close right excellent our finance director we're going to have a pretty actually packed agenda today so we're going to move through it relatively quickly we will start off st with a community an meant this is how he won the belmont lite team is hosting its annual winter solstice celebration this thursday december th from three to seven pm its headquarters on forty prince street please stop by for a cup of hot chocolate and cookies in to st matter of business is actually an executive session so we're going to break into executive session hopefully work to keep it brief but this will be to discuss trade secrets or confidential competitively sensitive or other proprietary information specifically in this back we had a discussion as related to power purchase agreement that would look to alternately provide more and more clean power to the belmont what i like to do is actually ask chris to summarize that that  really neat about this opportunity is it has ponding ability which essentially translates into on peak hydro power when otherwise we'd have to go out to the market for gas or even oil so that's a big advantage especially for that timing so eighty three percent of the sales is this on peak power so with with this project at the table we can we can sign on and continue on our progress you i think it's a great step we've continued to focus on trying to make sure that we're bringing on more and more our purchase agreements that allow us to move towards achieving our climate action plan goals and this is a great step so thank you for the work and for the effort belmont light department's financials i think you'll take us through q thirty two thousand and eighteen and then if i understand correctly you got a couple of requests for transfers coming out of that that's correct percent higher comparing to the last year but that's mainly due to the increase of scrap and not only revenues it we're continuing our project we're continuing grade of all the system of distribution system which and the same sort of increase in cost next year if we done it if it goes down the loop be a little bit but slower than it was going up and then i don't i don't quite understand the customer and i know it's a minor expense customer collection costs increase what i mean just in that point overall it provides this just friends i think the customer collections the label comes from the for counting label that is associated with the account code so we could revise the marriage it's it's called customer question yes so i think we talked about this perhaps last quarter i wanted to check in on it the year to year comparisons are useful but i know in some cases we expect some of those changes so is there a comparison to average is that you know least my experience on the five year averages help smooth the bumps and then we compare that so we vet what we expect to see different you know each coming year based on five y averages and then we can then report out to how we're doing compared to that budget well i think the five year averages i would think would help inform the budget but there may be situations such as bringing on line the substation that made you realize you have recycling opportunities for revenue as well as reduction in in certain transmission costs like those i would hope if we see those coming in twenty one thousand dollars they would be included in the budget is just minutes exactly relative to the five year average ok so that's well that's where you'll be working  i think when you'll see in the narrative and certainly it's subject to import and development but the idea is to then forecast or activities are in each of the coming years and then incorporate changes in each of the accounting line items such say ok we expect scrap to go up because the stations built we expect overhead construction capital investment to go up that goes in the book and then we call out those specifically in the narrative to say this is why it looks higher than it has been in the past it would be more useful ha goes down because these expenses are now in other lines so it's not it's not a reflection of maintenance is being you know not being ignored or anything now or i'm assuming it's expense me to times is as you look forward and from a budget perspective you start to understand what is i mean just expense need to be what kapell investments we need in the future i don't think we've got any of that in the past so i think that would be helpful and you'll see especially with that i mean the budget creation has allowed this thing to happen to say well what's movies to other buckets and so again those changes will create some turbulence but over the far you know as time progresses that will be a very consistent reflection of our activities  so that's that's the goal so that that we expect perhaps early you know maybe jan or fab for a specific discussion to go through and i could be very helpful thank you and this is your time at the how much we basically the purpose of p p t a is compare what would collect to what we spend and upset like collab the difference or return the difference burden on our customers so with the rate was set up we expect them to collect i would say like one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars so we're looking to use this like additional a collected amount offset part of this on the collection of to be fair to the process we've been talking for years about the possibility you think bob right of changing or just reviewing the policy that's been i think it's a couple conversation on their way yeah here's a couple conversations underway one has been the discussion of changing the six hundred and fifty to a different number the other has been looking at ways that we can take some of the services that the town currently provides to belmont light and actually charge those back to bill because the concentrated to people that was a constant a recommendation for the overhead c seven or eight years ago we said let's just make it six for we change to a fixed amount so we go so it's that has to think you very sorry there still might be worth revisiting the fixed amount that hasn't gone up certainly everything else in town seems as well right and so i think going to kind of start in backwards order and so the evolution kind of happened and resulted in scenario seven so forty five and six where we were what i went back to consult with based on the last meeting that we that impacts all rate classes or excludes low income and or municipal accounts or and do we want to include a rate stabilization fund in any of that  and then so essentially going through a lot you know looking at the numbers scenario seven was is the ultimate result from that discussion where we could go backwards from there if you like but basically threw all back what we thought to present to focus discussion and see if we want to look at the other scenarios but scenarios seven is a two percent increase that hits all right classes except low income gets half of the two knew that the number of folks on the low income account that when compared to the overall revenue you know that extra ten thousand dollars doesn't move that just that i was in  that's the point to make it pretty much stays the same basis and that's why i like what six better why would i yeah why would i mean i don't want to increase low income at all i mean it's a yeah it's a no good so i'm glad that's going to do six and seven as you can see that in fact when you raise a low income it doesn't get you two percent increase which would cut carious for i think chris said a couple years would be an appropriate way to go and that way every class should experience should be responsible for at least some of that increase low income residents i think everybody is in favor of the low income discount it is a fairly generous low income discount to belmont so the thought of million dollars this is not that significant i'd rather just it's a philosophical thing you know and it was sort of even though it's zero dollars fifty cents a month to me why i'm with you must keep it zero and i also like the six you're not using the stabilization for now i mean if we if we find that you know there's a need to sort of consider something in the future fine but but for now i'd rather just say look it doesn't make it will be the difference if we go up one percent or a zero or zero percent of your time and i think that the stabilization fund not using that for the reasons we've just heard we're trying to build a stabilization decided not to raise any rich any rate on the low income group yeah i'm comfortable with that i like sex yes the but the broader question i had if you don't mind is in chris the original proposals we considered were three percent increases that would run for percent but if you recall from scenario one through three and the coloring you'll see that it was red and it was red because it was ten percent out of alignment with the targets i thought that it was negative and we were losing money it was just too far out of where we're trying to get to you know and so rove then complicate the whole picture with stabilization give back in all of let's hit the reset button and look at what two percent does and see how that fits in with the targets and that result and that's what you see some behind let's see if we can get through the agenda relatively quickly so update us on the solar storage visibility at the incinerator site i think we have a presentation here chris so yes so trying to tie together a bit this wasn't in your packet in advance just because we've been scheduling meetings live with vendors so we just want to write any new information but yes so this is kind of quickly where we're at today in terms of storage on the  uses on the incinerator site so just to recap briefly you know we started off on this journey looking at a solar plus storage feasibility for the site  l quick summary is that because this is the timeline for capping of the site and the volatility of the financing markets for solar made it very difficult to try and forecast a financial model for solar plus storage that doesn't exclude certainly from the site it just means in the current horizon so we shifted to look at because there are a lot of overlap in terms of financial benefit from storage alone and so we shifted gears to say what would it look like a much smaller footprint what would it look like for storage today and then make sure it's available for future use for say something like solar and so that's where you get to  the really slide to if you will the slide after title slide this hits the big point so the advantages you know the big thing a storage versus a generation source it is essentially generation source it just doesn't create its own energy from say the sun we charge it at an optimum time and discharge it when we want to and so that's where these benefits come from right so we have the strategic and policy based right so we use it at a convenient time when we can avoid the dirtiest power so we can you know fortunately like this high drop or too early which is on peak that's great couple that again with storage that's you leveraging other green sources that we can jack that into peak times so that helps with that climate action plan financial so the nd one being the financial and the other big topic is where gets a little more technical and murky but cuts what we see on the transmission sites we cut our capacity in transmission payments that's a direct financial savings that we can then incorporate in the rates there are other revenue sources like that ice offers for reliability purposes so frequency regulation sprint and markets like that which they pay us for to be available so those are all different mechanisms that we can look at especially by getting one of these  so that's you know operational liability depending on where you place it you know i will say save because there is a time of my crazy ideas for placement aside from just the incinerator site but you can build you know you hear the terms micro grids out there outage mitigation all those things those come into play but in terms of this site you don't necessarily if we can look at a little bit closer the arrangement of the site we don't have to wait three years for the site to be  just where we're at more on this project and so i wanted to at least provide a platform for discussion about a strategic plan release and so that's what this slide is included with the packet  and so internally we've prepared some materials that we're working on updating some of the data for and so based on what we have currently you know we produced  office we'll be looking at a timeline like this where we you know january we'd have to work out you know it's certainly not presentation worthy now but if we worked on it through january then potentially what we could do look at is a february  presentation to the board for discussion important and so i merely this is calling on my past experience to guide this this suggestion that basically is here's everything we know as we can you know you know as we conduct daily operations we formalize that in research the policies formalize that into a plan we present it to the board for discussion and import in february again at any point wrenches c thrown into that schedule but say there is support and we accurately recapture captured of the sentiments that goes through march april timeline of public forums to discuss those topics and then you know in theory could be in and in time for a town meeting presentation to the greater community to say this is as the electric utility this is what we're doing for you this is how it aligns with all of the town's goals and policies and these are active the actions we're taking moving forward you'll see it in the budget because it will tie in with the budget presentation so you can compare strategic plan to budget activities so that was where my question is is this timeline sufficiently quick to allow you to inform next year's budget i guess the short answer would be no but i don't i mean because we're really looking to prepare a present the budget at the so we've already made assumptions save because january we have to start because we're on the calendar year right so we've already made assumptions and so so that's so i think the january through may is really capturing what as a community we've already put together the key and this is kind of the x factor which what i think would be a really interesting thing i hope we could work on something here but in june so the trick is so say we come back with this list of these great cool initiatives that we want to do and just for argument's sake solar and storage you know to really interesting you know avenues to explore but obviously there's only one bucket of money and so how do you opt to my eyes your investments to meet your greater goal say the climate action plan maybe solar moves you this far in storage move you this far and so that's where we met with this the strategic planning outfit that does this on a global scale where they have this you know they have these groups out there that do the modeling for you and say here's your developed these algorithms that you know well beyond my ability to comprehend and and so that's how you can then informed decision making about how to allocate money to different programming items is the any have any suppose any capacity you just to be clear that are you you will be looking for a house i consultant to help in the efforts or not for the initial presentation to the board but we'd like to do is to you know show what we think our strategic plan should be based on how well we know the communities current policies and interests and then for implementation you know all of the you know deciding you know what we focus nineteen meeting dates in the past we've been meeting monthly and it's been coincident with i believe it's the nd each month of the cycles means that continue to be good for folks we're he