Board. We also made a stop with the Design Review Advisory Board, who then advises the Planning Board on visual amenities, those types of things, you know, landscaping, hardscaping, those types of things. We've been pretty busy with those two political bodies in town. And then while that's all going, you'll remember hearing, you know, we're going through the MEPA process, the inter-basin transfer process. We do have our local state representatives have filed a bill to support our joining the MWRE as one step in the process of becoming a member. So there is a bill active in both the State House and Senate. So we don't expect any difficulty there, but it was something that we had to work with our local legislatures, and they've been terrific about advancing that effort. Storage tank. I'm going to take a breather. Tom, before you go on, we were in the process of applying for a low interest rate loan. Where are we on that? So we did. We submitted an application in July. What we did is we were counseled. By the SRF program that perhaps we should just submit an application for a portion of the project. So we did. We submitted an application for $16 million. And much like the schedule last time is that in January or early calendar year 28, The state SRF program puts out what they call an IUP, an Intended Use Plan, and all of the communities that are accepted into the loan program are then advertised and listed. So we put together a very strong application like we thought we had last time, but I have a sense that we'll be successful this time around. And I think the reason we split was because it was clear that the Happy Hollow plant is designed specifically to take care of PFAS. Is that correct? Yeah. Whereas they didn't really see our connection to MWRA as being to deal with PFAS, although it is, but it just, I guess the appearance was that it's not specifically designed to do that. And that will be a 2% loan. They've done away with a 0%, which is standard. Throughout my career, I've obtained SRF loans, and they've always been 2% 20-year terms. Great. But the last loan wasn't a 0% because there was an admin fee that went with it. So would this one have an admin fee as well? I think it would. Yeah, I think it does. Thank you. Which is, and speaking with Brian, I think conventional loans are up in the fives. I think he's going to advise the select board on the, excuse me, Mr. Chair for hopping in here. He's going to advise the select board on November 2nd when he comes because we've gone out and had the, I think it's 14 million that we're borrowing and I think we're, it's in the fours. I don't think the five, because we're AAA. We got re-certified as AAA. I saw that. A little bit less, so. Okay. Great. And I'm going to hand off to Don for the storage tank, if that's okay. Great. Hi, Don. Hello, everybody. So storage tank, the second tank project is scheduled while there. They're coordinating site work to start happening this fall. So that'll be, you know, tree work, things like that with a spring construction start date. Don't have anything locked in on that. They just were basically telling us, you know, this spring. So, you know, we're guessing that's going to be right around when the snow clears out and the ground thaws out. With substantial completion the end of next year. Substantial completion is, you know, tank full and online and operating. They'll most likely have to come back the following spring for You know, seating and just, you know, basic site cleanup and stuff like that. But yeah, we are on track to start that this spring. Calendar year. Finished by end of calendar year. Yes. Yep. Cool. All right. Any questions? Short breather, Tom. Short breather. Well, I'm going to hand it off to the DPW superintendent now again. So somebody else gets a chance to brag. All right, Joe. Here we go.
Are you there, Joe? What part do you want to discuss? Update on... Paving? Yeah, the paving. Okay. Yep, no problem. I don't have the agenda in front of me, so... I've got to share it on screen in case you need it. No, I'm good. Gleason Lane East is done and complete. Folsom Pond Road, done and complete. Pear Tree Lane, done and complete. Autumn Lane, done and complete. Just waiting for our Chapter 90 reimbursement for those projects. Loker Phase 1, and that was from School Street to Alden Lane. That was a mill and pave that is also complete and also waiting for our Chapter 90 reimbursement. Currently, as of about two hours ago, Park Lane, Agunkwood Path, and Massasoya Path were all in binder. So those are tomorrow. We are planning to have our contractor out to do the structure work, and we hope to have that finalized within the next five to seven days. And that will end this season up until next spring. Wow. We're ahead of schedule this year then, aren't we? We're doing good. That's awesome. Great. Any questions? on the paving plan for progress. What is a Chapter 90 reimbursement? It's a state-funded program that they allocate. Right now it's about $400,000, I want to say $80,000-something a year towards the town of Wayland. And what we do is We basically request certain projects for the state to pay for. And there's certain requirements and rules and things we have to follow to do that. But we get reimbursed for it. Good to hear. Thanks for the work. Yeah, it's a great program. Okay, so automated meters. Is that back to Tom or Don? I'll take a crack at it, and then if I start to stumble. So we're really glad to report that out of over 5,100 meters, we've only got 27 remaining. Wow. Yeah, yeah. And there's a... We kind of fall into three categories, one of which is that there's about 10 locations that we're having difficulty with connectivity, whether it be the location of the residence, the fact that it is a finished basement and we can't get the wire from the meter to a point on the outside of the house. And then also there's still a handful of what we call holdouts, folks that We've been unable to schedule appointments with. So, you know, for the 10 that I was referring to, we actually are going to utilize a cell technology for those. So the meter manufacturer has a product whereby for relatively short money rather than... Have a radio transmitter. It's actually a cellular device. So we'll be able to overcome the connectivity issues at those 10 locations. We have a number of iron pipe locations as well where the pipe coming into the home is extremely fragile. So we're working with the property owners to have them. You know, it's their responsibility. It's their part of their service to have those replaced with something that's more, you know, stable and of a better condition so that we can actually change the meter. But we are getting very close to being entirely complete. Tom, a question? There's a house on Concord Road. Closer to Town of Concord than my house where nobody lives there. Nobody has lived there in years. So do you have like troubles like one of the 10 is because or several of the 10 is because people just don't live there? Yeah, I guess I can't speak particularly to what's going on in Concord Road. I mean, generally speaking, I mean, the bill goes somewhere, you know, so they get an administrative, you know, charge, the base charge. So, you know, we do the best we can to work with them, a management company, a realtor. We really become, have become quite creative in making contact with whoever's responsible for that household. So I don't know in particular to that location, but we do eventually make contact. Thank you. Yep. Yeah. The customer portal was a nice feature. It's something we've, you know, six, seven years ago when we began this project, it was very important for us to have a customer portal. Right now, I think we've got about, it's only about 500 customers that have actually signed up for it. We sent out a mailing to everybody explaining what it is and what it does. So we're hopefully, we're hoping that more people will become. You know, involved with that and sign up and make their connection because it's a terrific tool as a homeowner to be able to see patterns and to be able to kind of track your water consumption and all of that. So we're hoping that people will, you know, take more use of that resource. Yeah, I've set my alerts so I see when I go over and we kind of know why. It's usually the weekend or something's going on. But yeah, it's interesting. I haven't gotten that set up on my phone. I've just used the website so far. But it is interesting. And then the last one that it's not listed, but I know everybody is following it and is interested, is the Sherman's Bridge project. So we've got a project. Team meeting on Thursday. We have a meeting with MassDOT and the contractor the following Thursday. The contractor is telling us that they are prepared to begin work on November 9th. So both Sudbury and Wayland Public Works departments are working right now in establishing the detour routes. That information will be up on our webpage, the project webpage. We've contacted both Sudbury and Wayland. Public Safety Departments, and they've offered their input, so they're satisfied with it. And the bridge will most likely be closed beginning November 9th. We have a letter and a flyer that explains things that will be hand-delivered to everybody on Sherman's Bridge Road, on Alpine Road, and much of the way up Oxbow Road. So we'll at least try to reach out to the folks that live in that neighborhood, letting them know that November 9th, many of them will live on a dead end for about three or four months. Three to four months. Okay. Yeah. And that concludes my project update. Great. So my report, any other questions about projects before we move on? Any other projects you want to hear about?
Hearing none, we'll move on to the annual report update. The annual report was included in the packet. Thanks to Mike for doing the bulk of the work on this. We got it out a few days late, but over to the town manager's office. I haven't heard any complaints. It came in, I think, under the word count required. So if you have any comments, I believe it gets published as part of a report Tom's told me that is a large printed report. But I believe it also goes into the annual town meeting packet as well. Is that right, Carol? Did these make their way into the... No, and I'm surprised you didn't. I didn't hear that you were late. The hammer goes down on the 30th. There's a code if you don't submit to it, you get disbanded. So there was a book that's distributed every year, and it's the Town of Wayland's Annual Report, and there's a report from all the... Departments and the boards and the committees and the commissions. And you will see it once it's published at the library. You'll see it there. There's some in the town building. And you can pick one up. That's what it is. It won't be in the warrant. It won't be. OK. All right. My mistake. All right. That would make it really long. Big warrant. So no. So you can't change it now. But, you know, whoever wants to take this task up next year, you can have a read through and be ready to go. Thanks, Mike, for your help on that. So we will move on to municipal rates discussion. Judy, do you want to lead this discussion? So this has to do with at the end of last year when we were looking at rates for this year, and one of the things that we had was that we charged the municipal departments. Tier 1, I believe, is what we were charging. And one of the questions that came up was, should we be doing that or should we be charging more? Should we be charging what people use? And I'm kind of two minds about that, but over the weekend when it was raining and I happened to drive by that field that's next to the town building and The sprinkler system was going full bazooka. I mean, it was like crazy water coming out. And I thought, oh, maybe we should charge the full rate that way. There's an awareness of the cost and hopefully maybe turn off the sprinkler when it's raining. I don't know how that works or not. So that's really where we are right now. I thought we would have some numbers perhaps from Tom, like. How much was the municipal water revenue from last year? And if we did charge the full four tiers, what would that be? And so there was a report that was sent out, I want to say it was a week or two ago. Did you not receive it? It actually has a pretty detailed, it lists out each department. Does anybody else? Yeah, I recall that. I didn't know if it was a new report or if it was one that had been put together prior. It was using information. We've kind of been reviewing this data off and on for a little bit of time. But since the last meeting, when we talked about, you know, what would departments, what would their increase likely be? I can try to share it. Position to do that if you'd like. Oh, great. Okay. Yeah, I was just going to look for it, see if I could find it. But if you have it, please go. I don't tend to get things from my town email address for some reason. Really, only Gmail works for me. So here is what I was speaking of. I can quickly go over this. Matt Abrahams and Sarah Polachanek in our office worked on putting this together. You'll see the top, it actually, you know, the only thing, the commercial accounts have different tier breakpoints than residential. So up in the top, it's commercial, and then down here is residential. What you'll see here is the departments listed out. Their quarterly bills. What we did is we used FY25 consumption patterns and FY27 rates. And what you'll see is the totals, what their usage was and what they would build. And then with this highlight. So that's all great. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, there we go. Sorry. So this is what. The department's paid in water. Here is what they would pay at only tier one. This is what they would pay if they were in the fully tiered. And then this lists the difference and the percentage increase. So about $67,000 more. Right. And I guess, you know, so I've been approached by at least one department, and I guess I'll speak on their behalf, is that, you know, they have a great concern about the increase, the potential increase in their water bill. You know, we're purposely having this conversation tonight so that the board can vote on what we're going to do prior to departments. building and developing their FY28 budgets. And you can see, you know, recreation, which pays for the water on the irrigating the fields, is the one that, you know, out of all of them, that would experience the largest increase. And so they in particular have voiced concern. About, you know, receiving these higher bills, they'll likely need to pass that additional cost on to their users as in their user charges. But I explained to them that I would at least speak on their behalf tonight to let the board know of that concern. Are they the ones who control the sprinkler system on the field? So that would be a guy that's on the screen to set. So when you saw that running in the rain, that would be our fault. These, they are equipped to joke and talk more about this. They do have rain gauges, so they're not supposed to activate when it's raining. So it's likely that that rain gauge was not working. We control, we maintain and control, set the timers, do all of that. Within our department. Yeah, so with the increase in cost to all of the water users, Judy, I think you're the one who spearheaded the idea that we should start charging municipal at the actual rates versus the discounted rate. And I think part of the reason was we had promoted to the select board that we split the cost. of the long-term water supply, whereby a portion, maybe the MWRA connection, for example, would be taken care of by taxes, and the Happy Hollow plant would be taken care of by water rates. I think the FinCom also recommended that that be the approach. But for one reason or another, mainly the concern about a two and a half increase. being required in the near future. All of the funding for those two projects, the long-term water supply, got loaded into the Water Enterprise Fund. So this was a way to say, okay, well, if we're going to have to take care of all of it, then everyone's going to have to pay their fair share. And we thought, okay. It's not really a ton of money. We're looking at about $67,000, as we said. But that would put it back what I would consider into the tax rate to a degree. Now, if it's going directly to the users, I don't know how that works. But for the rest of the departments, I think it includes having our own departments pay a little bit more. So water is, you know, the second highest increase there is for water. So yeah, DPW is there, but it's only a slight increase. So I think that's the summary. And so our question is, do we want to charge at, continue charging municipal entities at the current tier one rate? Do we want to change it to tier two rate? Tom says it's just as easy to charge at. The regular tiers, just like every other user is charged. So I think those were some of the ideas that had come up. And that's what this table represents. If those departments were loaded into a fully tiered, like everybody else pays. Right. Carol, I'll get to you in a second. Just want to check to see if the board has any comments on this or any thoughts.
So I don't think it's a huge amount of money, to be honest. It's not. 67,000, you round it. And basically this goes towards us paying for the water connection for MWRA. So I'm not, I'm comfortable with it. Comfortable with which option? Charging to full tiers. Sounds good. John, Don, Ed? Well, I don't have any comments. I'm not that good at the budget. I agree with Judy's sentiments. Any questions on this, John? And then I want to get to Carol before we go any further. No questions. Actually, I do have a question. It was based on, I'm trying to remember the name of the, Condo Development that had a whole bunch of different bills. Yes. Why is it divided in a bunch of different bills? Is it individual water taps or why are they? Likely they have different separate meters, but Tom? Yeah, I think that the condo that you're referring to, they do. They have each of those residents' dwellings have their own meter. So, but there must be different meters for recreation. So they can't all be in one tier, right? So the recreation, if I'm understanding the question correctly, primarily the recreation, they've got a meter at every single playing field that has an irrigation system. So that's what you're seeing. So they all get lumped together and that's how... You decide what tier recreation is? No, each account, each field has its own account. So what you're seeing here, you're seeing just a total for that department, all those accounts. So say there's, Joe probably knows off the top of his head, say there's a dozen fields that are irrigated in town. There are a dozen accounts. And each one of those accounts... Each one of those accounts, you know, its consumption is currently charged at Tier 1, and what is being proposed is that that consumption at that meter would then be converted to a fully tiered charge. I understand. Good question. Carol, please. Yeah, so I have a question. I don't see the schools listed in this. They have no meters because they have at least five buildings? Schools are metered. Schools are not charged a municipal rate. What are they charged? They're in the fully tiered. Okay. So they're already accounted for. And on the recreation, does that include the school fields, fields that are shared by rec and schools? I'm just wondering about that amount because they'll probably come back and... Raise that issue with you. So, but the main thing I want to mention is bear in mind that as we go forward next year, we've already had a big increase in our rates to start funding the capital costs of the MWA connection. Everybody's going to be getting a huge water increase, period. $66,000 may not seem like a lot of money to you, but I'm going to tell you $100,000 is 11 basis points on your taxes. So instead of paying 4.1%, you pay 4.1%. So this would raise up everyone's taxes to support this. Because I can tell you, I'm pretty sure there's not additional $67,000 just available in these budgets. I'm sure Tom would say the same thing. He doesn't have an additional $4,000 or $5,000 sitting around that he can, you know, just reallocate to the water. So this will, as you are correct, be into tax on top of the operating budget tax on top of them. The debt service for the construction project. So just so you bear that in mind. But water is paying for the debt service, right? So you're paying for that. Next year, you're going to be increasing your rates significantly because you have a $2 million nut to carry. Yeah. Plus going to raise this. So you might want to phase this in. I don't know. See what the budget can support. The Finance and Planning Committee has spent several meetings looking at how to close the gap to avoid an operating override this year. I believe we're going to land it, but every year it's another challenge. Will we be able to provide our services without an operating override? And still the budget increases more than we probably want. So just to put it in context of the whole versus just one piece of the pie. Right. Okay. If we don't have any more questions or comments, I guess we can entertain a motion. Mike, do you have any comments? I think it makes sense. To just keep it all the same for all of the users. Regardless, schools are already paying the tiered rates. These departments would pay the tiered rates. It would be going into their budget. It would be going into our DPW budget. So I think it makes the most sense. It's the fairest to just have everyone paying the same rates throughout. Probably makes it simpler. Maybe not. Maybe it's just as easy to do either, but I think that makes sense. Does that make sense? Yeah, I guess one question I have, I see the fire only goes up by, you know, 63 bucks. Is that because that's not counting if they have to put out a fire, right? That's just the fire department. Yeah, that's just the meter at the public safety building. Okay, yeah.
So do we want to make a motion and take a vote here? Yes. Yeah. Okay. I will accept a motion to change the rate structure for the municipal departments listed to the standard tiered rate starting in fiscal year 27. I'm sorry, 28, fiscal year 28. So move. If I might make a friendly amendment? Yes. Just add that you're going to use the commercial tier. That's the one that you're referring to that has the 66, 9, 18. So just to clarify that those are the tiers, the rates that you're going to utilize for this. Okay. Yep. Utilizing the commercial tier. Thank you. Can I ask a question? I'm sorry I didn't catch this sooner. So what you're saying is the top part of the spreadsheet where it says using commercial tiers, the increase would be basically $67,000. If you go down the spreadsheet a little, Mike, would you go down a little? That's me. I'm sorry. So if you use the residential tiers, it's actually 79. So it's actually more expensive. I see. Okay. I'm comfortable with the commercial tier. Okay. So you've moved the motion, Judy. Do we have a second? Seconded. Thank you. Mr. Selman seconded. So we'll take a roll call. All in favor, John? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Judy. Ed. Thank you, Ed. Judy. Yes. Mike? Yes. Ann? Mike, yes. Great. Okay. So that discussion. Mr. Chair. Yes. Thank you. Sorry. I'm sure Tom is already going to say this too. You probably should send out a note to the town manager's office post-haste because, and the finance team, that would include Brian, because they're probably pretty much built the FY28 budgets and they'll want to wrap this in. Yeah, at our last meeting, I don't think you're here, but we asked Tom to make all of the departments aware that this was likely coming. Okay, great. And that we would be voting this. So I think he's, that's why he's got some feedback from some of the departments, but that's a good point. Tom, will you follow up on that or do you want me to? No, I'll work with Brian on putting something out to all department heads. Okay, great. Thanks, Carol. Thanks, Tom. Transfer station evaluation update. So, Carolyn, I think, can both provide a quick update here. We met recently. We had pared down some options to look at and analyze. And those primarily being pick up, standardized pick up for the town plus a transfer station option. Pick up. for the town plus a recycling center option. And we were going to look at both a two-day option for the transfer station and a two-day option for the recycling center as options as well. And then we chose, I think, three different bin sizes to look at for the pickup options. We're scheduled to meet November 4th and go through some of that analysis. I'm working with Joe and Anita and Tom to iron out what the cost savings might be between our existing transfer station and the options that I just mentioned. So we're moving the study forward. And I think we're getting on track, and I think it's going better at this point. Carol, do you want to, or Tom or Joe, because Tom and Joe are participating as well. So if you want to jump in and give us your thoughts as to where we're at, status update.
I think you did a good job. The only reference I think I would change is we've got it scheduled at 2.5 days. I know you said two days, but we've got it at 2.5. Just to clarify. Is that what you heard, Carol? You need a day to prep. So as they work five days a week now, we basically cut the hours, but it ends up being 2.5. I think we're talking about the same thing. I was talking about the open days, two open days versus three open days. Yep. Okay. Yep. All right. No, we're on the same page there. Okay, good. Carol? No, Tom, go ahead, please. Okay. No, I think that was a fair summation of where we're at. Nothing to add. I think I just want to add one thing is that There's a lot of financial gurus on that committee. And the poor consultant is much more in a high level. And I think that's what we engaged her to do is a more high level thing. So I think next meeting will be our last meeting with the consultant. And then I think we're going, we've agreed to have one more meeting, just the group by themselves to kind of batter out, refine a little bit more some of these options. But it's been very instructive. I think we've all learned a lot. I think we've, one thing that really, really struck me, and I said this last night in the select board is, I live in a house, a house, I live on a road with 25 houses and never thought one thing about all the curbsides and the private haulers. And one day I'm walking up the street and I think I counted six different providers. And to me, that's a real concern that's been raised in the committee level is that, you know, all those haulers coming in. You know, you have the trash bins on multiple days, but on top of that, look at the extra wear and tear on our roadway. So I think that's one of the things we, when we meet again offline after the study's finished, I think we're going to kind of like bat that around a little bit. Yep. Does that sound about right? Yeah, that's perfect. Okay. Thank you for adding. Thank you. Tom, you're still sharing the switch. Oh, yes, I can stop. Yep. There we go. That's okay. I don't think we have anything left to share. Does anyone have any questions about the study? Okay. We'll keep you posted as we move ahead. Mike, was there ever a questionnaire or anything that asked people that did not sign back up the reason? The reason they didn't sign back up for the transfer station? Yeah. I figure you're down 500 people, right? Yeah. Unfortunately, we did not have the records to conduct that type of survey. We have since begun collecting email addresses so that we can have more proactive renewals before it was very reactive. So this was the first year we started with the proactive renewals where you could sign up online. And have you ever had a year that you've had evening hours? I don't think we have. Okay. I just, I could never make the days that it's open. Transfer station work with my schedule, so. Got it. Tom, did we ever look at that as an option going a little bit later, maybe to 6 p.m. or something like that? I think we had. I don't recollect ever looking at after hours. I'm not sure if the, and Joe can probably talk a little bit about this, whether the property is lit well enough to function. After dark? It definitely isn't. It's got very little lighting. It would be a pretty big capital cost to do that, I'm sure. Yeah. And possibly we'd have to, you know, unfortunately, you know, we'd have to renegotiate union hours, things like that with that group. Got it. John, the survey did ask, what do you like? What do you dislike? You know about the curbside. What do you like, dislike, and prioritize them about the transfer station? So we might have captured a little bit of that info, but I probably know exactly what you're asking. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Okay. I think that brings us to the minutes. Review and approval of the meeting minutes for September 22nd. Do we have any updates? Any edits required?
If not, I accept a motion to approve the minutes of September 22, 2026. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Great. I think Ed Beach, Mike. So we'll take a roll call. Mike? Yes. Ed? Yes. John? Yes. Judy? Yes. And Mike? Yes. Okay. Any concerns? Anyone want to discuss any items we haven't discussed that are of concern? I just was thinking about Carol's comment about the wear and tear of all the extra trucks driving around. I think some of that is small compared to the traffic disruptions of having to stop behind those as they're doing their stops. And on my little dead-end street, there's four different companies that come down at once a week. And is that easier or worse, do you think, having four, for traffic purposes? Well, it's four different trucks. So I think it would be great if it was one company that just came down and drove down the street once a week. See, I've gotten stuck behind the trucks going down Route 62 and Bedford and stopping at each. Each home along the way, and you're kind of stuck behind that truck until it turns off. So I could see that both ways. But I think the idea is the study is what you're suggesting, trying to limit the number of different providers so that it's a little bit more efficient. That's a good point, though, John. I've written that down. Thank you. Any other thoughts?
Okay. So dates for upcoming meetings, we have November 4th, which is the fall tree hearing. Do we have a list coming out yet, Joe, for that meeting? The list itself, I think, was put out today. I think she actually posted it today. You'll be getting the whole packet, pictures, et cetera, sometime next week. Okay. And this is a joint meeting with the planning board? Correct. And then? I'm going to be away the 17th of November, so I'm wondering if I'll actually be away the 10th. And the 24th is close to Thanksgiving, so that would leave the 3rd, which I think is a little too soon, or the 24th. Prior to Thanksgiving. The third is Election Day and the town clerk does not like, well, you're not in the town building, so I guess you're okay, but it's not. Yeah, yeah. They're not in love with you doing it then. Okay. How does the 24th sound for folks? Otherwise, Mike can take the lead. I will be away at the 24th. Okay. I'll be fine with the 24th. Okay. Okay, so what do we want to do, Ed? Judy won't be able to make it on the, go ahead, Ed. The 17th or the 24th? Okay, so I'm away, but it's a Zoom meeting, so I could probably join on the 17th. Since everyone can make it on the 17th, should we just stick with that then? Okay. Mike, maybe you could share and I'll support you. Sure. Okay. Actually, technically, Mike, Mr. Wegerbauer, because it's fully remote, you can share from anywhere. Yeah, I'm just, yeah. As opposed to, he wants to see if you can get me to say more than 10 words. I was, yeah, I'll be on vacation, so. I was trying, yeah, trying not to carry the full load, but okay. And then December 15th, does that still work for folks? We don't have to set that in stone yet. We can get to that next time if folks don't have their calendar to date through that time. December 15th, fine with me. Okay, thanks, Ed. Okay, we'll keep it working. Okay, good. All right, we'll keep it at the 15th, and if we have to make changes next meeting, we'll do that. Any other thoughts? If not, I'll accept a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Thank you. Judy. Yes. Mike. Yes. Ed. Yes. John. Yes. Wegerbauer. Yes. All right. Well, thanks, everyone.
Tom, any comments? Or Carol, any comments, questions? No, the one thing that, you know, we can talk about it now, and then I'm going to go over our year-to-date budgets shortly, is that, you know, in the water budget, you'll see, I believe it is, contractor services has got a very healthy value. And each year, for the past three years, we've been carrying about $220,000 for the replacement of the resin. at the PFAS vessels. And we have yet needed to do that. The resident has been performing, actually performing really well. And so, but we're really forced because we don't, you know, we monitor that, we take samples. It looks, you know, still pretty healthy, but just as a note that that is a reason, you know, why some of these Line items are as high as they are, is that we need to carry that expense. Good point. Didn't we rinse it? I thought we had done something recently with the resin. Or maybe it was just that we predicted we were going to replace it this year. Yeah. I mean, when we entered into this lease program, they talked about 24 months or 90,000 bed volumes. And we've far exceeded both the timeline and, I believe, the flows. And the ion exchange resin is performing beyond expectations. Wow. That's great. So it is. It is great. So we'll see. But again, you know, in this year, you'll see in contracted services, it's a very high value. And that's the reason for that. We'll likely put it in for FY28. Again, as you can see, what we just went over, we had $154,000 surplus in FY26. A large, you know, reason for that is $220,000 that wasn't spent on resin. Got it. Yeah. Sounds good. All right. Anyone else? Otherwise, we will move on to something similar. Year-to-date budget review. So this is where we look at the budgets and the percent of the year completed so far to see where we're at. Are we on track? Are there any concerns? Tom, I don't think I have that spreadsheet. So you may have to share that, or should I share it from the packet? I was going to say, if you have it from the packet, I can use that. I've got the printout, but I don't have it queued up in my system here. Okay, let me try to share it from the packet. And I can go in whatever order it is listed. Okay. Are you seeing? Okay. Yep, I can see that fine. So Public Works is the first one up. Okay, great. So just a quick overview. We have our, at the top, this is Highway and Parks we're beginning with. We have the percent of year completed. That's 29%. Oops. And then we have over to the right or left, we have all of the line items and the expense budget and our percent use date on the far right column. Right, right. So what the one thing that I noticed is missing, we've corrected that is so you'll see that the headings above they say budget and then the next one over is revised budget and then the next one over is blank and that that is year to date spend. So right where your cursor is that column should say year to date spend. Got it. So look at that column and then over, look at percent used year to date. I wouldn't focus so much on the encumbrances. It actually makes it more confusing. So in essence, just look at that 618, 780 that's in salaries and then the percent. And so what we do is... You know, we produce these reports regularly and each program manager monitors, you know, their respective budgets. And many things will follow. We hope that they follow the percent of the year complete. But there are some times when things are, you know, you know, seasonal, you know, so like seasonal employees, much of that, you know, is spent. In, you know, July, August, and then that remains dormant until June, and then we bring in some more. So there's a number of these that you'll actually see that are higher than 29. But again, there's really nothing, you know, I kind of go through, you can see, you know, uniforms, you know, protective, personal protection equipment is 100% spent at $10,200. And that's because contractually we have to purchase, in addition to a clothing allowance, we have to purchase safety equipment. Coats, jackets, sweatshirts for the staff. And we generally do that right at the beginning of the fiscal year. So you'll see that's why some of the stuff is, that one in particular is 100%. Great. We're doing good on the snow budget so far. So far, we're good. Yeah, we got oodles of money left. Yeah, what is that, $1,700, I think I saw earlier, something we spent on a vehicle repair. Yes, yeah, just about $18,000, yeah. Anyone who has questions, just jump in. We're just going to go through these fairly quickly. But if you have questions, jump in and we'll get answers. And then again, capital accounts, we need to clean this up. I work closely with both. The Capital Improvement Planning Committee and the Finance Department in closing out projects. And many of what you see here are no longer active accounts. So we need to clean that up for, you know, for really board use. We know, you know, we're pretty comfortable and familiar with some of these things, but we do not have this many capital accounts currently active. Probably if I had to take a ballpark, I'd say probably a half. To two thirds of them are closed out. Got it. Yeah. I have an unusual question. Go ahead. So I bumped into Tom the other day and there's interest in a dog park in town center. And I said to Tom, it's not our land. It's not town land. And I hope they don't expect us to go clean up after the dogs. And then Tom said that we actually have a contract with a specialty group that actually takes care of those droppings. I'm just curious, where would that go in this budget? So it actually isn't in ours. Currently, we don't have any need to pick up pet waste. Conservation does. They have, they've got those bag drops at some of their trailheads. You'll see them, these metal containers that are like three or four feet off the ground. They actually hire a company to dispose of that. So they're the ones that have that expense line, not us. Ah, okay. Thank you. Yep. Yep. The name of the company that... Disposal is amazing. It's called Duty Calls. D-O-O-D-I-E, Duty Calls. Very clever, right? Nice. It's a job for everyone. Okay. If we don't have any further questions here, yes, maybe we can clean this up so it's more usable next time. Yeah, yeah. You'll see a lot of that going on. Yep. Okay. Sounds good. Judy, did you have something else? No, that was me. Oh, Carol, do you have something else? Go ahead. Music to my ears. Clap little closeouts. Because we can use that to fund capital projects for the FY28 budget. Yeah. I appreciate it. Yeah, I issued both. Yeah, Sipsy and Brian both have the closeout recommendation report. And it was many, many, many. Projects that were still listed that could be closed out. Yeah. Takes time, and I do appreciate the effort, because it helps us. Yeah, absolutely. Oh. Yes. Okay. Oops. Yeah, so same format, you know, it's 29%, looking at all of the line items. There's really nothing that, you know, jumps out at all, really, with this. Seasonal was a little over budget. Again, same thing as Highway. Small. Yeah, but their seasonal, again, ends. Yeah, it, you know, July and August, and then they'll bring it back up again when we do sticker sales beginning, you know, kind of the latter part of May into June. Yep. Where's the truck that we talked about at our last meeting? That's a capital request? This is an operating budget? Okay. So that roll-off is in a capital budget, which is entirely separate. Yeah, so just to, I mean, speak a little bit to that. We spoke, I believe, at our last meeting about two of the capital items, the roll-off and then the water asset management plan. And so SIPC, Capital Improvement Planning Committee, I believe has issued their report to the town manager, and that's their recommendations. And then Michael and Brian Keveny will begin to hold meetings with department heads to go over that report, the recommendations. Discuss it with department heads and they will actually, you know, kind of put their final touches to it. And at that point, I then bring that back to this board. And so I would imagine likely in the November meeting, maybe in the December meeting, I will bring that full capital budget, you know, for all of these divisions before the Board of Public Works for a conversation. Do we have... Sorry. No, go ahead. For the salary line, is that for an FTE of three, or what's the FTE? So it's 2.5, and then we do have, yeah, and then we do have one employee that's shared between transfer station and highway, and I'm not sure if that's a 60-40 split, but we generally just, in trying to do the math, it's the 2.5 employees that are assigned fully to the transfer station functions. So does this include the OPEB? OPEB would be in the indirects, which you'll see at 81,464. That's down on that line. Tom? Sorry, Judy. No, no, sorry. Thank you. Just back to the roll-off truck. So an idea was floated that maybe you can look into or consider. What would it cost to... Have the items that we currently roll off picked up in weighing the cost between a capital expense of about $380,000 spread out over how many years? Maybe $15,000 or $20,000? Yeah, that vehicle, probably $20,000. Okay. So just something to maybe think about as we're looking at that expense. So outsourcing the hauling that that vehicle performs rather than do it in-house? Yes. And that certainly can be, you know, kind of derived. And then what we'll probably wind up doing is trying to, it's difficult to quantify, but our ability to mobilize immediately for something. We have that ability now. We have the ability to You know, to serve, you know, some different functions. As an example, the Household Hazardous Waste Day was just held at DPW this past Saturday, and it was a pretty successful event. That vehicle supports that and moves containers back and forth between the properties. You know, so we have the ability to really react very quickly. We're, as Mike Lauer used to say, we are nimble in our ability to... to provide services. So it's hard to quantify, but when I put together something, we'll likely kind of just throw in a factor for that too, just so people are aware. Yes. Okay. Sounds good. Anything else on the transfer station budget? I guess you could speak to our discussion last night with the select board on this topic. I think it was well-received, what we were presenting. I think it was fairly well-organized, thanks to George for the initial stab and then for the Board getting together the final memo. What we had requested was maybe the implementation of a new expense line item here, or I'm sorry, a new revenue line item for the recharge of the town costs to the town. In addition to what we've been requiring recently, which is a subsidy. So that conversation was held last night. It was kind of an initial conversation. Although when we looked at Article 5 from 2021 ATM, we realized that, Carol, thank you for putting that in the packet. We realized that there was a subsidy expected to be required at that point. So this isn't the first time it's been raised. Does anyone have a comment on that, Carol? Would you like to comment for Tom? Mike or John, who are both there, and Judy there remotely? I'll defer to everyone on the board first. Okay. Hearing none? I think, yeah, okay. So Carol Martin, Lake Road, we're on the select board. I think Article 5 from the, is it 2021? In our time meeting warrants a really good review by your board because it does talk about why the board transitioned from a revolving fund to an enterprise fund back in 21. There's some issues with being able to be, I'm going to say, nimble in order to support your suppliers. I think you might want to read that. I think you also want to read that you did pay indirects in 22. There's a lot of different things here. A lot of information from the Finance Committee. It's their opinion about a lot of these things. What... The town has done, although I've heard it before, is, and I think when Mike and Tom and I met, we did talk about, you know, the town has supported the transfer station with an initial subsidy of $75,000. And also, if you read that chart, it just sounds so confusing because when you close out a revolving fund by mass general law, all the funds fall to what we call the general fund, our checking account, right? And then when you look at this article, One of the motions was to raise a transfer, and part of it was $75,000 that the town was putting into the fund, and the $480,384, $48, that was transfer station revenues. So in other words, it's kind of like that Evers to Tinkerster chance. You had the money, the state requires it to be zeroed out, it goes into the general fund, but then that town meeting. Gave it back to you when you had the enterprise fund. So if you see that you didn't lose money, I know that's been a question that's been raised. So if you read this, I think you'll see that. It also mentions that the transfer station had been unable to pay their indirection. It doesn't say there's any agreement that you're not going to pay them. I do think that's an issue we have to grapple with. And I think that there's a lot of good information, you know, in here that talks about things they suggest. Creating a Waste Disposal Division or having an annual subsidy, but there's been no votes on any of those kinds of things. But I do think you should read that if you haven't. That's what the article said. Yes. One of our requests in our memo was that the select board consider returning us to a revolving fund. I think after we looked at that article, we realized that's probably not the best form. So the two options we had requested the select board consider was either providing a meaningful subsidy that would support the enterprise fund or returning it to a revolving fund, according to Michael McCall. We'd likely have to return it to a department, a town department, rather than a revolving fund if we were to move it out of enterprise fund status. So anyways, some technical items there from a structure standpoint. So when you read this, I don't think that, and I think Mike said it last night, that's really one of the issues. So that probably... Probably whatever we need to do or can do or should do or will do, I think you should probably stay, and Mr. Holder, you said she'd opine as an enterprise fund, keep that financial model in place so that you have that flexibility to pay your vendors. We did have, do you want me to talk about this part, Mike? We did have a fairly robust discussion about Funding the Municipal Trash Collection. And I think we're making some progress on that. Mr. McCall said he would look into it. I sent a follow-up email today about that. I believe... Is that under our study? No, this is the trash collection that the transfer station employees pick up, but that bill is funded. Oh, gotcha, the expenses. And I don't think that number is correct. I think it needs tweaking. So I think you want to look at that. But I think more importantly that the Board of Public Works needs to then sit down and say, what is it that you're looking for a subsidy? So you put together, that's your next step. In my opinion, you come back to us with that proposal, say, and you could say, you know, upon reflection, we're happy staying as an enterprise fund. We do agree that there should be a municipal trash collection revenue line or whatever you want to call it, Mike, there, and that the town should be billing and it should be adjusted annually for increases. Salaries and what have you. I don't think 61 is the right number. Maybe Mr. Holder will say yes it is. But anyway, I think you should look at your number. And I think that's, you should say the town should pay that. I personally am not in favor of having you bill everyone. I think that's a lot of wasted labor. And so, but I then think you need to, as a board, sit down now. Your next task will be, A, agree for enterprise fund. B, what is it you're looking for a subsidy? Are you looking for, you know, $500,000 a year? Are you looking for $25,000? What is it you're looking for? Yep. Is that what you think is where we left it? Absolutely. Yep. We're on the same page. Good. Yay. Yes. Yeah. I highly recommend everyone read this because I think it was wonderful for the history of it, you know, to just show. It didn't lose money. It was a good loss for making the change. But we do have a couple of things we need to look at now going forward. Yeah. Essentially, it allows us to keep the funds we take in from a revenue standpoint in that fund so that... Because when we get our sticker fees from, I don't know, in June prior to the fiscal year starting in July, there were some timing issues when we didn't have the enterprise fund. So this is to accommodate that. Great. And I think a third thing, Mike, you might want to look at is... Understanding your retained earnings balance at year end. I know we had this conversation when you and I met with Tom and there was a discussion that you have a handle on that you're bringing in in May and June, 50, 60,000. So if your net return in earnings shows 260, technically it's probably 200, but I think we need to have an understanding. What the comfort level with what your retained earnings are at your end, even though it includes future year revenue. Yeah. And in preparation for our upcoming study meeting, I'm going to be working with Joe and Anita to answer some of those questions. And that's one of them. What's our retained earnings? Okay. Great. So that's transfer station landfill related accounts. So those are actually general fund accounts, and that is for the management and regulatory compliance with the landfill on that property. Right. So we have to do quarterly sampling, reporting to the DEP, and that leachate disposal was there was actually a tank that that landfill was designed to capture any of the leachate, and that gets hauled away. So that's what those two lines are for. Great. I don't know how to stop highlighting like that. Transfer station revenue accounts, does this include the monies that came in during fiscal year 26? Yes. It does. Yep. And we're only at 48% right now. So concerns here? Yeah. Well, you'll see that the sticker fee, the top one, we're at 67%. Yes. So, you know, so we do get a, you know, a little bit of a bump at the beginning of the calendar year. There are a handful of folks that we always wind up selling a handful of stickers at the beginning. They get a, you know, a half year sticker. Okay. So that'll come up to a, you know, a smaller degree, but, you know, we are trending behind, necessary behind, you know, the budget. Okay. All right. And we're a little ahead on the pay-as-you-throw, it looks like. Yeah, it looks like people are buying, either people might buy bags or at the grocery store and they're like, you know what, I know I'm going to need, so I'm just going to drop a hundred bucks and get them all in one shot. It's hard to tell, but that could be a reason for that. Right. Okay. Just jump in, anyone, if you have questions. Otherwise, we'll move on to water. Water, you know, same. Same format. Same thing. You'll see what I'm talking about in the contractual services. That's 710,000. That's what I was referring to. So there's 220,000 for resin replacement in that. And then aside from that, it's just expected support that we need. Both that and the professional services or vendor support that we get. Maybe you can hold on until we get a new plant. Yeah, well, you can be sure we're not, we're just doing what's necessary to keep these functioning for another two or three years. Yeah. Yep. For the water salary, again, what is the FTE there? There are eight employees. Eight, nine, nine. We have an administrator that's paid out of that as well. So nine employees. Okay. And does this have the OPEB somewhere? That should have directs. It's usually down near the bottom, but. Transfer to general indirect. Yep, yep, it's $486,000. Look down below, green water debt service, total water fund, and then you see trans. Indirect fringes. Yeah. Oh, okay. There it is. Yep, that's the OPEB is loaded into that. Oh, no, the OPEB is 5863. Oh, sorry. Yeah. So I guess in this particular fund, it's actually called out separately. There we go. It's interesting. But in the other one, the 83,000 is actually a combination of those two? Yeah, that's the way that it's reported. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Again, same thing. Many of these capital projects have been closed out.
Got it. And then there's water revenue, pretty much right on mark, you know, 26.2%. The reason for the lighter ink? Water meter charges is right in line. Sorry, Judy, go ahead. Sorry. So the lighter ink is for what reason? I think that Anita just has that grayed out. That's the budget figure. When you see it in a printed format, I think it's really a personal style. I heard that she, but yeah, it doesn't really mean anything. It just, that's what the budget, that's what we're anticipating. And that obviously has to match our expenses. So the 26.2% is something to think about in terms of the fact that we're at 29% into the timeline. Right. And what I would be, it is correct. What I would be looking at is water meter charges at 25.5. The other ones, you know, fluctuate. You know, they're not exactly linear, but so the 25.5 is. Okay. And that has to do with our quarterly billing. Is that correct? That is. It is being built quarterly now. Yes, it is. Yeah.
Interesting. Thank you. Slightly below 29. Yeah, I, you know, the, when the money comes in, when the, what we call commitments, when we send out the bills, the timing is a little bit, you know, it's not right on, looking at when this was reported, what we've actually taken in. So I think, you know, the fact that we're, you know, within a couple of percentage points, I think, is not of a concern right now. Are the water liens leftovers from last year, or are they new ones? Let me just take a look here and see. Water liens. 28-20. Yeah, so that's this year. So they're new. Okay. Yep. All good. We can move on to engineering a little bit. Again, you know, salaries at... Right on target. You'll see, you know, some of the percentages or whatever, some not spent, some overspent, some. But again, it's not linear through the year. These things are, there are purchases, they're made at different points in time throughout the year. But it gives you a sense of what those line items are. Okay. Any other questions about the budget in general and where we're at operating? If not, we can move on to Tom's on again with project updates. For this, we're looking for a high-level overview of the major projects, not all of the projects in motion. Yeah, yeah. So the ones that, you know, I can go through the ones that are listed in the packet, and then I can add on one at the end that I know everybody's very interested in. So we'll start with Route 20 rehabilitation. I know I've spoken about this before, so forgive me if I keep saying the same thing over and over again, but we have $250,000 that was appropriated, I think it was actually a year or two years ago at town meeting. And we are now just getting underway. We solicited qualifications. There is a working group at one of our meetings, perhaps the last meeting. The board selected John to be a member of the working group. So we've. Completed evaluations on the proposals, and I'm in the midst right now of scheduling interviews with the two firms, very strong firms. The two firms are Tech, who you're all very familiar with. They do a lot of work in Wayland. And there's another group, Greenman Peterson, Inc., that is a prominent traffic and transportation engineer that does a lot of work with municipalities engaged in. roadway improvements and particularly the transportation improvement program, the state's TIP program, which is what we're going to be utilizing for the construction portion of the project. So we will hold interviews and then Make the difficult decision to select one of them. I think it's going to be one of those where both we would be well served by either one of them, but we'll have to pick one and contract with them and get underway. In the FY28 capital request, we've got $500,000 to continue that effort. So that will likely get us through the complete design. Effort. And then construction, like I said, it's anticipated that will be accepted into the state's TIP program, meaning that the state pays for construction. Great. Tom, when we redid the intersection Town Center some time back, the initial light sequencing was... Not yielding good results. It was very poor. The through traffic was very difficult. But then it was tweaked, and it was unbelievable, the change, how quickly you could get through the center of town. How was that done, or who worked on that? Because it made a huge difference in being able to get through that section. Yeah, well, the credit is likely due to the police department actually oversees the signals in town and they'll they'll utilize an engineering firm much like tech. And it might have actually been tech that and they take a look at and they'll do a very, you know, close. Traffic study to find out what the problems are, what those lane sequencing should be. And the police department actually, either they'll do it themselves or they've got a signal contractor that'll come in and reprogram all of those. So that's likely how that occurred at that intersection years ago. Okay, great. Well, hopefully we'll still use them again if this causes any issues there. Yeah, so that's Route 20 Rehabilitation. Long-term water supply. We just spent a fair amount of time at our last meeting hearing from Kleinfelder and talking about where we are with that. We are in the midst right now actively working with both the Conservation Commission and the Planning Board. We also made a stop with the Design Review Advisory Board, who then advises the Planning Board on visual amenities, those types of things, you know, landscaping, hardscaping, those types of things. We've been pretty busy with those two political bodies in town. And then while that's all going, you'll remember hearing, you know, we're going through the MEPA process, the inter-basin transfer process. We do have our local state representatives have filed a bill to support our joining the MWRE as one step in the process of becoming a member. So there is a bill active in both the State House and Senate. So we don't expect any difficulty there, but it was something that we had to work with our local legislatures, and they've been terrific about advancing that effort. Storage tank. I'm going to take a breather. Tom, before you go on, we were in the process of applying for a low interest rate loan. Where are we on that? So we did. We submitted an application in July. What we did is we were counseled. By the SRF program that perhaps we should just submit an application for a portion of the project. So we did. We submitted an application for $16 million. And much like the schedule last time is that in January or early calendar year 28, The state SRF program puts out what they call an IUP, an Intended Use Plan, and all of the communities that are accepted into the loan program are then advertised and listed. So we put together a very strong application like we thought we had last time, but I have a sense that we'll be successful this time around. And I think the reason we split was because it was clear that the Happy Hollow plant is designed specifically to take care of PFAS. Is that correct? Yeah. Whereas they didn't really see our connection to MWRA as being to deal with PFAS, although it is, but it just, I guess the appearance was that it's not specifically designed to do that. And that will be a 2% loan. They've done away with a 0%, which is standard. Throughout my career, I've obtained SRF loans, and they've always been 2% 20-year terms. Great. But the last loan wasn't a 0% because there was an admin fee that went with it. So would this one have an admin fee as well? I think it would. Yeah, I think it does. Thank you. Which is, and speaking with Brian, I think conventional loans are up in the fives. I think he's going to advise the select board on the, excuse me, Mr. Chair for hopping in here. He's going to advise the select board on November 2nd when he comes because we've gone out and had the, I think it's 14 million that we're borrowing and I think we're, it's in the fours. I don't think the five, because we're AAA. We got re-certified as AAA. I saw that. A little bit less, so. Okay. Great. And I'm going to hand off to Don for the storage tank, if that's okay. Great. Hi, Don. Hello, everybody. So storage tank, the second tank project is scheduled while there. They're coordinating site work to start happening this fall. So that'll be, you know, tree work, things like that with a spring construction start date. Don't have anything locked in on that. They just were basically telling us, you know, this spring. So, you know, we're guessing that's going to be right around when the snow clears out and the ground thaws out. With substantial completion the end of next year. Substantial completion is, you know, tank full and online and operating. They'll most likely have to come back the following spring for You know, seating and just, you know, basic site cleanup and stuff like that. But yeah, we are on track to start that this spring. Calendar year. Finished by end of calendar year. Yes. Yep. Cool. All right. Any questions? Short breather, Tom. Short breather. Well, I'm going to hand it off to the DPW superintendent now again. So somebody else gets a chance to brag. All right, Joe. Here we go.
Are you there, Joe? What part do you want to discuss? Update on... Paving? Yeah, the paving. Okay. Yep, no problem. I don't have the agenda in front of me, so... I've got to share it on screen in case you need it. No, I'm good. Gleason Lane East is done and complete. Folsom Pond Road, done and complete. Pear Tree Lane, done and complete. Autumn Lane, done and complete. Just waiting for our Chapter 90 reimbursement for those projects. Loker Phase 1, and that was from School Street to Alden Lane. That was a mill and pave that is also complete and also waiting for our Chapter 90 reimbursement. Currently, as of about two hours ago, Park Lane, Agunkwood Path, and Massasoya Path were all in binder. So those are tomorrow. We are planning to have our contractor out to do the structure work, and we hope to have that finalized within the next five to seven days. And that will end this season up until next spring. Wow. We're ahead of schedule this year then, aren't we? We're doing good. That's awesome. Great. Any questions? on the paving plan for progress. What is a Chapter 90 reimbursement? It's a state-funded program that they allocate. Right now it's about $400,000, I want to say $80,000-something a year towards the town of Wayland. And what we do is We basically request certain projects for the state to pay for. And there's certain requirements and rules and things we have to follow to do that. But we get reimbursed for it. Good to hear. Thanks for the work. Yeah, it's a great program. Okay, so automated meters. Is that back to Tom or Don? I'll take a crack at it, and then if I start to stumble. So we're really glad to report that out of over 5,100 meters, we've only got 27 remaining. Wow. Yeah, yeah. And there's a... We kind of fall into three categories, one of which is that there's about 10 locations that we're having difficulty with connectivity, whether it be the location of the residence, the fact that it is a finished basement and we can't get the wire from the meter to a point on the outside of the house. And then also there's still a handful of what we call holdouts, folks that We've been unable to schedule appointments with. So, you know, for the 10 that I was referring to, we actually are going to utilize a cell technology for those. So the meter manufacturer has a product whereby for relatively short money rather than... Have a radio transmitter. It's actually a cellular device. So we'll be able to overcome the connectivity issues at those 10 locations. We have a number of iron pipe locations as well where the pipe coming into the home is extremely fragile. So we're working with the property owners to have them. You know, it's their responsibility. It's their part of their service to have those replaced with something that's more, you know, stable and of a better condition so that we can actually change the meter. But we are getting very close to being entirely complete. Tom, a question? There's a house on Concord Road. Closer to Town of Concord than my house where nobody lives there. Nobody has lived there in years. So do you have like troubles like one of the 10 is because or several of the 10 is because people just don't live there? Yeah, I guess I can't speak particularly to what's going on in Concord Road. I mean, generally speaking, I mean, the bill goes somewhere, you know, so they get an administrative, you know, charge, the base charge. So, you know, we do the best we can to work with them, a management company, a realtor. We really become, have become quite creative in making contact with whoever's responsible for that household. So I don't know in particular to that location, but we do eventually make contact. Thank you. Yep. Yeah. The customer portal was a nice feature. It's something we've, you know, six, seven years ago when we began this project, it was very important for us to have a customer portal. Right now, I think we've got about, it's only about 500 customers that have actually signed up for it. We sent out a mailing to everybody explaining what it is and what it does. So we're hopefully, we're hoping that more people will become. You know, involved with that and sign up and make their connection because it's a terrific tool as a homeowner to be able to see patterns and to be able to kind of track your water consumption and all of that. So we're hoping that people will, you know, take more use of that resource. Yeah, I've set my alerts so I see when I go over and we kind of know why. It's usually the weekend or something's going on. But yeah, it's interesting. I haven't gotten that set up on my phone. I've just used the website so far. But it is interesting. And then the last one that it's not listed, but I know everybody is following it and is interested, is the Sherman's Bridge project. So we've got a project. Team meeting on Thursday. We have a meeting with MassDOT and the contractor the following Thursday. The contractor is telling us that they are prepared to begin work on November 9th. So both Sudbury and Wayland Public Works departments are working right now in establishing the detour routes. That information will be up on our webpage, the project webpage. We've contacted both Sudbury and Wayland. Public Safety Departments, and they've offered their input, so they're satisfied with it. And the bridge will most likely be closed beginning November 9th. We have a letter and a flyer that explains things that will be hand-delivered to everybody on Sherman's Bridge Road, on Alpine Road, and much of the way up Oxbow Road. So we'll at least try to reach out to the folks that live in that neighborhood, letting them know that November 9th, many of them will live on a dead end for about three or four months. Three to four months. Okay. Yeah. And that concludes my project update. Great. So my report, any other questions about projects before we move on? Any other projects you want to hear about?
Hearing none, we'll move on to the annual report update. The annual report was included in the packet. Thanks to Mike for doing the bulk of the work on this. We got it out a few days late, but over to the town manager's office. I haven't heard any complaints. It came in, I think, under the word count required. So if you have any comments, I believe it gets published as part of a report Tom's told me that is a large printed report. But I believe it also goes into the annual town meeting packet as well. Is that right, Carol? Did these make their way into the... No, and I'm surprised you didn't. I didn't hear that you were late. The hammer goes down on the 30th. There's a code if you don't submit to it, you get disbanded. So there was a book that's distributed every year, and it's the Town of Wayland's Annual Report, and there's a report from all the... Departments and the boards and the committees and the commissions. And you will see it once it's published at the library. You'll see it there. There's some in the town building. And you can pick one up. That's what it is. It won't be in the warrant. It won't be. OK. All right. My mistake. All right. That would make it really long. Big warrant. So no. So you can't change it now. But, you know, whoever wants to take this task up next year, you can have a read through and be ready to go. Thanks, Mike, for your help on that. So we will move on to municipal rates discussion. Judy, do you want to lead this discussion? So this has to do with at the end of last year when we were looking at rates for this year, and one of the things that we had was that we charged the municipal departments. Tier 1, I believe, is what we were charging. And one of the questions that came up was, should we be doing that or should we be charging more? Should we be charging what people use? And I'm kind of two minds about that, but over the weekend when it was raining and I happened to drive by that field that's next to the town building and The sprinkler system was going full bazooka. I mean, it was like crazy water coming out. And I thought, oh, maybe we should charge the full rate that way. There's an awareness of the cost and hopefully maybe turn off the sprinkler when it's raining. I don't know how that works or not. So that's really where we are right now. I thought we would have some numbers perhaps from Tom, like. How much was the municipal water revenue from last year? And if we did charge the full four tiers, what would that be? And so there was a report that was sent out, I want to say it was a week or two ago. Did you not receive it? It actually has a pretty detailed, it lists out each department. Does anybody else? Yeah, I recall that. I didn't know if it was a new report or if it was one that had been put together prior. It was using information. We've kind of been reviewing this data off and on for a little bit of time. But since the last meeting, when we talked about, you know, what would departments, what would their increase likely be? I can try to share it. Position to do that if you'd like. Oh, great. Okay. Yeah, I was just going to look for it, see if I could find it. But if you have it, please go. I don't tend to get things from my town email address for some reason. Really, only Gmail works for me. So here is what I was speaking of. I can quickly go over this. Matt Abrahams and Sarah Polachanek in our office worked on putting this together. You'll see the top, it actually, you know, the only thing, the commercial accounts have different tier breakpoints than residential. So up in the top, it's commercial, and then down here is residential. What you'll see here is the departments listed out. Their quarterly bills. What we did is we used FY25 consumption patterns and FY27 rates. And what you'll see is the totals, what their usage was and what they would build. And then with this highlight. So that's all great. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, there we go. Sorry. So this is what. The department's paid in water. Here is what they would pay at only tier one. This is what they would pay if they were in the fully tiered. And then this lists the difference and the percentage increase. So about $67,000 more. Right. And I guess, you know, so I've been approached by at least one department, and I guess I'll speak on their behalf, is that, you know, they have a great concern about the increase, the potential increase in their water bill. You know, we're purposely having this conversation tonight so that the board can vote on what we're going to do prior to departments. building and developing their FY28 budgets. And you can see, you know, recreation, which pays for the water on the irrigating the fields, is the one that, you know, out of all of them, that would experience the largest increase. And so they in particular have voiced concern. About, you know, receiving these higher bills, they'll likely need to pass that additional cost on to their users as in their user charges. But I explained to them that I would at least speak on their behalf tonight to let the board know of that concern. Are they the ones who control the sprinkler system on the field? So that would be a guy that's on the screen to set. So when you saw that running in the rain, that would be our fault. These, they are equipped to joke and talk more about this. They do have rain gauges, so they're not supposed to activate when it's raining. So it's likely that that rain gauge was not working. We control, we maintain and control, set the timers, do all of that. Within our department. Yeah, so with the increase in cost to all of the water users, Judy, I think you're the one who spearheaded the idea that we should start charging municipal at the actual rates versus the discounted rate. And I think part of the reason was we had promoted to the select board that we split the cost. of the long-term water supply, whereby a portion, maybe the MWRA connection, for example, would be taken care of by taxes, and the Happy Hollow plant would be taken care of by water rates. I think the FinCom also recommended that that be the approach. But for one reason or another, mainly the concern about a two and a half increase. being required in the near future. All of the funding for those two projects, the long-term water supply, got loaded into the Water Enterprise Fund. So this was a way to say, okay, well, if we're going to have to take care of all of it, then everyone's going to have to pay their fair share. And we thought, okay. It's not really a ton of money. We're looking at about $67,000, as we said. But that would put it back what I would consider into the tax rate to a degree. Now, if it's going directly to the users, I don't know how that works. But for the rest of the departments, I think it includes having our own departments pay a little bit more. So water is, you know, the second highest increase there is for water. So yeah, DPW is there, but it's only a slight increase. So I think that's the summary. And so our question is, do we want to charge at, continue charging municipal entities at the current tier one rate? Do we want to change it to tier two rate? Tom says it's just as easy to charge at. The regular tiers, just like every other user is charged. So I think those were some of the ideas that had come up. And that's what this table represents. If those departments were loaded into a fully tiered, like everybody else pays. Right. Carol, I'll get to you in a second. Just want to check to see if the board has any comments on this or any thoughts.
So I don't think it's a huge amount of money, to be honest. It's not. 67,000, you round it. And basically this goes towards us paying for the water connection for MWRA. So I'm not, I'm comfortable with it. Comfortable with which option? Charging to full tiers. Sounds good. John, Don, Ed? Well, I don't have any comments. I'm not that good at the budget. I agree with Judy's sentiments. Any questions on this, John? And then I want to get to Carol before we go any further. No questions. Actually, I do have a question. It was based on, I'm trying to remember the name of the, Condo Development that had a whole bunch of different bills. Yes. Why is it divided in a bunch of different bills? Is it individual water taps or why are they? Likely they have different separate meters, but Tom? Yeah, I think that the condo that you're referring to, they do. They have each of those residents' dwellings have their own meter. So, but there must be different meters for recreation. So they can't all be in one tier, right? So the recreation, if I'm understanding the question correctly, primarily the recreation, they've got a meter at every single playing field that has an irrigation system. So that's what you're seeing. So they all get lumped together and that's how... You decide what tier recreation is? No, each account, each field has its own account. So what you're seeing here, you're seeing just a total for that department, all those accounts. So say there's, Joe probably knows off the top of his head, say there's a dozen fields that are irrigated in town. There are a dozen accounts. And each one of those accounts... Each one of those accounts, you know, its consumption is currently charged at Tier 1, and what is being proposed is that that consumption at that meter would then be converted to a fully tiered charge. I understand. Good question. Carol, please. Yeah, so I have a question. I don't see the schools listed in this. They have no meters because they have at least five buildings? Schools are metered. Schools are not charged a municipal rate. What are they charged? They're in the fully tiered. Okay. So they're already accounted for. And on the recreation, does that include the school fields, fields that are shared by rec and schools? I'm just wondering about that amount because they'll probably come back and... Raise that issue with you. So, but the main thing I want to mention is bear in mind that as we go forward next year, we've already had a big increase in our rates to start funding the capital costs of the MWA connection. Everybody's going to be getting a huge water increase, period. $66,000 may not seem like a lot of money to you, but I'm going to tell you $100,000 is 11 basis points on your taxes. So instead of paying 4.1%, you pay 4.1%. So this would raise up everyone's taxes to support this. Because I can tell you, I'm pretty sure there's not additional $67,000 just available in these budgets. I'm sure Tom would say the same thing. He doesn't have an additional $4,000 or $5,000 sitting around that he can, you know, just reallocate to the water. So this will, as you are correct, be into tax on top of the operating budget tax on top of them. The debt service for the construction project. So just so you bear that in mind. But water is paying for the debt service, right? So you're paying for that. Next year, you're going to be increasing your rates significantly because you have a $2 million nut to carry. Yeah. Plus going to raise this. So you might want to phase this in. I don't know. See what the budget can support. The Finance and Planning Committee has spent several meetings looking at how to close the gap to avoid an operating override this year. I believe we're going to land it, but every year it's another challenge. Will we be able to provide our services without an operating override? And still the budget increases more than we probably want. So just to put it in context of the whole versus just one piece of the pie. Right. Okay. If we don't have any more questions or comments, I guess we can entertain a motion. Mike, do you have any comments? I think it makes sense. To just keep it all the same for all of the users. Regardless, schools are already paying the tiered rates. These departments would pay the tiered rates. It would be going into their budget. It would be going into our DPW budget. So I think it makes the most sense. It's the fairest to just have everyone paying the same rates throughout. Probably makes it simpler. Maybe not. Maybe it's just as easy to do either, but I think that makes sense. Does that make sense? Yeah, I guess one question I have, I see the fire only goes up by, you know, 63 bucks. Is that because that's not counting if they have to put out a fire, right? That's just the fire department. Yeah, that's just the meter at the public safety building. Okay, yeah.
So do we want to make a motion and take a vote here? Yes. Yeah. Okay. I will accept a motion to change the rate structure for the municipal departments listed to the standard tiered rate starting in fiscal year 27. I'm sorry, 28, fiscal year 28. So move. If I might make a friendly amendment? Yes. Just add that you're going to use the commercial tier. That's the one that you're referring to that has the 66, 9, 18. So just to clarify that those are the tiers, the rates that you're going to utilize for this. Okay. Yep. Utilizing the commercial tier. Thank you. Can I ask a question? I'm sorry I didn't catch this sooner. So what you're saying is the top part of the spreadsheet where it says using commercial tiers, the increase would be basically $67,000. If you go down the spreadsheet a little, Mike, would you go down a little? That's me. I'm sorry. So if you use the residential tiers, it's actually 79. So it's actually more expensive. I see. Okay. I'm comfortable with the commercial tier. Okay. So you've moved the motion, Judy. Do we have a second? Seconded. Thank you. Mr. Selman seconded. So we'll take a roll call. All in favor, John? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Judy. Ed. Thank you, Ed. Judy. Yes. Mike? Yes. Ann? Mike, yes. Great. Okay. So that discussion. Mr. Chair. Yes. Thank you. Sorry. I'm sure Tom is already going to say this too. You probably should send out a note to the town manager's office post-haste because, and the finance team, that would include Brian, because they're probably pretty much built the FY28 budgets and they'll want to wrap this in. Yeah, at our last meeting, I don't think you're here, but we asked Tom to make all of the departments aware that this was likely coming. Okay, great. And that we would be voting this. So I think he's, that's why he's got some feedback from some of the departments, but that's a good point. Tom, will you follow up on that or do you want me to? No, I'll work with Brian on putting something out to all department heads. Okay, great. Thanks, Carol. Thanks, Tom. Transfer station evaluation update. So, Carolyn, I think, can both provide a quick update here. We met recently. We had pared down some options to look at and analyze. And those primarily being pick up, standardized pick up for the town plus a transfer station option. Pick up. for the town plus a recycling center option. And we were going to look at both a two-day option for the transfer station and a two-day option for the recycling center as options as well. And then we chose, I think, three different bin sizes to look at for the pickup options. We're scheduled to meet November 4th and go through some of that analysis. I'm working with Joe and Anita and Tom to iron out what the cost savings might be between our existing transfer station and the options that I just mentioned. So we're moving the study forward. And I think we're getting on track, and I think it's going better at this point. Carol, do you want to, or Tom or Joe, because Tom and Joe are participating as well. So if you want to jump in and give us your thoughts as to where we're at, status update.
I think you did a good job. The only reference I think I would change is we've got it scheduled at 2.5 days. I know you said two days, but we've got it at 2.5. Just to clarify. Is that what you heard, Carol? You need a day to prep. So as they work five days a week now, we basically cut the hours, but it ends up being 2.5. I think we're talking about the same thing. I was talking about the open days, two open days versus three open days. Yep. Okay. Yep. All right. No, we're on the same page there. Okay, good. Carol? No, Tom, go ahead, please. Okay. No, I think that was a fair summation of where we're at. Nothing to add. I think I just want to add one thing is that There's a lot of financial gurus on that committee. And the poor consultant is much more in a high level. And I think that's what we engaged her to do is a more high level thing. So I think next meeting will be our last meeting with the consultant. And then I think we're going, we've agreed to have one more meeting, just the group by themselves to kind of batter out, refine a little bit more some of these options. But it's been very instructive. I think we've all learned a lot. I think we've, one thing that really, really struck me, and I said this last night in the select board is, I live in a house, a house, I live on a road with 25 houses and never thought one thing about all the curbsides and the private haulers. And one day I'm walking up the street and I think I counted six different providers. And to me, that's a real concern that's been raised in the committee level is that, you know, all those haulers coming in. You know, you have the trash bins on multiple days, but on top of that, look at the extra wear and tear on our roadway. So I think that's one of the things we, when we meet again offline after the study's finished, I think we're going to kind of like bat that around a little bit. Yep. Does that sound about right? Yeah, that's perfect. Okay. Thank you for adding. Thank you. Tom, you're still sharing the switch. Oh, yes, I can stop. Yep. There we go. That's okay. I don't think we have anything left to share. Does anyone have any questions about the study? Okay. We'll keep you posted as we move ahead. Mike, was there ever a questionnaire or anything that asked people that did not sign back up the reason? The reason they didn't sign back up for the transfer station? Yeah. I figure you're down 500 people, right? Yeah. Unfortunately, we did not have the records to conduct that type of survey. We have since begun collecting email addresses so that we can have more proactive renewals before it was very reactive. So this was the first year we started with the proactive renewals where you could sign up online. And have you ever had a year that you've had evening hours? I don't think we have. Okay. I just, I could never make the days that it's open. Transfer station work with my schedule, so. Got it. Tom, did we ever look at that as an option going a little bit later, maybe to 6 p.m. or something like that? I think we had. I don't recollect ever looking at after hours. I'm not sure if the, and Joe can probably talk a little bit about this, whether the property is lit well enough to function. After dark? It definitely isn't. It's got very little lighting. It would be a pretty big capital cost to do that, I'm sure. Yeah. And possibly we'd have to, you know, unfortunately, you know, we'd have to renegotiate union hours, things like that with that group. Got it. John, the survey did ask, what do you like? What do you dislike? You know about the curbside. What do you like, dislike, and prioritize them about the transfer station? So we might have captured a little bit of that info, but I probably know exactly what you're asking. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Okay. I think that brings us to the minutes. Review and approval of the meeting minutes for September 22nd. Do we have any updates? Any edits required?
If not, I accept a motion to approve the minutes of September 22, 2026. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Great. I think Ed Beach, Mike. So we'll take a roll call. Mike? Yes. Ed? Yes. John? Yes. Judy? Yes. And Mike? Yes. Okay. Any concerns? Anyone want to discuss any items we haven't discussed that are of concern? I just was thinking about Carol's comment about the wear and tear of all the extra trucks driving around. I think some of that is small compared to the traffic disruptions of having to stop behind those as they're doing their stops. And on my little dead-end street, there's four different companies that come down at once a week. And is that easier or worse, do you think, having four, for traffic purposes? Well, it's four different trucks. So I think it would be great if it was one company that just came down and drove down the street once a week. See, I've gotten stuck behind the trucks going down Route 62 and Bedford and stopping at each. Each home along the way, and you're kind of stuck behind that truck until it turns off. So I could see that both ways. But I think the idea is the study is what you're suggesting, trying to limit the number of different providers so that it's a little bit more efficient. That's a good point, though, John. I've written that down. Thank you. Any other thoughts?
Okay. So dates for upcoming meetings, we have November 4th, which is the fall tree hearing. Do we have a list coming out yet, Joe, for that meeting? The list itself, I think, was put out today. I think she actually posted it today. You'll be getting the whole packet, pictures, et cetera, sometime next week. Okay. And this is a joint meeting with the planning board? Correct. And then? I'm going to be away the 17th of November, so I'm wondering if I'll actually be away the 10th. And the 24th is close to Thanksgiving, so that would leave the 3rd, which I think is a little too soon, or the 24th. Prior to Thanksgiving. The third is Election Day and the town clerk does not like, well, you're not in the town building, so I guess you're okay, but it's not. Yeah, yeah. They're not in love with you doing it then. Okay. How does the 24th sound for folks? Otherwise, Mike can take the lead. I will be away at the 24th. Okay. I'll be fine with the 24th. Okay. Okay, so what do we want to do, Ed? Judy won't be able to make it on the, go ahead, Ed. The 17th or the 24th? Okay, so I'm away, but it's a Zoom meeting, so I could probably join on the 17th. Since everyone can make it on the 17th, should we just stick with that then? Okay. Mike, maybe you could share and I'll support you. Sure. Okay. Actually, technically, Mike, Mr. Wegerbauer, because it's fully remote, you can share from anywhere. Yeah, I'm just, yeah. As opposed to, he wants to see if you can get me to say more than 10 words. I was, yeah, I'll be on vacation, so. I was trying, yeah, trying not to carry the full load, but okay. And then December 15th, does that still work for folks? We don't have to set that in stone yet. We can get to that next time if folks don't have their calendar to date through that time. December 15th, fine with me. Okay, thanks, Ed. Okay, we'll keep it working. Okay, good. All right, we'll keep it at the 15th, and if we have to make changes next meeting, we'll do that. Any other thoughts? If not, I'll accept a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Thank you. Judy. Yes. Mike. Yes. Ed. Yes. John. Yes. Wegerbauer. Yes. All right. Well, thanks, everyone.