hello everyone my name is roger colton and i'd like to welcome you to day two community conversations on behalf of the belmont citizen herald and the belmont media center let me wish everyone a happy new year as we start the  year of our community conversations podcast for today's show i have invited belmont town administrator david calle to join us given that we are now at the beginning of the new year i thought it would be fun and interesting to talk with david about the state of the town a belmont both given occurred in the year past and what is expected to present itself in the year ahead of us david welcome to community conversations and thank you for being willing to be on today's show thank you roger for you to be here and looking forward to sharing some information with the public david before we dive into talking about the town about let's talk about you for a minute if we may how long have you been  and what attracted you to come to bama i've been the town i'm in a strain of belmont since august of two thousand and twelve and when the job was posted it was a unique opportunity to move to a town that was and budget director for the city of cambridge to move to a more broader role as town minister but utilizing those skills to help move things forward with the board of selectmen so you do you do you have a background i don't want to say in finance but in india wing with the many aspects of can management what what else do you do in i mean when we say the town administrator what what does the town and that clearly is a lot of work in terms of trying to deal with all the departments and trying to manage operational issues trying to put together you know budget capital budget personnel issues working on getting community points before the board of selectmen working on license applications putting together the annual report that goes before a town  the strategic planning with the board i'll talk a little bit about that things that have been done over the last year and again i think that we work closely with the departments to deal with the issues that they're facing in terms of going their mission to provide services to the police department fire department council on aging we also work very closely with the elected officials the town treasurer's office we also work closely with the health department the school department we've built a very close working relationship with the school committee in the superintendent schools i am the co chair of the facilities board with the superintendent schools to manage the town wide facilities as part of the consolidated facilities department financial statements prepared on a timely basis and that we get our free cash or defied on a timely basis we work with the town clerk on working on tom meeting tommy preparation which happens  in may and in june and then maybe special time means we prepare all the documents in the warren articles for the board to approve and do all the slide presentations and deal with all the motions and try to give as much information to the tommy members as possible  know he is the legislative branch and you take care of the day to day stuff but you're responsible for both financial planning and you said strategic planning then add to that well we'll talk about to provide information to the board so they can make a decision sure sure well david i know that you and i have talked before because we are both a diehard red sox fans before we really get started i have to ask you have you  these started thinking about buying your world series tickets for two thousand and seventeen yet i always think about world series tickets which is always the fun part about having season tickets like you do course you have fancy seats i've bleacher seats but  the red sox have done some good things in the offseason i still think they don't need a full time d h i think they can rotate that position and the pitching acquisition was good over the offseason so unfortunately the red sox do all the right things and opposed to just enjoying the sun and few beverages so this path you get into the hall of fame i would say if you read the paper very very quietly i think there was a quote by somebody that said there really clear evidence that he took steroids back when he was cited so that tells me that's sort of the entree for people to feel good about voting from for the hall of fame so i think you'll get the hall of fame more than likely ok let's talk about the about for a little bit and let's not assume that people really understand that the town government structure that and how budgets get put together but let me tell you what my understanding is in you can tell me whether i'm right or right or wrong there there really are four groups that help put budgets  together one is the professional staff here in the town treasurer the town accountant and so on there is the board of selectmen on the town side there is the school committee on the school side and then there is a group that some folks may or may not be familiar with which is the war committee ken you know the capital budget committee and i would have left out the capital budget committee can you sort of talk about how the process those groups fit together and work together sure one of the things that i was george with when i was hired is to make sure that we school in the town the ministries and elected officials work together to understand what the financial resources are available to the town to fund the annual budgets and the capital budgets and also to work together to basically share information and to make sure that we're making decisions from a common base of information the board of selectmen as work with the school committee to reinforce that dynamic and it's been very successful we also have had war committees that are very supportive vote the role is to basically take this amid a budget by the board of selectmen and the school committee and review it so that they can make a recommendation to town meeting on the annual operating budget cap a budget committee receives requests from the town and schools they review them in their committee and they make their recommendations to town meeting on capital projects i would say that we have a good working relationship with the war committee as a whole in the capital budget committee as well as the chairs we've met several times already in terms of understanding what the resources are available because with the override we're now in a position where we sort of look at what our projected expenditures are do we have the revenues to meet those projected expenditures and how we implement that  plan in the in before the rover i we used to do a revenue based budget which was taking the available projected revenues subtract the fixed cost of the town such as debt service and pension and minuteman assessment and cherry juice charges said debt service subtract out from the total available revenues in terms of the projected expenditure and then prorate the remaining amount between the school  budget we kept that same principle but we're using the financial taskforce model to basically map out what we think our expenditures are and then see if that fits within the available revenues we were fortunate to get it override in two hundred and fifteen for the sixteen budget and that has allowed us to have more stability in our budgeting process but also to budget adequate for our real costs and then there are there's ten meeting and i have two questions that i guess one is that you said that you've already met a couple of times so can meet in which an x thief the ten beds in april and may  and then you said that you've already met a couple times are already in january we've already met with the board of selectmen the superintendent with the school committee the town professional staff have met collectively with the super tennis schools  his staff to share information to see where we are in terms of our financial projections for the eighteen budget we did a plimer report to the war commute but where we are in terms of available revenues  ve met with the capital budget committee get ready for their process so again it's all about communication and making sure that everybody is operating from the same playbook in terms of where we are what information is  available what will happen now is the time departments have submitted their budget request to our office we've implemented a team approach in terms of having the budgets reviewed by the department heads with the town treasurer myself the assistant town i'm in a straighter the personnel director and the town account so we all understand what are the financial implications of budgets that are submitted and we review that we make adjustments we look at vacancies superintendent has the same kind of process and his side we're both working towards trying to meet a number so we can present the balance budget to the war committee the school committee on the board of selectmen will be  receiving budgets in mid february which are then before due to the war committee into the capital budget committees for review and are as we have done for the last several years as the budgets will be balance as submitted this year will be a little bit more challenging because we're trying to balance what is available in the general stabilization fund which is the fund that was set up when the override was approved to house monies from the override so that they can be used in future years that was supplemented last year from an allocation from free cash to the general stabilization fund is about three million dollars which we knew we were going to have to use in fiscal eighteen to balance the budget that was a planned approach we're trying also to stretch the override to fiscal nineteen and we always start planning so we're really looking at the eighteen in one thousand dollars budget in tandem to so that we can be in a position to balance the budget with the revenues that we believe will be available and to make adjustments to expenditures to meet what we believe will be the available revenues i think when we passed the override we did a  from the voters as an overwrite operating amount which we were seized thankfully which allowed us to budget accurately for some of our high ticket items but also make some investments on our capital infrastructure and we said we would try to stretch out the overall dollars beyond fiscal eighteen which is what we're trying to do to go through fiscal nineteen so that's the process we're in right now and hopefully i believe will be successful for eighteen and i think we have some ideas allow us to get closer to having thinking of the budget process is being for next year is going to but i heard you saying is that when you talk about that bad shit you think about the budget not only for the coming fiscal year but for the fiscal year there's a multi year aspect so the reason why we're doing that is because last year's time meeting and during the process i think folks knew that we were fortunate to receive four million five hundred thousand dollars from the taxpayers to balance the budgets for three years we also made a commitment to try to stretch it out as long as possible to buy upon adjustments to some of the assumptions i think there was a general and desire and belief that we could get our override to last through fiscal nineteen even though our projections show that we had a significant shortfall over and above the four point five so that's what we're trying to do and one of the components of that is to make sure that when we use the money that is in the general stabilisation that was put in there for the st year the override was supplemented last year by tell meeting that we don't put ourselves in a position where we don't have the same amount to use as a revenue source in the general stabilization for fiscal eighteen dollars nineteen cents so for example this three million dollars in the general stabilization account if we use all three million dollars  fiscal eighteen that's a one time revenue it is it will be available when be available in one thousand so you'd be short three million before you did anything it's be spending tomorrow's money today so what we're trying to do is basically spend the standard stabilization at the same level over the next two fiscal years for fiscal eighteen dollars nineteen cents so that we don't start the process for nineteen and a deficit even though the expenditure side does show that we will have to do some adjustments but we don't make it a worse situation by using all of the general stabilization so what we're doing now at the school part is trying to figure ways to make it just went to some of the assumptions we made on expenditure side we also will look at the revenues it's early in the process we haven't got the governor's budget yet and so we made a small assumption about state hopefully that the governor will be able to increase state a excuse me at the same levels that he's done the last couple years but as you know the state budget is out of balance in the current fiscal year by some amount of money three hundred to eight hundred million dollars lottery sales are not as robust as they were so i'll be interested to see how the governor reconciles all that with regard to local aid to cities and towns in addition to that assessors will be updating their projection of new property tax growth which will include their normal assessment of new growth in property taxes based upon construction and building permits issued which is about five hundred thousand dollars a year but in addition to that we projected that the uplands will have a new growth property tax component as they start to finish their construction project and able to be taxed on the product that has been constructed and as you may be aware the board of selectmen light board recently ventured   green within star so that we were able to do some taxing of the light station building that is being occupied by star as well as a personal property contained in that building it's related and star so that should be some new growth that we should be able to see in fiscal eighteen so we're still waiting for those things to evolve and then we'll be able to get a better sense about what our final revenue will be and then we'll have adjustments to the budget such as the minuteman assessment as they develop their budget the budget when it's get submitted hopefully the assessment or estimate we've done for cherry she charges to the tower will be less than what we anticipated so it's an evolving process but generally by the end of january you have a good idea what your revenues are going to be and what your expenditures are going to be and then you see how that fits to what you have for available remy's will be making adjustments to make things balance so we're at the beginning  new year given all those moving parts whether it's the that the minuteman assessment that yet to be determined the state appropriation this state aid to ten towns which yet to be determined that the new construction which really you can't tell and tell it happens at the beginning in the year if you were to characterize that this state of the town of belmont at this point how would you do that i would say that for calendar year sixteen the town residents should have a lot to be proud of the town is accomplished a and they also involve our town department heads our elected officials our town employees superintendents schools working together to get things done and i think that certainly makes the task a lot easier to get things done when all working together and you're communicating so you know i think we're well into the way the process we in january of sixteen we were approved by the m s b a massachusetts school building authority to enter the process  cation for the belmont high school construction project there was a module one which had several components to it we've completed all those components and s b a in november approved us to continue in the process  o conduct the feasibility study on various options of great configurations of the new high school we are in the currently in the process of small we had a meeting to go out to bid for an owner's project manager which will help us through the process and then that will allow us then to go out to bid for an architect to help us with the feasibility study the superintendent will be engaging in public conversations about potential configurations of the high school project because as folks know there's been an rollman explosion in town with regard to elementary middle school and high school enrollment so we're going to look at three great configurations that may help us solve some of those problems  which would be number one a traditional nine through twelve high school but also take a look at what it would look like and what it would mean if at the high school campus we had a seven through twelve grade configuration with a great seven to eight academy that would feed into the high school program or a grade a program academy it would feed into the high school program to help alleviate some of the overcrowding that we're experiencing at the middle school and elementary school all that will be publicly discussed in this communique well what the pluses and minuses of those things are but that will be a major initiative that started in sixteen that will continue in seventeen under the superintendent school  leadership to sort of figure out what we should be looking at in terms of our great configuration which then folds into the design and then folds into costing so the process is moving and i know that the billing committee which i s with the assistant on a minister is actively working on strategies to make sure we keep the public fully informed in a very methodical in a very comprehensive way  i guess for other things for sixteen i won't go into the same kind of detail i just did but cushing village project basically has been executed town did execute the sale of the cushing square parking lot to toll brothers they are working on moving on the project and i think you will see some activity in the spring if not sooner within that resulted in a one million and three coming to the town in terms of the sale of the parking lot as well as some extension payments we will retain when the complex is finished the fifty minutes bill spots that we basically sold we will get them back as part of the project and that required a significant again i think it got done i don't think  of documents from the prior developer the trial row project has been completed and that's been several years in the making but i think people are happy with the results the municipal like plant has been completed and has been energized as my understanding of the belmont center project got completed this fall and that means our three business major business centers have all been face lifted and as well as new roads and sidewalks and landscaping and bike lanes so i think that's an accomplishment for the town or working on the community path feasibility study their process is moving forward to with par to come up with potential routes into make sure the stakeholders a listen to is that a recommendation can be made as we move forward on the community path process the minutemen to talk more about that about the whole process about the building project using and the town's decision to withdraw from the district but also after full through robust discussion with the community again we were a firm for our aaa bond rating which is very important as we potentially bond a significant amount of money for the high school project accomplishments and things are clearly going right in a number of different ways in the town about the town's got a in annual budget of one hundred and five million and one changing  in my mind that connotes a complex organization and it would seem as though when you're spending one hundred and five million dollars and have all the people and all the moving parts i keep coming back to that term that that that connotes that there are probably places for improvement are there places for improvement that that you see i would say that we're always looking to improve the way we deliver services but i would also point out that we also are sometimes tasked with additional responsibilities that we have to absorb within our infrastructure terms of staffing that we have to comply with and so we try again to i think we always try to find ways to improve the way we provide services but we also are always tasked with providing more services with the same staff yes and i think i think that sometimes gets forgotten about clearly we have a very active planning board that has a lot of items on their plate which all has to be staffed foresman issues that have to be monitored we have the demo delayed by law we have the snow removal by law they're all needs to be paid attention to and one example you gave some specific examples there of new things that need to be done and bet well the town and i don't want to get off on a tangent here but well will the town have a role to play in in licensing or permit in new marijuana dispensaries i mean there isn't that a whole well that that's another challenge i would also point out that the committee path process is staffed by town of elmont as well as a consult so that our those are all major initiatives that that's why i want to go through that because there are a lot of things that are happening that need staff time and are not just the regular run the store type of activities they're special projects that require a lot of time attention such as the medical marijuana which just has had its six month extension signed into law by the governor which will allow us time to step back and see what that means for all communities and belmont because there is some question about how bylaws get approved under the statute with regard to the licensee of marijuana and how they gets approved by the voters or by tom meaning there's some question that needs to be worked out we're fortunate because our legal counsel anderson krieger has been at the forefront of sort of finding some of those issues so we're trying to flush them out as we speak but that will be some time spent on trying to figure out what the town needs to do and would like to do a dish into that as of january when there's been a new law signed into existence for a public access of information law and that is going to require time intensive services to fulfill requests and prescribed deadlines so there's a lot of things that we do that are running the store but then there's also a lot of these special items that require additional staff time so i would say i think that we do an amazing amount of good for the town with the staff that we have and i think we we do try not  to expend resources that we don't need to but i know that that's part of the in a review of the budgeting process to look at vacancies to look at potential increases and why they need to happen sometimes those increases are contractually mandated so i i know that's what the board the school committee spend their time in terms of reviewing as well as the war committee to make sure that we spend enough to do the job but make sure that we don't have  but the town also uses an incredible number of volunteer committees and some people think that's a good thing and some people think that's clatter and what role do volunteer committees play and they tend about not and aren't well let me leave it at that what role do they play i think that volunteer commuter think we may have sixty of them if my memory serves me correctly four hundred people i remember  so for example on the belmont high school building committee there are folks serving that who are engineers who are architects who are fiscal people as well as town staff members so they bring a campaign and now working on the electric cars so a lot of things that the committees do are supplementing what we would like to do but don't have the say the staff to do that and i think that is you know i think the committees that have a specific charge and have good leadership and have specific goals are a benefit to the town so i think those are all good things we have an active planning board we have a zoning board  to make sure that we're focused where we don't try to bite off more than we can see because that equally as bad as people get frustrated but again we have a lot of good committees a lot of as long as  focused and they have sustainable goals i think that's a benefit to the town that's great well david it's been great fun today we have we are out of time i know you're busy i appreciate the time that you have taken to come over and talk with us and talk with my my residence today i know things about the town about not that i didn't know thirty minutes ago so i appreciate your efforts in that regard and my office town administrator david kay i'll again i would like to thank you david for joining us today and i would like to thank you the listeners for tuning in you can listen to this podcast by accessing it on line a w dot media dot org or by accessing it on line at w w w dot wicked local belmont dot com you can also download this from i  searching for the b c podcast network i would encourage our listeners both to stay tuned to the belmont media center and to read the weekly baumann citizen herald for continuing information about events going on throughout the town  i'm your host roger colton thank you again for listening happy new year everyone and i will talk to you again in two weeks