September 16, 2026 – Capital Improvement Planning Committee – Video & Transcript

September 16, 2026 - Capital Improvement Planning Committee

Autoscroll:

calling the uh to order the capital improvement planning committee meeting september 16 2026 at 6 30 uh in person and remote access in the wayland commons room
the meeting will be recorded and if it's recorded it will be made available to the public on wacom as soon as possible after the meeting the public will be excluded from any executive sessions pursuant to chapter two of the exit 2025 this meeting will be conducted in person uh and or via remote access in accordance with apple law if this meeting only has remote access no in-person attendance by members or the public will be permitted if this meeting has remote access one may watch or participate remotely with the provided link when required by law or allowed by chair persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so at the meeting location in person or remote as applicable public comment should be limited to two minutes for person uh in person today or myself brad carver and brian o'harlohy and online we have liz lusky is anybody else online you look like you're walking in space yes
i like it or you're at nasa or something yeah in orbit anyway
i will review the agenda 6 30 call to order 635 public comment 6 40 review and discuss departmental capital request submitted this year seven discuss and review the status of the draft cip report to the time manager including the ed Salvations deletions tables appendices a 20 discuss succession planning 825 review and vote to approve minutes of september 9 if available 825 set times for next meetings inusemento 30 adjourn.
And just to mention that Liz is in virtual. Right. Yeah. Liz is virtual. Not in person. So with that we'll begin. I guess I'll start off by saying I think everybody received the draft, very rough draft of the report that I sent to everyone. Liz, we got your comments on the outstanding capital projects, which we appreciate. Brian made some helpful suggestions on the first page.
I guess, Brian, I'm trying to think of the best way to start. There's some, I don't know if you want to start with some of the updates that we have. Yeah, I think we probably should. We'll go through, yeah, go through where we ended up the last meeting on allocation. Liz, I have it on a thumb drive, but do you have I sent a version five out a week ago of the Excel spreadsheet that shows the five fiscal years with the capital requests assignment of funding sources. Do you have that? And if so, are you able to share that? Yeah, I can definitely share my screen. I'm not sure. I think it was last week. The last one I have is September 9 and 617. That's not right. There may have been one after that, which in the description, I think I referenced version five.
I can't think of the full name of the document.
Yeah, OK, I've got it. Give me a moment. I'll start sharing my screen. OK, well, once she gets it up, I can describe what edits I made to it, which will help you center our discussion.
All right, it should be coming up if it's not already up.
OK, and if you could just bring that up a couple of notches. I think that's good.
And if you're on the first half, fiscal 28, correct? Yes.
So it's up to you, do you want me to? Yeah, why don't you give more of a person into me? So what I did following the last meeting was I took our working tabs, which are still in this workbook to the right at the bottom, and I cleaned them up a little bit. And those are the tabs that appear to the left. And by cleaning up, generally speaking, I just eliminated the items that we had put a line through. But I left the old tabs in there so we can go back when we need to, to figure out what dropped out and what years. Yeah. And, and that's it. Thank you. And that, that was actually version four is kind of the cleanup that I did. And after sending version four, we all, I believe we all got an email from the IT director. Liz, do you recall seeing the IT director's email? He addressed it to me, but I think he copied the other members. And as you both recall, when he met with us the first time, he said, you know what? You know what? I want to do this. And we got a letter from a few of the IT managers, two or three weeks ago. He generally submitted a request that, you know, brought forward the IT requests that were in the prior year of five year plan. Tacked on 2032, which is kind of the general direction that he and others received in the town manager's memo. And you might recall we reminded him of the conversations that occurred on town meetings, floor this past spring and asked him whether he thought he might want to revisit his submissions talk to the town manager and if needed come back to us with any proposed revisions to what he had submitted so he uh he took us up on that um he uh he apparently presented something to the town manager and subsequently sent us the email which included all of his cips originally submitted a couple of which had you know minor edits to and then he tacked on two additional new uh cip tabs so if we happen to have up which we don't at the moment and we can if we need to to help us in our conversation here but um he had a couple of tabs that one of which had fairly substantial requests for fiscal 28 through 32 uh dealing with um what i believe he described as um cyber cyber security compliance um so there's what what what i know brad would he could do as well as i could do but we'll save time i'll just pass along please and i think i think we mentioned this at our meeting with the i.t director um when one gets into a discussion of certain areas of town services i.t being one of them if there are security elements to them that you don't generally want to share in the public domain obvious perhaps for obvious reasons um there appears to be a an exception in the open meeting law that would allow those subjects to be discussed in executive session assuming that in your public meeting you both have an agenda item to discuss it in an executive session you properly put yourselves into executive session and you limit your discussion in that executive session only to those topics that otherwise qualify for that exception and when you're done with that discussion you then exit executive session and depending on whether you have that executive session at the front end of your meeting or the back end you might come back into open session and carry on so brad was cautioned by the town manager rightly so that depending on what level of detail this committee wanted to get into with the i.t director should we choose to invite him back perhaps in our next meeting to walk us through his revised request given the the sizable dollar changes
if if a majority of our members and maybe brad might decide it might just take one member that wants to get into the weeds a little bit we're going to have to hold that discussion until we're able to go into an executive session we can however still talk about the i.t request certainly at least to the level and degree that they're laid out in the email that we got from the i.t director since he was obviously careful not to get into any great detail we can certainly talk about dollars involved
but we just need to be careful tonight i don't know that any of us have any significant details but if any of us decide we want to pose questions that are a bit more specific like what does cyber security compliance entail or what vulnerabilities should they exist is the i.t director attempting to plug with what request and etc what are the risks if we don't plug those type of questions we just we just can't talk about those tonight but we're going to have to we can't talk about those with him if he's here in public session and we just need to know in advance of the next meeting agenda being posted whether that's something that our members wanted to do so i would suggest and we could certainly right now before you get into the numbers i think this is worthy topic for discussion we could talk much ourselves as to how we each feel about needing to get into that level of detail And then Bragg could certainly reach out to Kelly and John following the meeting, but before he has to post the next agenda. The IT director is on vacation, but he offered up coming to meet with us possibly next week. Bragg could do that administratively after the meeting if people want to do that. And just so, I'll just interject, I did tell the time manager that we were going to be discussing the possibility of executive session tonight, and that I'd get back to him. So I did respond to him. Yeah, so I'll just give my quick perspective on that and then open it to, you know, Bragg can open it to you too.
I'm actually more concerned. I'm more interested in the fact that the IT director went away at our request and came back after presumably having put some thought into it. And I assume would not be making the request, specific request of the dollars involved without, you know, carefully thinking through what he thinks are the priorities, etc. And so. Secondly, based on his email, it appears that he did in fact talk with the town manager, who I'm assuming would be privy to all the details that are relevant to why the IT director thinks he needs what he needs. And so I had asked Brad for the meeting in anticipation of our having a discussion about particularly fiscal 28, because we really don't have any funding sources. And so I had asked Brad for the meeting in anticipation of our having a discussion about particularly fiscal 28, because we really don't have any funding sources. Unless we start pampering with what we've already at least preliminarily agreed to put in the plan or in the budget. I wanted to get a sense of how the town manager prioritized, prioritizes the IT revised requests for fiscal 28 in particular as compared to, say, the second phase of the roof, which is three of us now. I wanted to get a sense of how the town manager prioritizes the IT revised requests for fiscal 28 in particular as compared to, say, the second phase of the roof, which is three of us now. no, we prioritize higher than a couple other items in the plan. And so Brad, thankfully, sent a couple of questions off to the town manager. Don't think you share those responses yet. I believe I did. Liz, did you get the response from the town manager with respect to the IT request and the roof request? Well, there was a couple back and forth, to be honest with you. Are we, so, this is, going back to, I thought Mike, so again, this is probably going back to meetings, but just walking, following the bouncing ball for a second. Didn't Mike say that the roof request or phase two of the town hall needed to happen? It was a must do. Are we talking about that roof request? Or are we talking about subsequent? Yeah, before we get, before we get into the specifics, maybe Brad, you can just forward that again. But my view of asking the questions that were posed to the town manager was basically, if this committee takes the view that the revised IT request for fiscal 28, at least with respect to the largest item, which is a $700,000 item, that was not in the, the initial request, which just so happens to be the same dollar amount as the phase two roof request that we preliminarily have included. I wanted to get a sense as to whether the town manager had a view on the priority. And therefore, if he viewed the priority of the IT request as a higher priority than the roof request, in my mind, I didn't, I didn't feel as if I really needed to get into the detail. Of what that IT request really entailed, other than the descriptor, because obviously the town manager knows what the details are. And if he's, if he's viewing it as of utmost importance, I'm happy to take that as a sort of a guide. But that's just me. I'm quite comfortable understanding what all the details are behind the request. And why it's needed, and why it's needed now. But I don't feel absolutely like it's necessary for me to know those details, given the sensitivity of the subject matter. But I'm curious as to how the two of you, knowing that our, on all these requests, our overarching responsibility is to get ourselves comfortable, not only with what the request is, what its relative priority is, but, within that same department and other departments, but also try to understand, you know, where the number came from, you know, etc. Right. So, I'm just curious whether the two of you, putting aside what we decide, the three of us are going to do with that particular request, and we can talk about the next three years after that. I'm just curious whether, based on that conversation, whether the two of you are comfortable, or not comfortable going too far with that item until you get deeper into the weeds of, again, exactly what is being addressed with that large of a dollar request. Here's my sense. My, and I think I tend to agree with you, Brian. My sense is that, you know, we asked Nick to go back and look at his request. He went back. He has come up with his CFP. Number 11 and 12. 11 being the $700,000 request. Plus, the total is $1.8 million. Okay. Not all five years up. Yeah. And, clearly, the time managers of the view that it's a critical item.
And, the time manager spoke to Mike Fayette. Mike had previously told us that he, he wanted the roof repair, 700,000-hour roof repair to go forward in 2028. After discussing it, again, with the town manager, he's indicated that he's willing now to defer that request. And, you know, given the sensitivity, clearly, of the request from IT, I think it's an important request based on what we've been told. I'm comfortable going back and looking at it. Okay. And, I'm also comfortable going forward without having, you know, additional inquiries of the IT director and moving forward from there. So, that's my sense.
Yeah. And, okay. So, piling on, I guess two things come to mind. Do I need to know this prior to what we're going to submit on October 15th? I don't feel that way. It would be interesting to know. It would be useful, helpful information, just from a general understanding. But, I would also want to know, folks can still see my screen, right? Can you go away on you? Sorry. My, can folks still see the Excel spreadsheet? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. So, the other piece of this is, is there, so, with any kind of security protocols, is there a briefing we need to go through? Are there any NDAs we need to sign? What is the process to do it? Is there any kind of executive summary? And, if that, those can be sometimes lengthy processes, depending upon how, you know, sensitive the information is. So, if this is going to be, you know, three months in the making, you know, then, then certainly wouldn't want to do anything that can derail trying to submit our report by October 15th. That said, my follow-on piece would be, is a lot of times cybersecurity is a very expensive cost that the initial estimates tend to come in light. So, I guess I would just be concerned. Do we really think that? I think we've captured the full extent of the cost or is this going to grow? I think as to your first question on the timeframe for dealing with so-called executive session discussions, there's really no delay. If you, Liz, and maybe just you, Liz, or if you, Liz, and Kelly, and John, if you, Liz, and Kelly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. or Kellyanne or John expressed to Brad that they would like to get a bit more color given the magnitude of the revised request Brad just needs to add an agenda item for our next meeting which identifies that we will be entering into executive session from open session there's just a bunch of words that he has to read we have to take a vote we have to exit our public publicly viewed meeting and and either go to another room or just make sure we're not being taped we have the discussion we make sure we limit that discussion only to those items that can be discussed in executive session then we exit executive session back into open meeting so that could be a 15-minute conversation could you know usually have to estimate how long you'll be in executive session so it might be a 15 minute there's there's no point prep work then there's no like there's no form for me to fill out or anything like that no I mean the prep work would be at a high level the extent people see the description of his request perhaps have been in town meeting to hear him address some of this as far as he could go in town meeting where I think he went a little bit further than he should have you could certainly prepare your own questions that you might want to pose to him um you know when you enter into executive session but you don't want to put those in emails because those emails are public documents you want to I'm tracking all that I that's fairly familiar with some of the work I do so I understand keeping sensitive information sensitive I just didn't know if there was any prep work before you could even have access to no no no it's pretty straightforward so um as to your um
second request for your second question did you remember did you remind me yet yeah well so part of it was um so it doesn't sound like we'd have a timing issue so we can it sounds if we could coordinate schedules we could probably have this as early as our next meeting uh which would still be before October 15th so that's good my next uh question was is again in um in some of my experience cyber is one of those um not black boxes but do we really think we've captured all the costs or is this going to continue to grow that was my question. That was my second follow-up question where I think it might be worth getting a little bit into the weeds to make sure we flushed out everything we think we need to ask for versus oh by the way this is the here's our own phase one of cyber but you know phase two is going to look like you know something a multitude larger yeah so depending again on on how much time you spent looking at Nick's email and I got I had a follow-up uh email with him um which I didn't copy the committee on that email. But I believe it might be attached at the back end of the town manager's response to the two questions so once Brad if you've sent that out again I did but when Brad sends it out but I'll send it out but anyway if you review the IT director's initial email and maybe there's a little bit more in the second email he sent to me um he he suggests that um as to that particular line item whatever it entails uh in more detail that um that uh there was apparently the original original his original intention was to use uh some prior appropriated funds uh identified for data center whatever upgrades which he felt he had available and combine it with a little bit more money but the apparently the last price quote for whatever specific hardware software support is involved with this particular request the last estimate he had gotten may have come from his predecessor back in fiscal 25 and so he apparently got an updated idea of what it might cost which went from sounds like it went from in the low two to three hundred thousand range up to the you know six hundred thousand range roughly 650 maybe yeah and then he you know went out of his way to say since this request is for fiscal 28 which is another 12 months away or so given the escalating cost of certain memory chips and other things he added cushion to get it up to seven hundred thousand you because he didn't want to have to come back and ask for more money and it was also step that high because it sounded from his email like whatever amount of this data center appropriation that he had available funds from that he thought he was going to use for this project described in the CIP number 11 he apparently determined that he needed to use it I'm presuming for something that was related to data center you know other other issues that he felt he needed those funds for and so what we're seeing it sounded like was a combination of some old funding that he thought he was going to use now he's not his original cost estimates he was relying on have now gone up substantially given the demand for chips and other things and he added some cushion so he wouldn't have to come back now does that mean that if we approve this project we're going to have to come back and ask for more money I think it's all the way through town meeting and in fiscal 28 on July 1st of 2027 um he goes out to the market to a contract or whatever it is he needs that the price couldn't be higher no um but uh I I get your point I mean the cost of as he said to us when he met with us the cost of IT related stuff is is just in the last couple years anyway have been exploding and his
uh over five years totals 1.8 million versus 300 000 that had his original submission. And so that $300,000 was spread $100,000 a year, starting at fiscal 29 and 30 and 32. So he's added a million and a half total dollars. He's obviously fronted at $700,000 of it. He's put dollars in each and every year for the five-year plan. And would it surprise me a year from now when you're meeting with him and talking about fiscal 29 through 33, that if we were to include, if all of that line item gets included in all those years at those amounts, would it surprise me that he's back telling you a year from now that costs have continued to escalate? And, you know, he could tell you that. On the other hand, he's not going to tell you that. On the other hand, he's not going to tell you that. And so he's not going to tell you and he may also be able to tell you a year from now that because they got whatever work they got done, maybe it gave him an opportunity to better assess what else really needed to be done by when. I think this line item is likely going to be a little bit squishy, and obviously it's a million and a half dollars more than when he first came in with, right? Well, and that's the part where, yes, I tend to see that quite frequently, where it's not that it's a black hole, but all of a sudden the costs skyrocket beyond what any reasonable estimate previously was. And it's not to say that the work doesn't need to be done, but yeah, it's just, it does beg the question, is the 1.8 the ceiling, or are we still growing? Yeah, and we might want to address that with him, and I don't, there's no way, there's no way anybody can answer that question, because, you know, three years ago, AI hadn't fully exploded yet, and it hadn't really had the impact that it's had on demand for chips and all that other stuff, and you know, it's showing no signs that that's going to let up, but, you know, who knows? So I think the discussion with him might be, because I think I asked him in one of my reply emails, because I really don't know, I've never bothered to ask about the town's IT infrastructure, so I've heard, I thought over the years, the town continues to operate its own servers. I thought I asked him, have you looked at moving everything into the cloud-based server environment, at least to try to eliminate the need to buy the equipment yourself and maybe leverage the technology to take the risk off of it. But I think, you know, that's the question. That's the question. And I think, you know, that's the question, but, you know, the question is, you know, it's not that the technology is, you know, it's not a technology that is out there in the cloud, and, you know, that brings its own set of risks and other things, but it's generally the way private industry has gone, in my experience. And so it's those kind of questions that, you know, if we're simply continuing the old process, when there might be a different way that private industry's doing it, other municipalities, state government might be doing it, and I'm sure he's well aware of that, but I think that's the question. he's well aware of what those are. And he very well may be positioning to do that. He may have already done that. He may be starting to do that. So I think we can have some of that conversation with him without worrying about divulging any particular information that risks the town's own security posture. It's more strategic, which I think is your point, Liz. But there's no one that's going to be able to answer the question of what's this stuff going to cost. Now, over the last as long as I remember, the town, there's certain things in the town budget, unfortunately, that historically get shortchanged every year just because you've got to make the payroll. Right? And there's pressure to not have taxes go up exorbitantly. And IT has happened to be one of those areas. Repairs to buildings is another one of those. And the town is ultimately paying hyper for that because it's going to cost that much more now to replace buildings. And it's probably going to cost that much more to deal with IT infrastructure that if we had done it a bit more along the way, we wouldn't necessarily be here today. Right? Well, plus IT, it really has become really a health safety issue. It's kind of ratcheted up in terms of its importance. Yeah. So anyway, as that is a backdrop, I guess, Brad, it sounds like at least Liz might want to possibly get into some things that might require an executive session. So you'll, you either can just say, fine, we'll put an executive session. First, you have to reach out to Nick. I'm not sure he's going to respond to you until he gets back next Monday. But you could put an agenda together that presumes that he can join us. So and you put, I'll send you the language for the agenda item for executive session. And ultimately, I'll send you the motion that you'd have to read if he's going to join us. And then I guess you could just do that. And then, you know, we could get to our meeting. And if Kelly and John decide that they don't want to go down that path and have five of us know things that you know, I mean, I have no problem understanding what the details are. But I said, I just don't have a, I think a fewer people walking around with that knowledge is probably a good thing. But that said, that's just me. So that's probably the safest thing to do just so you can get an agenda posted. And then if we get to the meeting and people can't show up or people decide that they don't want to get into that detail, we just don't have to. Yeah, I think and I apologize. The email. But I will, I will send it out. But I'm quite sure my Michael McCall indicated that that he wouldn't be available before the next week. Evening. Yeah. And I think he kind of offered that. So yeah. So that that's important both for the three of us. It's important for John and Kelly if they happen to watch the tape. It's important for the public so that if they think we're talking cryptically, about this area, they'll understand why the minutes were reflected in a much condensed form. Well, I will also send an email to Kelly and to John just letting them know our discussion that we're going to request to go into executives. Yeah. So that's more of the whole administrative part of this discussion. So why don't we just spend then a couple minutes looking at the spreadsheet. So what I did then is I took where we ended up at. The end of our last meeting, which was cleaned up. And I took the I. T. Director's revised requests and I plugged them in and I highlighted them in yellow. And I still have a couple of random questions for him on some of his descriptors. And I'll just mention to you what those are. And you yourself can go look at the C. I. P. S. After the meeting. So the first C. I. P. Which is described as cyber security remediation and modernization of something. Expand that out. That's one of the two items that got a little bit screwed up at last spring's town meeting where he had requested $250,000. When you go look at the description in the warrant, unfortunately, the description of the warrant of that item, the detail description talked about video monitoring. Systems not cyber security remediation and the description of cyber security remediation. Actually, the detail description actually inserted in the C. I. P. Number two. It's labeled public safety regional emergency system. And so the town meeting warrant, that's the detail was in there for that. So I believe based on my inference from his response and his revised request is that it appears that he and I presume the town manager again have agreed that the $250,000 that was requested at town meeting for what he thought was cyber security remediation can only be used for video monitoring and related equipment. And we talked to him about the possibility since he only thought he needed $150,000 for that item based on a prior conversation. We had. With him that there might be a hundred thousand dollars that he could then turn back, you know, to the town and that could be utilized as a source for one of the other fiscal 28 request. But in his email, the way I read it was he, he felt that he just had a meeting. He, it sounded like he didn't think he would have much more than 150. But in his email, it sounds now like he thinks he needs to wait. Until that project develops a bit more because he's having ongoing conversations with the schools and the library in particular about protocols that don't end the light. And I think he wants to be sure that if whatever ends up getting done, it might cost more than 150. He doesn't want to get the money back and not have enough money to do it. So we can't count on any of that money coming back in the near term. But when you look at his CIP number, one, it still has cybersecurity as the description. For fiscal 28 and 31, it has $150,000 in those two years. But the detailed description still talks about video monitoring. And I think his intention is that that line item really should be cybersecurity remediation and modernization as a different line item than cybersecurity compliance. Because in his detailed description of cybersecurity compliance, he references a bunch of state statute and other things that I think are a different project. But we need to clarify that with him. Because if not, then we'll have to change the description for that item, the video monitoring. And he, in effect, would be saying, in addition to the $250,000, I need another $300,000. I don't think it's the case. So that's it. That's an open question. But he wasn't looking for any more money for that line item. The next line item, which was labeled Public Safety Regional Emergency System, again, the $150,000 on that line item for 27, he's going to use for cybersecurity remediation. So it's a hundred grand less than he was hopeful of having. And obviously, item 11, his new item, is going to give him lots more money. He's going to have to pay for compliance. And my sense is, between the $150,000 from 27, and if I'm reading it right, the $150,000 in fiscal 28 on item 1 would give him $300,000. Sounds like what he needs for that item. But there had been $100,000 slotted in in 28 for this initial request, which was, I know it's getting confusing. But his initial request for that line item was for the Public Safety Regional Emergency System. So he deleted the dollars in that CIP number 2. So if you look at the revised one, there's no dollars requested now. Instead, he put in CIP number 12, which is one of the two new ones. And the $100,000 that was in there before is now $150,000. And I believe that's the number that he thought he was going to get. And I believe that's the number that he thought he had last year, fiscal 27, that he can't use because it had the wrong description on it. Does that make sense to the two of you? Yeah. Yeah. Mostly. So in terms of this table, the numbers are accurate. They tie to his revised CPI for those three line items at the moment. There's a question I have on the description on item 1. Item 2, basically, is going to go away. Because we're not showing fiscal 27 in anything we're doing. And it no longer has any money associated with it. So I'm going to delete that in the next revision of this thing. Line item 3 didn't change. 4 didn't change. 5 didn't change. 6 didn't change dollar-wise. And again, it's referencing video monitoring. And the fact that that's in there and it didn't change is why I think line item 1 has not been changed. It's nothing to do with video monitoring in fiscal 28 and 31.
Line item 8, firewall replacement. Although he didn't mention it in his email, that had, in his initial request, that had been in fiscal 32 at $250,000. And he moved it up one year to fiscal 31 at $300,000. We're going to have to address that when we look at the tabs. The PC laptop replacement schedule, he gave us information on two fronts. One, in his email, he confirmed, from his perspective, these replacements will have a useful life of five years or greater. Which, from our perspective, answers our question. Which, therefore, means we can treat them as capital items. And he decided to escalate his... I think it was his request from $30,000, from $50,000 up to $65,000 and $32,000 from $50,000 up to $80,000. So again, we're just going to have to make sure there's room to fit those increases in. The meeting room A and B, the number didn't change. I think we had a... I think Kelly had put a question out to him after we met with him, if he could confirm which meeting rooms would be getting that. If he could confirm which meeting rooms would be getting that. If he could confirm which meeting rooms would be getting that AV upgrade, and I haven't seen any response to that question yet. So, I think all of those items are relatively minor dollar impacts. And when we go through each of the tabs to just ourselves decide how we want to allocate funds to them, we can do that and I'll send out a revision, so all of us, including John and Kelly, can see what we did. So it's... And item 12 as well, I put into the same box. bucket. It's because kind of $100,000 was up above. Now it's down below and it's $50,000 higher. So the real, I think the real substantive discussion that we need to have right at the outset here, just because it's biggest piece of it is affecting 28. And then once we have that discussion, we can look at the 29 to 32 as we go through each tab. Just look at the funding sources Liz, as we've done before. I can just mark up my hard copies. I don't think you need to do anything on the Excel spreadsheet. I think this now gets back to where Brad you were, and Liz was alluding to kind of the root. If we look at our allocations, and Liz, if you blow that spreadsheet back up a minute and scroll down to the bottom.
You're talking about like levy debt, cash, free pass, those buckets? Yeah. Let me just see if I have my, I don't know that I have my hard copy of what you're looking at, but let me look at my old ... ... ... Brian, not to derail the conversation, but I heard CIP No. 2 was a 26 ask or approve funding? Did I get that right, or did I hear you say that right? Can you repeat that please? IT CIP No. 2, the one that was zeroed out? Yes. Was that budgeted in 26? It was included, it was supposed to have been included, but it was included. Okay. Alright. I'll just let you go, I'll let you go. Yeah. included as an appropriated item in fiscal 27. Ah, OK. Do I need to go back and update the open?
I guess my question is, do we have to go back and update open capital to reflect that that's been zeroed out now? We can table that for a little bit later, but it's just something I want to make sure we circle back on. We'll come back to that. Yep. So just trying to, I thought, maybe I didn't do it on. On the tab, you're on the fiscal 28 tab far left, right? Yes.
Does that tab not have the Brian Keveny input on it? Maybe I didn't have that for fiscal 28. Make it a little bit smaller for a second. I can only do that on fiscal 29. I thought I did it on fiscal 28. Yeah, I have Brian Keveny, 9, 3, 26 input. OK, OK, you got all the comps. I'm sorry. OK, so blow that back up.
So if we just focus, and again, just before we go there, it's just the appropriate time to bring it up. And Brad, again, this will be the second email you can forward. Who is it? Brad had. Who is it? Who is it? Who is it? Who is it? Who is it? Who is it? You were not at the last meeting, correct? No, I was not. So at the last meeting, Kelly asked a question. When I had added the bottom line funding sources from an Excel workbook that Brian Keveny had sent to us on September 3, where he sort of on his own prioritized, at my request, he had kind of took the CIPs, prioritized them on whatever basis, I'm not sure. And then attached funding sources to all of those. And like this spreadsheet, it totaled down to totals for the various types of funding sources. And so I didn't, I mentioned at the last meeting, I really wasn't that interested at the moment in what he had done in terms of priorities. But I took his bottom line funding source amounts and slotted them in here as just another thing to benchmark against. Yeah. And we. But we were still trying to keep our allocations each year at or below or slightly above what was printed in the warrant for fiscal 20 to 31. At the end of that conversation that we had last week, Kelly said, but I would like to know where Brian Keveny has less levy debt or more free cash, which occurred in fiscal 29, 30, and 31 primarily, why he did that. Yeah. And she gave an example. Was he reducing levy debt by a substantive amount because he was trying to lessen the debt service in those years given the town's operating deficit forecast? And so Brad sent a request after the meeting to Brian asking that specific question. Was there a particular reason you did what you did? We got a response. I'll let the response speak for itself. But I would simply say for this discussion tonight, let's just ignore what's in the columns that are labeled Brian Keveny 93 for the moment. And let's just say we're all still committed to not allocating funding resources beyond what was in the warrant other than maybe by an immaterial amount, OK? So if you look at the new request that I slotted in, you know, you'll see that it's a little bit different. It's a little bit different. You know, you'll see that the IT ones. Yeah. So if you scroll up, you'll see now we have unallocated. We're down to the total of the unallocated column. We should have 700 plus 1,000. Yeah, 800,000. Right. So we could dispose of an easy item if you'd like first and decide how we'd like to fit the $50,000 computer replacement in. OK. So we're going to move on to the funding sources. And at the moment, I can't see, given the size of it on the screen here, what you're showing for any excess free cash at the bottom of that chart. Do we have excess levy debt or excess free cash in that year? Yeah. Or are we above in both years? I'm not seeing that. I suspect we're. We moved something out. Yeah. So you have about $200,000 of levy debt to go, but your free cash is over by $250,000-plus. So they're kind of a loss, but.
So why don't we do this? Why don't, for purposes of our discussion tonight and the next version, why don't we assume I'm going to slot that? Yeah. So I'm going to put that into free cash. And we may need to just move something around. If I'm reading it right, you have currently free cash at $1.9 and the warrant was $2.3 in free cash. So we should be under-allocated. So it should show a negative there. You do. You're over your free cash balance by $261,000. We've under-allocated versus free cash. $261,000. I think that may be because we moved the library grounds item out of free cash and we put it as being funded by the cap stabilization fund, $275,000. All right. So I'm going to move, unless people object, I'm going to move the PC laptop replacement here. And in the other two years that it appears, I'm going to move that in the free cash column. OK. And it sounds like we'll be OK in fiscal 28. You don't need to do that, Liz, on the screen. I can just write that down. So once we do that, we're still OK. The public safety regional emergency system request, which is now number 12, in this version, it's in free cash at $100,000. So you should see an unallocated of the other $50,000. So I would also propose that I just increase what's showing as 100 in that line item. It should be 100. We should move that up to 150, right? Yeah. So it sounds like we have room for both those items. Yeah. Yeah. That's the way I'm reading it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So then that really then, at the moment, leaves us only with the $700,000 item, which we've now heard from the town manager that he's had that discussion with Michael Fea. And Michael has said, OK, I understand. I'd like to see that included in fiscal 29. We'll come back to that discussion when we get to fiscal 29. Yeah. But I need $25,000 for, I'd like to have $25,000 for engineering work. So I propose what we do is I take out the $700,000 levy debt for the town hall roof phase 2. And I insert $25,000 town hall roof phase 2. And I'll put in hyphen engineering. Yeah. And I'm going to put that under free cash as well. Does that make sense? Yeah. So you're going to take $700,000 out of levy, add it to free cash. So your levy debt's going to be? We're going to have $700,000 more of levy debt that we can then use for the IT request. We're swapping it as a priority. So what do you add to the free cash? Was it just the engineering, $25,000? The engineering of $25,000. So we're basically going to show a $100,000 free cash item going up to $150,000. And then we're going to add that to the public safety regional emergency system. We're going to allocate the PC laptop replacement of $50,000 to free cash, fund it with free cash. And we're going to change the line item for town hall roof phase 2 to hyphen engineering, delete the $700,000 and levy debt. And we're going to put in $25,000 free cash. And I think if we do all that, then we'll have $700,000 of available levy. Although it sounds like in that chart, can you see, Brad, we're comparing before we, right now we have $700,000 for the roof. So at the bottom is our levy debt a little bit above what was in the warrant. $198,000. Yeah. So it's still going to be $198,000 over what was in the warrant. And that's something that we may, before we make this final final, we might want to tweak. But all I'm going to propose doing is adding in a new line item. And the IT section for cybersecurity compliance. And subject to our discussion, it's going to follow here shortly. I would propose sliding in the $700,000 and put levy debt as the funding source. For the cyber compliance. Correct. Yes, yes, yes. OK. So the question, I'm comfortable doing that. But the question for you two to advance the discussion here is, are you two, for the moment, comfortable with what I just described? Yeah. Yeah. So . So subject to probably getting probably getting input from Kelly and John, And subject to whatever conversation we have with the IT director? Yeah no. We're talking, I mean, I mean, the roof. I mean, Mike Fay had agreed that it had to be taken up. So yeah. And and say I it really opens up a space for this to happen. Yeah. And I say publicly since we did this, I think you alluded to this, and I think one of the emails I've read sent out. We did once already go back to him to see if he thought he could hold off on that and he really, you know, thought he needed to keep going to keep it on a phased approach. And also that, you know, last year he requested $2 million plus for all the roofs and he agreed with us that he would phase it. So I would just say publicly we appreciate his flexibility. Yeah, very much. All right. So that'll be fiscal 28. So if we flip then to fiscal 29, the fiscal 29 tab, there's a couple of things that we're going to have to now address there. So, again, if you can go down to the bottom and just tell me what you're seeing as the levy debt that we're funding, showing us funding items with versus what was in the one. Is there any excess or shortfall? We're shortfall, yeah. We're over by 140. No, no, we have 140 available. Yeah, 140 available. No, no, no, we're over by 140, right? Because the warrant was 3.2 and we're at 3.4 almost. We're at 3.4? We should be the first column. Yep, so we're at 3. Go ahead, Brad. No, you're right. It should be. It is a negative. It should be a negative. So we're already short 140 on the levy debt, so we'll come back to that in a minute. So as to IT, in fiscal 29, his original request, IT's original request had $100,000 for cybersecurity compliance. He's now looking for $150,000. So that should be the only item that I put in the unallocated column that we have to address at the moment. We'll come back to the roof. So do we have any excess free cash in fiscal 29? Or are we over there, too? Like less than $20,000 available? Okay. Okay. So, again, this likely will be something we'll just bring back to the next meeting and make final decisions. But I'm going to propose increasing the cybersecurity compliance line from $100,000 to $250,000. Which I understand. And right now, we've got it funded with $100,000 of free cash.
I'm going to leave it as free cash for the moment.
And there's a rationale for that, which I'll describe in a minute. We just don't want to deal with borrowing for that small of an item. And so the only other item, then, we need to address is... While Michael Fay has said that he's okay, at this point, deferring Phase 2 roof request of $700,000, he'd like to see it included in fiscal 29. Now, again, for your benefit, Liz, at the last meeting, when we were going through these in fiscal 29, there was a $300,000 request, roughly, it might have been $310,000, that both in that year and then there was a... Subsequent in fiscal 30, there was also another roof request. Basically, the discussion we had, Liz, was that given that they now have a working group that's focused on whether this building is going to continue to be used for town hall purposes. Yeah. And to the extent it is, to what level and degree is it going to be renovated? What's the scope of that project? You know, we've seen... The initial ask last year was $5.4 million for a number of things. And then, several months ago, we got a back-of-the-envelope estimate to do a gut rehab of this building of, you know, $20 to $22 million that Michael Fay had presented to the Select Board. It's a very rough number. So, I think our discussion last week was, rather than include this $300,000 request in fiscal 29, and this request in 30, we're going to take those out and put them in our purgatory bucket. Right. And basically, in the report, we have a table that captures those projects that were awaiting definition of scope. And I think we included a large share of the $5.4 million town building renovations, which the town manager had included in his five-year plan, but below the line, as a fiscal 28 item, which it's not going to be. Right. And this working group is supposed to come back to the Select Board in April with a report and recommendations. And so, our thought was, rather than put those phases of the roof into the plan, why not corral all the rest of the town building items, unless there's something that really is sort of a code compliance issue. So, fiscal 28, we still have it. The elevator has to be dealt with. So, the fact that Michael has asked us to insert it in fiscal 29, I think my view is, I'd be normally fine with that, except I think, consistent with what we talked about at the last meeting, we probably should just corral that into the bucket of all the remaining town hall improvements, awaits the results of the initial report. Right. And then, this time next year, you all will be, trying to figure out what to do, you know, where the direction is headed and what to do with that. And presuming it's going to take more time, then I assume you'll deal with, try to deal with phase two of the roof that Michael wanted to do this year, to see if you can somehow get that into fiscal 29, you know, even though it wasn't in the plan. Right. So, I think when we draft the report, as to this item specifically, because we kind of had it in, Right. So, I think when we draft the report, as to this item specifically, because we kind of had it in, and now Michael Fahey has agreed to let it move, I think we owe it to him to at least put a sentence or two that, I think, Brad, you were saying, you know, if it turns out there happened to be additional funding that could address that item in fiscal 28, or in fiscal 29 for that matter, we would rank that as our, you know, highest priority item. I think that would be, if that's what people agree. Right. Okay. You know, it seems to me we thought it was a higher priority item in fiscal 28 than a couple other large-ticket items that are important to the select board. I would assume if we thought that in fiscal 28, it's probably still, it's one year more important. Right. In fiscal 29. So, I think if we call that specific item out, then that would leave it up to the town manager if somehow, when he's cobbling together his budget and plan, if he decides he doesn't mind going with it, Right. the levy limit that's in the five-year plan, and he wants to slide it in 28, or he feels he can put it in, actually put it in his plan for 29, I would say we let him do it. Yeah, I've already got a paragraph. We can't let him do anything. Yeah. I've already got a paragraph in the draft plan about, draft report, rather, about the building and the cost and what we did with it, so that's easy enough to change it around. I think, I think it makes sense. I think it makes sense to put a sentence in, if additional funding comes in. Here's the item, given that, I think last year we had a couple items, Liz, a couple of, one school-related item, one public safety building item, which I think one of them made it in, the town manager's plan, and the other one didn't. Right. So, basically, it'll show up as a, basically a below-the-line item. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I agree. So, did the two of you, for the moment, anyway, agree? That we will treat the phase two, $700,000 roof item from fiscal 28, below, you know, in this other bucket for 29, for at least the next round? Yeah. Yeah, the purgatory bucket, yes. Just that if you're on, did anybody, or the last minute, did we talk about the, using the $2.7 million in the baseball field renovations to cover some of these costs, or has that not been a topic yet? Well, we can stop there for the moment. So, I know you had sent Brad an email, which he shared with the rest of us after, I think it was after our discussion, when we went through these tabs, or maybe you sent it, Brad, and I just didn't have time to look at it. You, why don't you voice your, aside from connecting it to the roofs for a minute, do you still have reservations about having that $2.7 million? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's now, we're going to increase the $2.7 million. I do have my reservations, but it's largely because it just seems like a nice to have, versus we've got cybersecurity costs, we've got, you know, a roof that needs to be repaired, and it just does not seem to compare. I mean, these are literally security and safety, and while I'm all for, you know, you know kids having a good time playing sports it just seems again like it should come after the fact when all of your real expenses like your operating expenses um have been covered especially if we're in a budget you know deficit where we can't pay for a lot of the things we need it just seems like baseball diamond or what you pay for when you have a surplus to withdraw from i mean i think i think your point um you know we just and that 2.7 can be spread out so as i as we go into fear of three years there's a not additional pop-ups but they're new items from you know compared to what was in the budget from last year so you got fire alarms that are coming up again there's just a number of things you can point to where it just seems like well that's a real necessity um that that 2.7 you could chip away at it and then you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know it to cover down on a lot of other things that we need so how did we how did we um just looking to see if you remember how we proposed funding that in our recommendation last year oh well what we have this year is the 2.7 suited that this year but i'm trying to remember did we i think we i think didn't we say there wasn't enough information and we dropped we put it below the line purgatory i thought because that's right so in our report that ended up in the purgatory bucket yeah we clearly wasn't ready for 27 right so i think we moved there so we did we didn't i thought we left it in our plan in fiscal 29 we didn't have enough information to push it out let me just see if i have the i have our report from last year look at the detail yeah i thought we had just uh dropped it below the line and like it in the purgatory bucket this one because at that point it wasn't there also the septic there was the misinformation was or the the uncertainty was it was supposed to be oh you're going to redo the septics and the fields at the same time and then that came to not be true there could do the septic well that's why we didn't that's why we didn't vote to include it in 27 yeah so i'm looking at our addendum and we actually did show it in the plan as excluded borrowing handled through a warrant article so it's it's kind of below the line of the other stuff and so i'm looking at our addendum and we actually did show it in the plan as excluded and so um treating it the way we are at the moment is consistent with was one in our which was in our recommendation last year it's up two hundred thousand dollars it's it's consistent with what's in the ultimately ended up in the five-year plan that was printed in the warrant even though the town manager initially had recommended that that be done in fiscal 27 along with the septic the finance committee pushed it out of the plan and so i'm looking at our addendum and we actually did show it in the plan as excluded and it ended up staying in fiscal 29 so back to your question linds so even if we um even if a majority of us decided to pull it out put it into purgatory um at the moment we're proposing it be funded with excluded debt so that would not free up any um any sort of levy debt capacity in fiscal 29 that we could utilize for you know the roof and i think the more likely scenario given now what's happened with the town hall is that if that working group gets its work done on time that um it's possible that come fiscal 29 um you know the select board town manager want to propose if they choose to stay here and do 5.4 million whatever the number is of renovations that would be done as excluded debt that could then elevate to a question for all of you you would then potentially have that as an excluded debt question um including all the roofs that are still yet to be done in this 2.7 million dollar baseball field and inevitably there could be a question is you know do we want to have both of those on the ballot at the same time to your point liz you know maybe the town hall stuff is determined to be more in the need than the baseball field renovations and maybe at that point you either choose to either drop it into the purgatory bucket or more likely there's still excluded debt just you know push it out a year although we have as you know we have some other large items coming in fiscal 31 that we're proposing that is excluded debt so um the 1.8 million for cyber what bucket will that hit likely is that going to be excluded no it's each year so in his his revised um submission number 11. so because 1.8 broken out over five years it's going to be levied yeah 700 000 which we talked about with fiscal 28 250 instead of 100 fiscal 29 250 and 2030 300 instead of 100 000 31 and 300 000 fiscal 32. so i think when you add all that up it totes up to a million eight versus the three hundred thousand that he originally had and then we're going to do the Ravi here and two to Dtn. As if we pulse through the other so why don't i suggest we leave the field where it is at the moment yeah but we can um you know we can certainly come back before we finalize this just just to see if anybody else um yeah i just don't think it does anything for us to move it right at the moment no no i mean i know we're missing some members too but before and we have a couple more tracks that the final version of us but it was just not that i'm not not many more. No, still a few more. I mean, I think we can get there in the time we have left, but it's just, it was a glaring like, wow, I mean. Yeah. Okay. So if we go to the fiscal 30 tab, I think the only item there other than the PC laptop replacement, which I mentioned, I'm going to show us free cash at $65,000. Do we have a little bit of free cash available in fiscal 30? Where did we run over? No, you're over by $50,000. $50,000 you're over by. But you do have some levy debt. How much levy debt?
This is right. You have over a million. Yeah, it's possible because we moved the MSBA item up to $28,000. So why don't we look at the other item? We've already allocated. Are there any larger ones that we were proposing? So we've got a school item, elementary bathroom partitions and fixture replacement. $350,000 of free cash. Why don't we switch that one, unless someone has a better choice, switch that one to levy debt and take the cybersecurity compliance line out of $100,000. Do you want to make updates to the spreadsheet, Brian? I'm doing it by hand, but I just want to talk it through and feel free to I know last week I made a suggestion on one item that John pushed back on and picked a different item. So I'm just picking that particular item just because it'd be more typical on a building improvement of a larger sum of money that you might be inclined to use levy debt as opposed to free cash. Yeah, so I just looked and that was the largest item that we had proposed funding with free cash. So all I'm saying is we would leave cybersecurity compliance funded with free cash, but increase from $100,000 to $250,000 and do the computers at $65,000 from free cash. So we're adding $215,000 of free cash use there and we're already over $60,000, that's $275,000 roughly. And then we would be removing $350,000 as a use and instead showing that as levy debt. Does that work for the two of you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so I'll make that change and then fiscal 31.
We have a couple of things going on there. First, the public safety regional emergency system at $100,000. I think he has pulled that out. Yeah, you had the line down. Yeah, so I think that one can go. We've got to bring in $300,000 of cybersecurity compliance. Okay. Okay. And then we've got to bring in fiscal 31 coming in from fiscal 32, $300,000 of firewall replacement. So the question is, what are we showing as available free cash and levy debt? $250,000 in free cash and $1.8 million in levy debt. All right. So we'll be up to $350,000. Okay. So $350,000 in free cash to get rid of the public safety and emergency system. Or did I already pull that out in what you're looking at? You already pulled it. Okay, so $250,000 is after that. So $250,000. So we could do one of those. Okay. So we could do one of those. Okay. So we could do one of those. Okay. So we could do one of those. Okay. So we could do one of those. See in the fiscal 31, firewall was being funded with free cash. So why don't we do the firewall for $300,000 as free cash, which will push us a little bit over and do the cyber security compliance as levy debt. I don't see any other. Well, I don't see any other. Okay. Well, actually, no. Take that back. Let's do that one as pre-cash just to be consistent with the other years. And why don't we take the DPW facilities rehab and upgrades and change that from pre-cash to levy debt? 300. Yep. You guys follow that? Yep. What slide item? Right. So there's DPW facilities rehabilitation upgrades under the facilities department. Yep. Got it. We're going to change that from pre-cash to levy debt. We're going to add in the firewall at $300,000 coming in from 32. We're going to add in the $300,000 for the cybersecurity compliance. That's all we need to do to that year. And we're going to fine on the uses.
And then if we go to the last year, the firewall will come out at $250,000 of pre-cash.
The PC will go in as pre-cash at $80,000.
And we'll increase the cybersecurity to $300,000 cybersecurity compliance. And there should have been enough pre-cash in 32. We didn't have... Yeah, you have $900,000. Yeah. So I think if we do all the things I just said, and obviously you can look at them all when I send it back. I think we are still staying pretty much in the ranges that we were going to stay in with that. Yeah, that makes sense. So obviously we'll talk about that again at the next meeting because we kind of have to finalize this and just keep our fingers crossed we don't get any additional revisions.
So I think that's all I had on the numbers. That was a chunk of our time. That's good. Well, I guess my question is in terms of the report, well, obviously people have comments in terms of what's already in there, but in terms of the actual numbers that we're going to be plugging in, really, we still can't plug them in.
That is correct.
Yeah. So you haven't heard from, I mean, obviously, again, Kelly works, and I know she generally focuses on this stuff on kind of weekends, but as I told Brad by separate email, I had obviously I read what he sent, but I had it's difficult drafting and it's difficult reviewing it and attempting to make any particular comments other than fairly high-level broad comments. Until you actually have a set of numbers and you are done with your section, you can then decide whether the explanations that are appearing below or above the tables are the right things to be talking about and make sense. Right. We really can't do that. So maybe, you know, three of us could talk at a more high level of just about construct, you know, the reports that you, you know. You want me to pull up the report? Would that be helpful to watch for? Yeah. Before we do that, we just do one more thing on numbers. Can we just quickly, Liz, go to your open capital numbers for a minute? So Liz sent me a couple of questions this morning, which, Liz, I don't think are reflected in the tables. No. Well, so just the first table. So that's the only table that includes the numbers. Yeah. Okay. So you want to see the, oh, I mean, you want to see not the report, but the, the one that you're going back and forth with, right? Your Excel workbook. Your Excel workbook with the highlighted changes that I had sent you. Yes. So while I'm bringing it up, so Brian, try to, so if I'm understanding the logic, and so the ultimate reason for me asking a bunch of questions on it is, next year, if I just get a report from the financial director that says, hey, you know, this is where our open capital status is as of, you know, June 30th or July 1st, is there any way that I'm going to be able to come to the same conclusion that you did, that some of those values were incorrect? Or do you have to be, like, on FinCom, or you have access to just additional information that we don't, and you would have to tell us? No. I mean, it's a perfectly good question. Yes and no. That's a bad answer. I think in answering the specific questions you had sent to me, I'll probably give you a little bit of ammunition for next year. Yeah. But, yeah, I happen to have had some other information that I remembered having received, and went back to look at it, and then double-checked it against certain numbers that didn't necessarily make sense to me. And I think that's a good answer. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And, leads me back to what you mentioned, to probably add to something and what Brian had said. So Okay. Though you can't be expected to, to be questioning, you know, out-of-hand information that's provided to you from the town of accounting records. Having said that, I have plenty of experience to know that not everything that comes out of the accounting system is necessarily fully up to date. Yeah. Yep. depends on when you ask depends on whether it's gone through review depends where they are with the auditors etc etc and to the extent that you stumble into or see things that based on your limited experience you just say i don't know that just that doesn't seem right to me or doesn't make sense um you should ask the question and um i would say to you and the grad uh as kelly already knows um you can relate this to john uh sometimes you have to be a little bit persistent because um you could simply ask a question and get no response you could ask a question and say no it's fine and you still have a question that it maybe your question didn't get answered some other question got answered well we've already had that yeah i'm just saying that's not it doesn't happen often but it happens so in this case i'll give you an example of something that maybe you have a fighting chance to identify so just to repeat we're using this report that's produced by munis the accounting system that contains a separate sort of detail ledger account for each and every capital appropriation that has been approved at town meeting right and it is there because that's the extent to which those that are empowered to spend it that's their limit on what they can spend in theory when they're spending money and invoices are ready to be paid they get processed through house payable they get entered into the accounting system if they sign a contract they encumber the amount of the appropriation so they don't inadvertently you overspend it. All that stuff is pretty typical municipal accounting work, but it doesn't mean that every once in a while an invoice might not be submitted and it gets miscoded. And so, you know, an invoice for some roofing project gets coded some other item. And the easiest way, which you already figured it out, is that you can spot things like that, is if you see line items in this municipal report that have negative balances, that normally can't happen unless you're not doing what you're supposed to do, is not overspend the account. And it normally means one of two things in this particular report. Normally, Brian Keveny in this report will show the total amount appropriated at town meeting on the far left. Okay, so that's the maximum that could be spent legally. He'll then start to track it. And this spreadsheet, which he gives to the auditors, which is why he has it, and he's got MUNA set up to produce it, and it pulls numbers from different places in the accounting system. And if all those appropriations were being funded out of the general fund, each year these detailed ledger accounts would be funded up with the total appropriated dollars. And then as money gets spent, or as money gets encumbered, as they sign the contract, you would see the deductions, right? Yeah. And the balance in whatever period of time you're getting the report will appear at the end. But that's not all things are funded with cash. A bunch of stuff gets funded with debt. And this year, not that we haven't borrowed short-term debt before, but this year, because of a strategy they used to help on the town's levy limit calculation, they used short-term borrowing in the town general fund in a way that they haven't really used before. And so normally what Brian will do for this report, at least when I asked him for it, would be to include in, I guess, his revenue column, basically any money he had borrowed. And normally, if the town appropriates the money in the spring, he'll go out and borrow it in the fall. And if somehow the project has to be done before you get the permanent borrowing done in the fall, he'll go out and borrow it in the fall. And if somehow the project has to be done before you get the permanent borrowing done in the fall, with the approval of the site board, he'll do short-term borrowing. And then in the fall, he'll replace that short-term borrowing with long-term bonds, right? And so depending on what type of borrowing he's done and how much he's borrowed, in that revenue column, you might see the entire appropriation because it was all authoritatively borrowed. So I'm going to pick on one that didn't happen, Liz, because it was a question I had when I looked at the chart. But you're asking me, how might you pick up an item? So you have a fire truck that was appropriated $1.6 million, $1.4 million? This one, right? The pumper? Yeah. How much was the appropriation? $1.190 million.
Are you all the way over to the left on the three panes? Yes. Okay. All right. So it's $1.19 million. So I think the fire truck... I think the fire truck has spent, was it $40,000 or $50,000 on something, an application, or I don't know what it was. And that's showing up probably as a revenue item. And it may not even be there as an expense yet or an encumbrance. I don't know. So this is where it was $50,000 that was spent. So I don't know if you can see it because it's in the calculation, but $50,000 spent and then... To be honest with you, that one, was it in the email exchange back with you and Brian? Yeah. I was just using this one to answer your question on how are you going to have, how are people in this committee going to know that certain items, this table is good for your use, right? Yeah. Yeah. So there's an item where you're not going to buy a fire truck for $50,000, right? They're probably not going to pay exactly $1.14 million, whatever it was. But Brian didn't want to borrow the money until the fire chief said he was ready to... You know, go ink a contract. And so there was no short-term borrowing on that particular item. So Brian didn't put any revenue in for that item. Normally, if he knows he's going to borrow that in the fall, because he ultimately knows the chief is going to put in the order, he's going to need up to the appropriation. He'll typically borrow all the money he has to borrow if he doesn't have a firm contract. And he'll put that full amount under the revenue column. Yeah. And obviously until... You buy it and have to pay for it. If you scroll all the way across, that'll show a balance of almost the entire appropriation. But back to why we're using this particular report. We don't have any other source, as we talked about, to understand how much completion has occurred on each one of these projects. In this case, have you actually contracted to buy the truck, actually bought it, in which case you fully paid for it. And so we're using this financial report as a proxy. And so we're using this financial report as a proxy for how far along that project is. More relevant when you're talking about a building project than a truck. Yeah, versus the single thing you have to buy. But anyway, so when I scrolled across on this line item and saw a $50,000, I said, well, they haven't bought it yet because they haven't borrowed for it yet. So obviously, we need to add... If we're going to use the report for that purpose, we need to add in, which I did in what I sent you. Because on that data point, the amount that I know is going to incrementally is going to have to be borrowed to get that up to the full appropriation. That's that line item. If you scroll down to the three you were asking me about earlier today, there are two issues with the three that I highlighted. And this by no means means that it might have the other minor issues. We still have a few negative balances. We don't know that they got corrected. But in this case, one of the things that caught my eye was... There was an appropriation for, I think, the school project at $405,000. Yeah. And yet, in the original schedule Brian sent you, in the revenue column, under the middle school sensor, or automatic transfer switch, I'm sorry, he had $405,000 as a revenue source. And I knew that item, he couldn't borrow more than the appropriation, which was $350,000. Gotcha. And so I highlighted these three items because it looked to me like somehow they put the wrong figures in the revenue column. And so the email he sent me back was simply confirming, yes, you're correct. We input the wrong number. They need to be put in these spots. So part of the issue that I corrected for was to put the numbers in the right spots. I then asked him, have we borrowed the full amount that was appropriated? Because I believe they all... We're using borrowing. And I knew for sure, this is where you wouldn't necessarily know, I knew for sure that the automatic transfer switch, he originally thought they were only going to have to spend $50,000, the whole project, and was not intending to borrow $350,000. He was only intending to borrow $50,000. But recently, the facilities director weighed in and said, oh, I've decided that we actually need to do more on that project. I'm going to need the whole $350,000. So I knew Brian was going to have to go out and borrow $350,000. So I knew that line item had to increase from the $50,000 that he had up to the $350,000. So I only added back in that incremental amount, which is one of the things you were questioning, where did these incremental amounts come from? Yeah, yep. I was just shoring it up. Okay. But that was a separate conversation you were just aware of, right? There wasn't... Like, I can track to, okay, this doesn't make sense. Yes, $405,000 is a lot more than the approved amount. So something's off there. There's a reason to go back and check. Really, the question you should be asking, and I asked this question first and didn't get an answer, was, hey, Brian, thanks for the newness report as of June 30, 2027. Appreciate it. I've gone through it. A bunch of negative balances. Can you tell me what those are? Oops, okay, thank you. You just did something that I heard. Oops, okay, you didn't post up some borrowing that you know you're going to be doing. Then your next question will be, Brian, have you, including the revenue column, all of the debt that you either have borrowed or are going to borrow for this item? Because that will inflate that line item up, basically, to get it up to its original appropriation, from which then you get the deducts, right? So that by the time you get to the end, it'll have an unspent balance, right? And that's what you're using for your charts. To be a proxy for what percentage the thing is completed. So all you can do at that point is ask the question. I just happen to be in a position that when I didn't get an answer to that question, I was able to go back and specifically say, okay, this line item. I'm aware that X shouldn't Y be included. And when I didn't get an answer to that question, I just put them in because I knew they weren't right. Okay. So you'll- No. No, that's very helpful. I appreciate you walking me through kind of how you got there. And next year should be fine. I mean, this should really, this should be not limited, but most of these instances should happen within, like, the current year that we're allocating funds for, right? So this should, so we're in 26. You wouldn't expect to see these kind of irregularities in, like, 25 or earlier, right? It's really just that year where you're actually starting to put budget against, or dollars against budget items. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think those items, you're just copying it. I think those items have gotten in there from the fiscal 26 budget. Yep. And we may have last year just did what we did this year, include the full appropriation in the tables. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so, and again, we shouldn't have to be relying on, I mean, it's a good financial report from a financial expenditure money standpoint. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. It's not this committee's job to- It's not this committee's job to be tracking financial expenditures, right? Right. But with the town really should, and this really goes maybe to one of the recommendations that we might include in the report, we really need the town to, and they started down this path and then stopped for some reason, and then the individual town mayor's office that was charged with the responsibility to track some of this stuff, unfortunately, left. But they really should have a... Right. But they really should have a project management tracking software that is accessible both by town department heads and by possibly this committee and the accounting department into which department heads can, you know, jot notes and it attracts possibly some information being pulled from the financial records. But it has anecdotal information. Oh, we're down a punch list or, you know, we're down to our hold back on the reserve. And maybe, you know, with your input. they put in something that says expected completion date. Normally that's going to be in any sophisticated project. And they had one, and they were testing it, and then they stopped using it, dropped it, whatever, didn't renew it. Because if that existed, I think that's what you would be using for this section of the report. It would probably be capable of producing exactly the reports that you need wouldn't necessarily be financial in nature, unless you wanted to put numbers in. But we're kind of having to put the numbers in. Anyway, Liz, all said, I'm comfortable with the numbers that are now adjusted. You just need to make sure that you hit the macro buttons to pull them in. The changes I made to the data set, that they get pulled all the way through to all your tables. Yeah, and so to that point, the file I sent out yesterday does not include these updated numbers. So I will send out an updated report. Do you want me to call it V3? And then it will include the new tables reflective of what we just talked about. Okay. And I had a small myth, and I think I highlighted it, but the word town, where it appears in your tables, is all caps. Can you just, it says when last year's report, and the word schools, can you just do that initial cap T in lowercase on the other letters? Just so that, I didn't want to mess around with your macro. Let me just make sure I'm tracking which ones you're specifically... One of your tables shows town and schools off the left side of the chart. This one, yeah? The top ten? Yeah, so you see that word town is all caps, and the word school is initial cap. If that's the most important thing to talk about. We'll look at that window now. So, anyway, back to you. Maybe you can get Liz's input on this kind of construct of the report, and you didn't send out the table of contents I sent you, did you? No. Yeah, so maybe after the meeting, you can send out people and weigh in whether we need one, and whether it's useful for how we order things. Liz, when I worked on this, the format that Kelly had, used, and I've seen other town departments use, they start with the executive summary, and I understand why. I mean, that's often the same thing as an introduction. I changed it, though, to start with the background of the members and the charter and admission, just because I thought it flowed better because you'd have the background. Then you get into the substance where you have the executive summary, and it flows right into the recommendations.
So, starting out, that was a kind of a large, just sort of structural change. I'm not wed to starting that way, but certainly would like some input on that. And Brian also had suggested, and he sent something this afternoon, which I put in, a table of contents as well as the listing of the appendices and a listing of the attachments.
Tables and appendices. So, that would be at the beginning. I don't know if he has the problem on that. So, I think in that sense, that would be something that we would talk to, as well. I think that, for me, from a user perspective, I think that makes... Yeah. ...I think that makes good sense. Having a talk definitely helps. And keep it clean, and, you know. Yeah. So, an easy decision. Just because I've already weighed in that I could go either way on, you know, the difference of Brad pulling up some intro type material before the executive summary, versus leading with executive summary. Do you have any particular point of view? I guess. I think I know where Kelly is. I guess, a little bit... I think Andrew is the one bringing this up. well our executive summary isn't when i think of an executive summary it's like what do you need to know in this report and i think our executive summary is more like what is our charter who's the team um why are we doing what why are we doing what we're doing um so it's not what i'm used to seeing an executive summary which is kind of like the you know the meat of the whole report so to be honest with you i'm a little if we want to get to the context for the report up front and then put the details about why we're pulling the report together i'm fine with that it seems that our executive summary is a little bit more administrative to me than than a traditional executive summary yeah yeah to that point i guess i thought that the executive summary that was in last year's report um was actually pretty long you know usually i think of an executive summary just a paragraph or so the executive summary was actually about a page and a half and i mean i do think that made sense because that was the first time we had the committee so it kind of made sense like why are we doing what we're doing there's a little bit more reason to explain why we're doing something new well but yeah i mean it may not have appeared i'm looking at last year's report it may not have appeared that way the way it was set up but i think the executive summary last year was page one so it started executive summary all on page one and um but two-thirds of page two and then it goes into background members charter mission current process i i thought you just said a page and a half i thought kelly's intent was the first page and a half was what you were saying was if all i read is an executive summary and i need to walk away kind of knowing what the punchline is yeah whether it's a paragraph whether it's a page and a half i think it's a paragraph i think it's a paragraph i think it's a paragraph i think it's a paragraph i think that's how i envision executive summary right um maybe there could be more delineation just this is more formatting maybe there'd be a bit more delineations in between sections and that's where maybe a table of contents will come in handy where you know if if you did lead with an executive summary you'd make it very clear where it starts and where it ends right yeah and then you move into the guts of the report and then then i think in kelly's case it made sense then to start with background information let people know why we're doing what we're doing and then you start getting into a bit more into the weeds about what supports punchline in the first page and a half right um i i also understand why you did what you did which is it it immediately and certainly i've seen um i've seen reports done this way where you want to make the reader familiar with what it is we do who we are then tell them what our conclusions were recommendations whatever and then you give a bit more administrative stuff and then you get into the meat of the thing um if i had a pack i mean i find that just a little bit disjointed um but you know it's really a question of the reader that doesn't know anything i think most people would say if they see it this is going to turn out to be a 50 page report if not more because what brad sent you is it's only part one from last year we have to merge in the basically all the stuff that was in the addendum right and so by the time you merge that in with all the actual materials and the appendices and then a couple new tables you know i think we're going to be approaching 50 plus pages i think so yeah so somebody that gets a 50 page document they're going to say can i just read two pages and yeah yeah i have more time to find out about the committee or or your recommendations or whatever whatever just show me where i can find that um that that's that's that would be what would tilt me toward leaving the executive summary is going to believe it in this executive summary at a page and a half of course probably might even i mean i think it could be condensed possibly and maybe you know there's a couple things that aren't as relevant this year we'll have to talk about them um you know there was obviously so many revised requests last year that i think kelly wanted to point that out to people that's prominently displayed on the first page and i think it partly um partly addressed why we were late um and getting one of the reasons we were late getting the report done um so i think everybody should look at this afresh and say okay based on the process this year is there any information here to that we don't necessarily you know think we really need but there's a bunch of stuff in the appendices that as to the five-year plan that might need to find its way into the executive summary or at least some of you know at least a few paragraphs i think i think most of the appendices are um the same as last year no the appendix start but the addendum had basically last year we we We focused all our attention on fiscal 27, just to get that done. And then we put a very brief paragraph or two about fiscal 28 to 31 and said, stay tuned. We're still working. And then a month later, once we got through those four years, we did an addendum. And the addendum really gave a lot more color on our deliberations on those four years. This year, we're doing it all at one time. So the addendum needs to be merged. Yeah, so I'm envisioning, just from a formatting standpoint, I think if you did the executive summary first, make it clear where it really begins and ends, and then break the report up into a current fiscal 28 budget section, a five-year plan section, and maybe before you get into those two sections, you insert all the other. They're all based on your vision. Not all, but most of the other things like background, members, mission, our process this time around was a little bit different than the process last year, right? Yes. So I think we need to revisit last year's process. We need to basically tell them what our process was this year. Yes. The recommendation component, future process, the recommendation component, the revenue component. Next slide. and movement targets, I would think, should end up near the end of the report. The open capital project status, I think, should come before the fiscal 28 and then the five-year sections because basically we want to say, okay, where are we on having spent all the money that was previously appropriated in terms of this account of the manpower to do the jobs? And we took that into account in ultimately deciding what we wanted to recommend for fiscal 28 in particular, right? And then the latter years kind of followed. So I see executive summary, some of the administrative stuff in a separate identified section. Liz is opening the capital section then going to a fiscal 28 section. There's a lot of the detail I have here. Are you saying you think that the capital section discussion should be before open capital before discussion of fiscal 28? Yeah. So I think the executive summary will talk about fiscal 28 and the five-year plan, but in total summary form. So they'll have the punchline there. But in terms of what do they read or then see, they'll see executive summary, administrative type stuff, minus the future project improvement targets. Liz's open capital stuff. Then more of the fiscal, you know, last year she called it fiscal, or you have a fiscal 28 capital plan recommendation. That gets into more detail of how we arrived at the fiscal 28. That's where the table would be for fiscal 28. Enterprise funds in the regular table. All that stuff. And then you'll end up having the five-year plan section, which will pull a lot of the information out of last year's addendum. And then it gets updated once you have the tables. And then you come back at the very end with the recommendations.
But I also thought we might have yet one last section before you get to that one, which is preliminary, super preliminary long-term planning. And there, you know, maybe we could insert a paragraph or so. And yeah, we can carve this up once you get it laid out through the CIC. The other thing that we can do is pull some of the key points from the CIC. So we have, you know, we have a number of CIC's that we got, a number of them included certain, you know, substantive projects as we asked them to do. And so there you might, we might have the description of the town hall situation, a working group, that whole thing. We could, we'd have something on schools and the long-term, you know, facility study in the elementary schools and middle school. Maybe a section on IT. Albeit, you know, a high level discussion. And, well, I think, you know, that's a good thing for us to have. I think, you know, I think, you know, I think, you know, I think, you know, we can do more. And then, you know, as we look through those CIP inputs that we got, if we see, you know, we can even then have an other category and maybe just in passing, because we really haven't spent any time. We've talked a lot about this building, right? There's a lot more we need to know. We've begun to talk about the long-term school buildings. We're obviously scratching the surface on the IT stuff. But there are going to be a bunch of other projects. And then in that section with, you know, as we move forward as a committee, our plan is to spend now more time building out, you know, plans from year six to 15. So, you know, we didn't have that opportunity last year. We now have some other information. I know that's part of our charge. That's something the select board is looking to see that we're doing. The finance committee is looking. So I think it would be important. It would be important to get the start of something there. And then over time, that section is going to, I think you're going to build out some tables and, you know, other things that will become part of that report. And then from there, you'll have, you know, 15 dependencies that have a lot of the same documents that we had last year, plus updated detailed tables. Right. Is that? Yeah, that makes sense. And for you, did Kelly send you, she obviously must have sent you the Word document for what you sent out. Well, I had it in last year. Because I started with the report from last year, which she had given to me as a Word document because I had made some edits to it. So you had a near final or final. Did she give you the addendum in Word? I have a draft. I think it would be better if you work with the final. If you don't, I would request the. Yeah, I'm not sure. Go back and I know I have the go back and see if I have an award. I'm not sure. I'll check. Yeah, because I think if you, I mean, it should just, it's a large cut and paste, but there may be another way to merge the two documents. But I think mechanically, you might want to go back. The first thing you do is unless, again, unless any of either of you two are objecting to what I'm describing is a sort of organization of the document. The first thing you might want to do is just take some of the material you've already done in the front. Just cut and paste it, begin to figure out section headers or however you're going to do that, letters, throwing them in the world, whatever. And then you're going to want to pull in at least everything at the moment from the addendum. You know, the text will go into the section for the five-year plan. Just pull it in, pull whatever additional appendices ended up in the addendum, pull those in. So you basically have a large working document. That we can then start chipping away at. And Liz obviously is already making headway in her section. And, you know, you're not going to be able to do the whole thing yourself, obviously. And so, you know, I think as you get that document construct together, you said you know how to insert the comments. I would just go through large sections, small paragraphs, whatever. And just say, you know, Brian, please handle this section or Brian's section or, you know, something like that. Because I don't think you're going to be able to do much more graphing until Kelly produces the tables. But your points are good ones. And I can at least I could get the format set up so that when things need to get plugged in, the game is plugged in the right place. I email Kelly. I never call. You might call her just to find out when she's going to get the tables to you, because if she's not going to be able to get to it, you know, I know she wants to automate them. But, you know, I may have I may have time to be able to start to chip away at the tables. And I have her. She sent me her file from last year. So I can get the numbers, most of them in there. But I don't want to do that. If she's off working on it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll send her an email. But we can't wait until. If we wait until Sunday or Monday before you get the tables, we're going to have nothing to look at the next meeting. So here's another open meeting question. So we've talked about the report. If I make the edits and changes in the formatting we've talked about, can I send that around? Yeah. Anything we talk about tonight in this meeting? You can. You can incorporate those edits and send them out to all of us. Okay.
I think the changes that Liz and I talked about, Liz can make those changes. Tonight. And then send it back out. Yeah. Well, I would just send it to Brad and he can just paste them into his document just so we don't have too many separate documents floating around. Yeah. We already did that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The red lining when you have tables just becomes difficult to know which table you're looking at. So I think, yeah, I think if you could do that and then maybe in your email when you send that out for the benefit of Kelly and John to say this version reflects the discussion that Liz, Brian, and I had this evening. We really need the tables before we go on. need the tables before we go on. we can make any further headway on a lot of the text but um you know if if you know you john or kelly have any specific comments on them this right this updated redraft please send them to me but um you know i'm going to have to hold those and include them in another draft that i can't distribute until the conversation yeah you know we're in open session at the next meeting okay um and uh and and again i think i think that would at least allow us to make headway but we're running out of weeks and we are yeah definitely definitely so we have four minutes is that helpful yeah that's very helpful do you object to any of that nope no i do not sorry to dominate that conversation but we can move on to uh minutes uh to review and vote on the approve the minutes of uh september 9 any comments on the uh september 9 minutes no comments here i have no comments brian i have no comments okay can i have a motion to approve the minutes of uh september 9. motion i will move okay and liz did the approval and i will second all in favor all right oh we have to do a roll call liz yes brian brian yes brad yes three zero thank you next meeting uh is next uh wednesday i will um set send out a new agenda although you're going to give me the information for executive session i'll sign that um for you tonight just so you can get that posted and um um and i'll get in touch with michael mccall about uh attendance yeah do you have this agenda in word form uh yeah yeah um you just or leave can you just do you have it on that computer just send that to me i'll just go ahead and type in
what i think you need for that item um robbie when uh i know this blackboard will go into executive session we're in this room and uh typically they'll close both doors yeah uh do you pause the meeting i know i've seen you sitting out the hall do you pause the meeting so that the public isn't hearing or seeing anything or do you just terminate the meeting usually pause the meeting you have usually two laptops and there's gonna be a i can't keep open stuff with it but but that will be the whole meeting the audio and the audio and the camera will be off for that one this is those nothing nobody can hear anything they can't they can't hear nothing at all so they'll be fully off i turn that i turn that i turn recording off too at that point if if they have a um if one or more of their members is virtual for an executive session do you have to do a separate executive session uh meeting for that um i think you do because if if the if the open meeting is i think i think you keep that open and we i mean we i keep going open for executive session i just i just bring that up right now and open that but there's a separate link yes there is an exact so we would have to request i'll put that in my email you'll have to request just in case one of our members is virtual we'll have to request a separate executive session link okay and so robbie will keep our open session open but pause so nobody can hear anything yep it'll open up the executive any members virtual are going to have to sign out of this meeting and liz are you going to be around next week i should be in person yeah okay um i started to know john's in person that kelly hadn't heard what i said but i think we need to be prepared otherwise right that individual member can't participate um so um the town manager's office you know we'll just when you post the agenda you'll have to make sure that you let them know you need to meet up or the town clerk's office i don't know your post with the town clerk's office it may be in your email when you send it in you may just need to say please note we have an executive agenda um item we will need a second link for the executive session and uh okay so all right okay and that's going to be in the commons room presumably at 6 30 so is all that i believe so yeah i'll verify that that was one of the additional meetings we set up but i'll verify them so all right and we'll do that okay all right can i have a motion to adjourn
motion to adjourn second i beat you you have to do a second one second well i was waiting and then i was like it was a very tactical pawn 31. okay liz your vote is yes brian yes fred yes 3-0 uh just i'm sorry before we adjourn for the record there is no discussion under succession planning tonight correct yes thank you