so mr levinson will begin as i explained for the newcomers there i think there are nine separate motions under the budget beginning with general government mr moderator just a point of clarification we like me to introduce myself nine times for each of the nine motions to say mr levinson and leave it at that you don't have to do your title but yes the name at least for the record all right thank you so i michael even sometimes share of the word committee in town any member precinct one and other through the nine motions of article ten the first motion which you see before you is motion as a moved that under general government four million be that under employee benefits seven apologize six million nine hundred fifty eight thousand dollars be raised and appropriated for retirement expenses and the vote the work committee see that under employee benefits two million eight hundred fifty two thousand one hundred forty two dollars be raised and appropriated for other reserves including health insurance insurance and salary reserve  yes michael even some share of the work committee and tommy member present one this is the category of expenditure that i mentioned before that includes things like worker's compensation and has that chapter thirty four be amount which is for the pay as you go retiree health care so yes this is money that we spend every year thank you further discussion mr mercer vehicle for actually learning in detail about each of the different areas of the budget they were voting on and thirdly my attempt with the presentation that i just gave was to clarify what some of these elements are these motions have it as a matter of course tend to be simple and nature into the detail of the budget and does exactly what you've asked which is it describes the various articles in the budget that have either increased or decreased by five thousand dollars or more in my file and by five percent so  me member precinct one again the work committee report is broken down by each of the different departments it has what i like to think is relatively clear sections so you can see the changes in each section for so for example public all those in favor of the motion motion see please say i was opposed to opted unanimously mr levinson public safety section d moved that under ork in who live in my precinct as best as possible and voting against public safety doesn't really seem like the best way to do that but when when we when we have amounts like   certainly will take the comment into comparisons to other communities challenging to try to compare different communities from a fact perspective in terms of size but i will take that into consideration terms of providing additional information and we can always have i've said this before that you know i think we've come a long way within our budget book i think there's more that we can do to you k to tell me members in a residence in terms of providing further information terms of a parable community i think that would be great for everybody has rights a number of inhabitant that would be sort of an obvious no no i think i agree i mean if you look at in particular one of our neighboring towns are only ten they they win every year i think they win the emmy award for one of the top budget books and their book is pretty comprehensive i think we've come a significant way since david kill has joined our team from cambridge in arlington but we'll take that in the can buys when we can always improve in terms of providing additional information on comparable communities have to use things of that nature great project for some high school internet i think further discussion under this motion saying not all those in favor please say i suppose nay adopted unanimously now does he want to read it and then i'll introduce a superintendent motion he moved that under belmont public schools fifty million one hundred twenty six thousand five schools have a presentation on their budget good evening everyone i'm lisa fiore i'm the chairperson of the belmont school committee and before superintendent failand gives you our formal presentation i just wanted to take the opportunity first to thank you for the privilege of being in the room with everyone who chooses to serve in their respective roles and capacities in the interest of our town it's truly a privilege and i also wanted to mention two new school committee members who have joined us the last vote in april we have murat beecher and andrea prestwich who are joining myself and colleagues of the schuster tom computer and susan burgess cox and then finally i just want to really express sincere gratitude for the foresight of this body we've always got a lot of work to do to sustain and extend the learning opportunities in the teaching opportunities in our town and it really reflects the collaboration and relationships that contributed to the process that will be described  much good evening john failed superintendent of schools i would like to thank tom meeting for this support and time tonight as we present an overview of our f y seventeen school budget i would like to th school committee the board of selectmen the capital committee in the war committee and particularly jim gamble whose liaison to the schools from the war committee for their work in partnership with the school department the school year the school department continues to be thankful for the override funds that was that support the district's work in f y sixteen our current school year as we continue to see increasing in roman space issues in high class size in some of our schools we have thankful to see our funds go directly to the classroom and to our teachers and most importantly to our students who continue to achieve at high levels we are fortunate to have great students who come from great homes who engage in great learning with great teachers in light of that this past sunday we would like to keep the presentation brief and with some of the questions that came up earlier we did provide a detailed budget report that went out to tom meeting several weeks back i hope you had time to review and analyze the data that we provided i'd like to thank director finance tony de color gero for providing this information and also our work with other town departments in this work i like to give an overview of our budget first i'd like to talk about how two things make up the process for our budget process this year one is to highlight the changes from f y sixteen to f y seventeen and the second is to talk about the zero base budgeting process we went through a school department and using the belmont public schools to teach a plan to guide our budgeting process when we use our f to f y sixteen budget we're very fortunate to say that the district benefit enormously by the override two thousand and fifteen the funds dedicated to special education and special services as well as the ten positions that we were able to hire to support class sizes and offer elective courses and added courses for our middle school and high school to get students out of the hallway and in front of quality teachers is much appreciated and much needed it was fantastic to go through a school year this year where we did not have to freeze anyone's budget lay off any workers and not hire open positions to support our teachers in the classroom in our students in those classrooms we continued to respond to the high enroll within class size it areas that we have that are of concern and we appreciate the funding moving forward and in year two of our budget fiscal plan through the override funding implementing year two of our for three year fiscal plan from the task force budget allowed us to pay mandated service bills that we have around special services we were able to based this number in fiscal seventeen on the actual expenditures we had and in sixteen where we end this year and we were also able to get the index factor of our three fiscal plan  of a percentage on top of that we're utilizing the five fifty eastern reduce class size in grade two of next year at the middle school and at the high school we also are able to address transportation issues that have been suffering with the increase in rome and we have not added a bus to the belmont public school in several years but have received many more students who need that service would like to let you know that we did use a zero based budgeting process with our leadership staff in the belmont public schools to align our budget to our strategic plan this provided professional development and prioritized initiatives but we also initiated a centralized textbook ebook instructional materials process to make sure that our budget was expended on the priorities that we have throughout school that have been deliberated upon and decided upon by the leadership council we provided funding for technology to support the fourth and final year of the i pad initiative at the high school that was started by the foundation for belmont education would like to thank them there for their support in this endeavor and we are adding and have not added yet but will add a part time  position to support the red centralised registration process as that has become quite a process in a task as we have more students enrolling not only from all over the massachusetts area and all over the nation but all over the world to the  e public schools some technical assumptions regarding our budget the school department will release over two point five million dollars of our facilities funds to the town facilities department as outlined by mike lee vinson in the prior presentation our health insurance will increase by two point five percent this year we're assuming that all grants will be funded at a level balanced amount for fiscal seven from sixteen to seventeen the budget includes all current positions plus five that are outlined in our three year fiscal plan and additional funds will support the furniture and technology needs of the eleven classrooms that we are expanding by that we outlined at our last town meeting earlier this year with that said the school department general fund budget is fifty million one hundred twenty six thousand five hundred eighty three dollars this amount reflects the reallocation of the two point five million dollars and school department facilities funds to the facilities budget the prior allocation would have what i'd like to do in an attempt to recognize some of the good things that are going on in the schools is to not talk and let the pitches do some work and to recognize the teachers in the students enjoying it engaging in the work that we do in the schools every day with the support of town meeting community and our community partners a great partnership with the foundation for belmont education amazing things happen with the funds they provide us to our teachers and in our classrooms the outstanding teacher awards that we have to recognize our great staff is one of the best things that we've done over the past few years to recognize the teachers the boosters provided most of the funding for the floor at the fieldhouse in the capital committee will fund the second half of the project this year the workout room is provided by funds from the boosters are palms parents provide great musical opportunities for us students and we look at the things like science nights in our elementary schools the p t o garden programs that  schools science nights the big project that goes across all of our schools in our social studies department the outside area at the general in the celebration of the arts in the courtyard the art show that we have not only in our town of belmont but out in the community of boston as well in that our high school is ranked eighth we get fantastic outcomes from our high school students this is a k through twelve commitment to our children the high school has great recognition across the state and across the nation these are the great things that are happening in out of the classroom at belmont high school to provide opportunities and experiences to students that are unlike any other in have these students leaving our our schools as well prepared as anyone can be not only academically but also in the experiences that it takes to be successful outside of high school innovation and technology can't not put up a basketball pitcher is a former basketball coach and the great spirit of belmont high school thank you very very much one i'm i had two questions superintendent the first one i've asked in the past and you do know the answer and least you have in the past i'm sure you do now but i think i've always thought it would be really helpful to put it in your presentation very explicitly which is the dollar amount that is going to support the school system that is not provided by the town of belmont it's a very very significant number it's i think in the double digit percentages this comes from fees from families it comes from fund raising both at the school level and at the foundation level it's a very large number and i think it's important for people to know that the tax dollars and the other revenues that we put toward the school system do not support the school system completely thank you that i think it's a great point to point out mr failing please introduce joint field superintendent of schools thank you for that reminder there is a significant amount of funds that are made available by local community groups p t o s patron's boosters e for there are there is an all in number for the other groups that we receive that's part of the budget process that you see in the fees are exceptional for a fee and we saw a door they are included in the revolving accounts but they are not separated and i will make a note in the director of finance and i will try to put that in the budget thank you for the suggestion thank you i saw the all funds budget but i your pointing out it would be great if it was more explicit and then also as an f i i do people young clued in the fundraising so i had one second question which is that you work really hard obviously on development of the budget you mentioned zero based budgeting which is great to hear as i'm looking at page forty five of the warrant committee report this is program services and support it's a chart comparing f y sixteen to f y seventeen and if we just look at the direct educational services it goes from thirty eight point seven million to forty point nine million just for direct educational services of that a little over two million dollars of that about one point one million i would point to the sped out of district tuitions going from five point nine million to seven point zero million an increase of one thousand point five percent which is a huge increase when i look then also at your budget book you have an orange chart of the number of kids that are in sped out of district to wish and it went from ninety seven to one zero one i believe from fifteen to sixteen so it's an increase of five kids the dollar amount th funded on this line spread out to district to wish and as one point one million increase so it i don't doubt your numbers that's not my point but my point is that for an increase of five kids where the increase is going up one point one million dollars clearly it's not just for those increased five five children it's across the board the whole one hundred one children but all your hard work on zero based budgeting gets swamped by increases i'm assuming i out of district to wish and i'm wondering where what kind of hard work we can do to try and influence the tuitions of those out of district wish and look carefully at how those placements are made i mean most half of the increase in direct services are just for those five committee for the warrant for the warning committee and i just want to want to first of all thank thank all the town meeting members who in carefully read this because that because i think that's great and i also want to get super super intended failon off of off of  the hook because the table on page forty five in the warrant committee committee report is a table we created from the eight hundred thirty one eight hundred thirty eight line budget that they that they are prepared so it doesn't it doesn't match line for line with with how they chose to summarize it and so and so when you're seeing some of the discrepancies it's because because because we're putting different line items in to these to these some categories we thought that it was it's but it's not the same budget summary that that that super super super intended i'm failing works with the other point is that on page forty seven i think the warning committee that we do try to spell out all of those funding sources beyond what the with the town budget that we're voting on here is and we do note at the bottom that there are other sources that we have not that we have not been captured and so maybe  that's that's a topic for us to take up next year he's going to follow up question and i also thank you for that clarification that's helpful i wasn't i wasn't trying to play gotcha that actually wasn't where i was going with my question i was where i was going was more thinking largely even whether the one point one million increase is the right number or not or it's nine hundred or whatever it's clearly a significant number and i'm wondering how the district is thinking about how those placements are made and how to  put how do exert influence over the providers of those services who are clearly probably increasing their tuition amounts far above the amount that the budget public schools are increasing because you're doing a lot of hard work on the zero based budgeting but we're not capturing a lot of the benefit because it's going out to spend out of district cost mr failing superintendent john failing the rates that is said by the collaborative in private special education schools are set by the state so we don't have input into that process we will literally get a letter of notification at any time throughout the school year that the state has agreed to increase the tuition for a certain school retroactive to of that year so that's that's how state policy works so that's a little bit without not within our control what's within our control is that the state senate did a report in one across the state this past two years to talk about how state funding for public schools in particular the hard target areas of the increasing yellow population in increasing need for special education relief to all cities and towns throughout the commonwealth we support the outcome of that report the massachusetts association school superintendent supports it the massachusetts association a school committee supported in that report basically says that the state needs to generate more funding through the circuit breaker fund which is the state fund that is the balancer of these expenses by towns because the using old numbers the formula has never been updated fiscally so if everybody in the in the audience wanted to do something it would be and i know we have the support of our state senator our state rep  is to be involved in that conversation that's happening at the state level because that would support us tremendously because the three factors that they say are really hurting cities and towns we have two of them in spades which is special education in  enrollment increase in e l o the next thing i'd like to announce and we talked about to school committee last night is that the school department is not just sitting back and waiting for this to happen and not doing anything about it we have engaged the medicaid reimbursement process our new director billing system where we can actually bill some of these services that we already provide to the federal government and get reimbursement this could be a moderate flow of revenue back to the town or it could be a  significant revenue flow against the services that we already provide to the students and that would include industry students in out of district students so this we think is a proactive measure to support the the concern we have about this  first question is is the increase in number of students because there is an increase in the number of homes and belmont or is it because people are moving out and people moving in are families so not families are roman numbers for the m s b a who's the state agency that will control the high school project and they're providing us with projections we've also enlisted the services of a third party contractor that does this work i did it conducted theorize what it is but it is folks moving out and folks moving in with a whole bunch of students the failing family moved into milton a few years ago with five children and upset the cart in milton mass i think that's happening a lot in belmont in but we'll find out exactly what that roman homeowner comes in they usually make renovations or additions there's usually an increase in the property value of the home and so in the us maybe an increase in the tax revenue of that home if you look at the median is there any sense of self sustainability when a new family comes in and that home value goes up or are you going to be always in a red every time a new family comes in i wouldn't be able to answer that six there is an increase in value with new home construction that is captured as part of our new growth that is it but it generates approx about six hundred thousand dollars a year which is not nearly cover the cost of educating all the students that we get typically in those houses sorry yes just to add just a follow up on that question i guess if you take a look at the final page of the warrant on the warren commission report this question about enrollment is one of the three big questions that we lay out we don't have the answers yet but those but those are exactly the kinds of questions that we're that we're asking that will look at over the next year we're getting great cooperation from the town clerk and from the and from the town assessor's office as well as the school committee to try to take data  raise awareness around a couple issues and trends in this in the budget that are a focus for me and it is my purpose is really to to raise awareness i'm not sure if there's commentary on them or you have feedback but basically they relate to special education and the number of kids receiving special education in belmont and i'm looking at page forty nine of the warrant committee report we're all aware that the number of the role meant in our schools has grown substantially over the last ten years the numbers six hundred seventy five new students added to the school what surprises me is that the number of kids receiving special education services has actually dropped by ninety four from where it was ten years ago so we've added six hundred seventy five students but then seen a drop in the number of kids receiving special education which runs contrary to sort of what you might expect if you're adding six seventy five students you'd expect some kind of proportional increase in special education so that was surprising to me i wondered if you know what was going on in other towns how belmont compared to other school districts in the state and on page fifty of the warrant committee it with the rate than the percent of students receiving special ed in belmont ten percent i went to the mass department of education site to see what you know what comparable districts were and what i found was the state average is about seventeen percent and if you rank the public schools public school districts for which they report there's about three hundred of them belmont actually ranks by my analysis at the very bottom of the list i found five other reported school districts with a rate lower than ten percent out of the entire state for those only had pre k through seven or eight grade so there's really only one school district with pre k through twelve that had a lower rate that was a one x and they have a high school graduating class of forty students so substantially smaller i'm not sure what's driving that but they thought that the two trends together that drop of one hundred students receiving special ed over a ten year period when total enrollment increased six seventy five seems surprising and our rank at the very bottom of the of the state list also seems surprising as i say i want to wear raise awareness maybe it's a longer conversation but that was my feedback mr fairlie i don't know if you have any comment at this point or not you know ok thank you thank you sir yes your next kathleen counting precinct a town meeting member precinct eight i wanted to rise to speak to that point and the point of the lady two persons ahead of me i am a special education teacher i'm not currently i'm home with my kids and i have never been employed by the town of belmont as a sped teacher so just you know interest of full disclosure you cannot simply look at the numbers that way first of all because imagine if one of your children was one of the five just cited how would you feel right now if you just got called out in front of town meeting because you moved into a school district and now apparently are costing us so much money i think it's offensive and i think it's unfair moreover the number of students may have dropped but the complexity of students that we are required not by belmont not by the state but by the federal government to educate is increasing drastically we're not just talking about a student with dyslexia we're not just talking about a g we're talking about medically complex kids we're talking with kids about kids with co morbid learning and emotional disorders and we're talking about kids who require significant support and when these students are sent to an out of district placement where i have also worked i can promise you that the tuition there is exactly what it needs to be to support these students to the level that they can be educated kept safe and that our entire student body can be set kept safe is far more than anyone can imagine so if you want to be upset about it i highly highly recommend not just consulting your state senators but also the broader federal government because they are the ones who of late who have leveled us with an unfunded federal mandate through i d e a that every single student that comes into our town must be educated and it's not fair and it's incredibly difficult and it's a memory it's miraculous that our school departments that are telling government as a whole does as good of a job as it does with what we to cope with and i really just take a huge amount of bridge at the fact that it's even a discussion point to bring up that five more kids cost us a million more dollars because imagine if that was your child your charter schools i believe students are paid off the cherry sheet that comes to the town that's an automatic deductions from those from the state from the towns the town's general fund budget so for every student that is it a charter school that lives in any town in belmont in this case would be an offset in the state funding that they have an exchange with the town budget in the state budget right so just to clarify there is an option where students can attend charter schools as i stand it but one in massachusetts i believe any styled in any city or town could attend a charter school to choose and that would be at the expense of the town in which they reside yes or you're next michael mcnamara precinct seven tommy member i just want to say that i've had family members or family member who went to the special education program it was very helpful for them i feel like this is a very important thing that we need to keep funding and i know it may be difficult it may be costly but it's very important to do so and those kids can do very successful things they complete the community i think it's important clue to everybody and i think that's just something we should consider along with the believe the more vocational schooling we have available and this also question to the superintendent the less children we might need to send to outside special education programs and schools and so i feel like because we're pushing this academic level of the belmont high school so high that says very little space for children that are more practically otherwise talented don't have a chance to really make minutemen are creating that opportunity was in the new belmont high school to reduce also the special needs needs thank you as per thank you mr moderator rachel berger precinct two i wanted to just briefly of some bring some attention and questions to the issue of class size at the high school we talk about adding space quite a bit but we don't really talk about the number of students in those spaces somewhere in your report i saw something like that there was a fifteen or sixteen to one student a faculty ratio i have never had a child in that ratio except maybe when they were in kindergarten or first grade and you had a teacher and a half time aide so i don't know how you get to that ratio overall when my current tenth grader has thirty three kids in his history class he has twenty nine kids in both his science classes with lab space that set up for twenty eight i know we've added f t e but my understanding is that the vast majority of that at the high school it is for non engage students but then it seems to me from this experience that it's really affecting the class size of our core curriculum our math or english or science in our history and now we're changing to a gym requirement which i imagine has to add an f t e as well if they have to be taking gym during the day so how is that going to affect not not this fifteen or sixteen to one but those four core subjects are we to be expecting at the high school thirty some kids in the class fairly soon john fields of instead of schools you're absolutely right the class size of the high school the middle school and at the elementary schools are high we have twenty five students i believe in almost every one of our first grade classrooms and when they were in kindergarten they had a teacher and aide and now that they're in first grade they just have one teacher in first grade as to most important grade of all the thirteen that they'll  have in our school system when it came to allocating the f t e's across the middle and high school at the high school we allocated f t s to reduce class sizes in math last year and this year they'll go to decrease in class size i believe in english language arts in world language as well as in both years last year and the year coming adding class adding courses to engage students and get them get them out of the hallways in in front of a teacher so we are balancing reducing class size where we can we attack to math last year i think we do in l a in world language this year and we're also trying to combat the fact that there are not students in classrooms every period of the day so if that is a dual track when you only have  five f t s going into next year and you have to divide it from the three levels you know it's making minimal impact but it's the directionality is really important and we're thankful for the ten f t e should last year the five that we were able to gain this year and the also five in next year's fiscal plan that were afforded to the override so that's combated by the fact that we continue get more students so the ratio continues to go up and i think that the ratio that you're referring to is probably on the d e s c web page that i'm really not sure the met the the the algorithm they used to figure that out but i think that we can always ask our parents to tell us what our class sizes and we'll look at the real picture so i was wondering if in the future maybe you could add something about class size to your report and not just an education budget was an attack on special education i feel very strongly about him portions of special education i've said this once before weren't any meaning or something like  when i was in sixth grade there were some big boys four or five big boys in the back of the classroom and they never said a word and i realized as i grew older they never said a word because they couldn't read and they were just waiting until they turned sixteen you know those were children who had been sadly neglected by my elementary school because there was no demand no insistence on special education i believe very strongly in special education however analyzing the costs can produce very good results belmont is a part of a collaborative system with several other communities and i suspect i can't prove it but i suspect that collaborative system was developed because we analyze in belmont in the other towns analyzed the situation and said you know there's a way we can do a better job for these children it can also cost us less so talking about the cost is not an attack on special education if your children require special education and of course many children in belmont  too and some of my friends you know their children required that's fine and we're going to pay for it but we're going to try to do it is sufficiently as possible and do not feel that just because we analyze these things we're saying we don't want to do it we re senate that's not the case thank you it's adopted by more than two thirds we will now vote on the school budget item meet all those in favor please say i was opposed no it's adopted unanimous know if mr weiss is here is here yeah did you want to make this comment mr weiss thank you and the belmont rep to the minuteman school committee we've talked about number of minuteman issues this spring all of which were involved and in some cases controversial this is not one of them but i think it's worth taking a second to just understand how our assessment fits into the bigger minuteman budget picture and the minutemen budget this year is about nineteen point seven million dollars that is actually down about one hundred thousand or a half a percent from last year's budget assessments to all of the member towns despite the budget being down are up slightly and the reason that they are up slightly is because two wishes from nonmember communities are down a little bit in belmont's case our assessment the seven ninety six is down about thirty six thousand or four point three percent so although assessments in aggregate are up ours is down and the reason ours is down is because our enroll mint is down this year from where it has been our assessment and i will just point out or make a note our  not down as much as it would have been if we hadn't amended the regional agreement but now that we are basing assessments on a four year average in rome it and are in rome and this year is lower than our average our susman is a little bit higher but overall i think good news in the minuteman budget in terms of an absolute decline good news for belmont in a decline in assessments that's even greater than that thank you mr weiss any discussion on a man a man budget all those in favor please say i was opposed no top and unanimously mr levinson item g moved that under public services thirteen million ninety three thousand six hundred twenty six dollars saying non all those in favor please say i was opposed no adopted unanimously i had a mate mr leave and moved it under human services three million one hundred eighty two thousand seven hundred ninety seven dollars sixteen thousand and forty two dollars be transferred from the following available funds to meet a portion of the fiscal year two thousand and seventeen operating budget expenses and such as listed below a two five one million seven hundred five thousand from a reserve fund balances free cash d hundred forty four thousand from parking meter receipts one hundred sixty six thousand from water revenue for indirect cost f one hundred thirty three thousand from sore revenue for indirect cost one hundred twenty five thousand from kaplan dominant fund for various capital expenditure as a chandran fifty three thousand six fifty seven from capital project fund for various capital expenditures one million eighty four thousand two hundred from receipts reserved j twenty thousand and one eighty five from buying premium images ation of selectmen have a vote was moderated boards like we unanimously recommends favorable action and the warrant committee the work committee unanimously recommends favorable action as you want to give a one sentence explanation these are the transfers that take place each year to following the budget i guess i just gave in  appropriated for the operating expenses of the municipal light department including out of state travel all said appropriation the payment to be expended on of the direction of the municipal light board and the tom accountants here by authorized to make such sammy baghdad a vice chair of the board of selectmen and precinct for town meeting member moved that the town authorized or reauthorize revolving accounts for fiscal year two thousand and seventeen  to chapter forty four section fifty three and one half of the general laws as printed in article sixteen of the warrant for the annual town meeting and support there's a board have a vote yes board fund basically revolving funds are user fees and charges which are collected from a specific town program or activity and which are set aside and used to pay for the cost of that program or activity so the programs become financially self sufficient these funds are not part of the general fund budget and they are accounted for separately revolving accounts must be annually reauthorized by town meeting that is why this is a recurring motion at every annual town meeting when user charges are collected by the town department that runs the program or activity they are turned over to the treasurer's office before expenses can be paid from the revolving account they are reviewed processed and approved by the town's accounting office once approved they are paid by the treasurer's office similar to every other municipal disbursement so there is recommends feral action committee were a committee unanimously recommends favorable action mr paul mr moderate just to comment briefly the hundred fifty thousand dollars is actually excess levee capacity that was determined after the initial budgets were prepared we had gotten some additional state aid in therefore we had excess levee capacity in the board feels very strongly that a hundred fifty thousand dollars be parked in this general stabilization fund to be used in suggest that those years become very thin for us in fact maybe deficit years so from our point of view it's really important to park in reserve as much money as possible to use in future years for whatever purpose town meeting decides likely precinct three member of the warren committee article nineteen this petition general stabilization fund moved that the town vote to transfer one million one hundred thousand dollars from the un reserve fund balance or free cash to the general stabilization fund let me get the votes or to select or select been university recommends fable action and warrant committee work committee unanimously recommends favorable action and i believe this committee voted sure well committee unanimously recommends favorable action preaching three member of the warren committee this article essentially grew out of last year's override as you may recall in proposing the four and a half million dollar over last year a bonus leadership committed to managing the funds carefully in order to extend the overrides impact as far into the future as possible as a first step in this direction we meeting voted to place one point six seven four million of the override funds in f y sixteen that were not needed  sixteen into the stabilization fund basically banking them in order to have them available in future years just to put a little bit of context if we think back to the financial task forces report last year their forecast indicated that  the full four point five million dollars were not going to be needed in f y sixteen but that in two to three years maybe four years if we were lucky budget requirements we get would begin to open the revenues that derive from the override and therefore that money would be needed in that in those later years in order to fill that gap in addition at the time the override was passed but my voters were assured that should the revenues for the town expenditure to be more favorable in the future years than were being forecasted at the time of the override vote that those money would also be that money would also be set aside so long as it wasn't immediately needed it would be set aside similarly in order to fund forecast the forecast at the time of the override had been that revenues would be ninety five point three million they came in at ninety seven point seven million or two point four million dollars higher expect expenditures we budgeted ninety six point three million came in ninety four point nine again for one point four million dollars difference in that case this combined difference of three point eight million dollars really as as mike levenson presentation our free cash are shown you that was the chief contributor to reaching a seven point six million free cash balances are july one of last year next life now in putting together the article nineteen proposal  when when we first did the system petition the amount the exact amount was unknown because things were still being settled in terms of what budget in need budget needs were this year in arriving at the one point nine one million dollar figure we needed to accommodate several other claims on free cash this year that there were dressing critical town and school needs just briefly there listed above these are all items we've now voted on here one point we just voted one point seven million in free cash to support the f y seventeen budget  on monday we voted three hundred sixteen thousand dollars to the open stabilization fund as particle our article fifteen and also we've already appropriated one point four five million to purchase the module classrooms at the general middle school that was done under the  special town meeting article three at the may session this year these appropriations leave have left will four point one million dollars in free cash as mike lee vinson has noted the target guidelines for free cash are between three and five percent of of the budget of last year's budget and here it basically comes out to be three million dollars needs to remain a free cash what article nineteen is looking to do is to chance through the other one point one million dollars into the general stabilization fund expressly to set this money aside to meet future needs in the same way that we do with the one point six seven four million last year i want to at this point that not only does article nine hundred fifty accommodate the other need for free cash this year that we've already voted but it's also completely consistent with the plan laid out by the financial taskforce last year when the override was proposed it doesn't in any way interfere or reduce or reduce the amounts budgeted for the operating budget for the town and school side or the capital investments in roads and sidewalks that were proposed as part of the override  the objectives for this article what i called what i consider the benefits of this article ars falls first and sort of most concretely placing these funds into the general stabilization fund means that any future appropriation of this money must be evaluated approved by two thirds majority of this body clearly as it went out to me before this makes it hard to spend it raises the bar in terms of our spending decisions for this money i believe that raising the bar in this fashion will make it more likely that we will conserve these funds to support future budgets or other critical spending needs hopefully on the optimistic side it will allow us to limit or delay a future operating override that may come review just recently what was seen when the when the forecast was first put together what's being seen now in terms of the life of the existing override we're only talking two to three years right now it's very possible that the one six seven four might have to be appropriated next year to support the fiscal eighteen budget so we're not talking about a very long window and i think it's in the town's best interest to extend that window as far as possible into the future and it's important to note at the same time i was asked actually to point out that i should point out what having the two thirds vote means i think there were two hundred people here tonight based on the initial basically that would mean about thirty four votes more would be required in order to spend money out of the general stabilization fund it's really important to note this money will still be available to meet any emergency spending needs to arise all it is required to spend this money is that two thirds of this body say this is a good idea we need to spend this money on this on this for this purpose general stabilization fund as its as its name implies is not restricted in the in the se nse the money can be used to support any operational needs it could also be used to support capital needs if that became necessary it's up to will be up to this body to decide what is necessary and what the appropriate use of those funds what placing it in the fund is in my mind however is that it it signifies time meetings intention just dredge these dollars out as far as possible into the future to spend them wisely to keep the promise we've made to voters that we're going to be good stewards of this money we face a lot of uncertainty ahead and they're going to be major expenses hitting us notice you know at some point this money the window will close another operating room may have to go on to the  ballot as everyone here knows also are probably going to look at a fairly sizeable stead exclusion within the next couple of years when the school high school building committee has done its work i think that it's important that we show the voters that we're we're carefully spending this money we're carefully marshalling this money our funds for future use i think the other thing it will do is that as we make decisions they won't really be in terms of spending decisions they won't sort of be one off sort of discrete decisions will make decisions fully knowing that the impact of spending we do today effects what we're going to have to spend on how much money we're going to need in the future and i think that's all helpful thank you and i guess we'll see oh sorry i don't like me just in closing i want to know this article to both this money into the general stabilization fund as the motion say requires the same two thirds vote that it will require to take the money out i hope you'll agree with me that this is important stuff to safeguard our finances and  yes thank thank you very much michel banker precinct town meeting member in the full disclosure it's actually a little bit more than one point one million this isn't because i did my mathematics my second grade teacher taught me how to subtract and add it's actually one point one million thirty thirty four thousand dollars one point one are you said tracking it to get down to the free cash balance of three million the three million is an estimate to three million is just a rounded figure one million one hundred thousand dollars is what's being requested here ok so the three million is it the thirty two thousand dollars or whatever you said is one i should probably already know the answer to which is what is the balance in the general stabilization fund as of now prior to this proposal with a one  the second question might be a little trickier if i recall from the override there was some i don't know if technically legal limitations on what we could spend that money  on someone will refresh my memory on that but the other part of this question is first pointing out that of course you know free cash is free cash up that is not technically restricted by anything that was in the override at the same time however since mr sarno has invoked the override as part of the argument in justification for doing this i think it's fair to ask first of all to clarify the question of what the override what the stipulations were for the expenses on which the override could be spent and whether there isn't may be some problem with the i don't want to say accounting because i don't know this is not meant to be accusatory but there seems to be an issue of ensuring that the funds that we may have in free cash because they came from the override will subsequently be spent on the things that the override was intended to fund i think that makes sense  be appropriate in the future so the commitment on the override since i've chaired the financial task force and was an architect of the override was to spend money on operations when we put when we crafted budgets today it's budget one belmont one budget one bellman one budget so our town administrator along with geo sit down and work with the school department to determine exactly what the needs are today in the future that's how we construct the operating budget but without question there cash can be appropriate in the future for operations but again we try to balance that against using one time funds for operations but sort of it's a balance in terms of where we spend those funds in the future and we determine based on both operations and capital what the needs are not certain that completely response to your question but you know we committed to schools have certain commitments for the next several years in terms of the f t s and continue to add that we'll continue to do that not only last year this year and next year as well thank you very just one brief comment sure all right i think it would be very helpful to have a separate accounting of the override funds somewhere perhaps just just to sort of report on these commitments and the extent to which they're being able to go from year to year i think it's a really good point a really good question not to suggest they're in any way fungible but i think it would be helpful to meeting this part of a budget we can sort of outline exactly in terms of the override that was passed excessively fifteen where we spent the that this article accurately expresses the discourse that occurred a spring a year ago around the override i in the minutes recorder for the warrant committee the financial task force as well as the board of selectmen and there was a lot of conversation about being prudent stewards of this funding and having it extend as long as it possibly could so i just want to underscore that this article is expressive of that conversation it it moves toward the extension of the funds and i fully support it thank you m exclusion pretty significant one for the high school that's i think with the board is focused on that debt exclusion and i think the more that we can park money and set it aside for future operational needs that there would be great we can look to the state to really bill us out  the comment that was made earlier about the foundation budget review commission you should read that report it's really an important one into lobby or state legislators in terms of increased state aid for under chapter seventy to  recalibrate if you will what the chapter seventy reimbursement is about can help us as well but we can look to the state the bill itself we have to do it ourselves or the park you money and setting aside the future operational needs in light of eighteen likely i think is very important as per thank you mr moderator rachel berger precinct two as as i understand it the original budget that was proposed put one hundred fifty thousand dollars into the stabilization fund with the idea that we would have a four percent reserve in our free cash and this proposal changes it to three percent so that seems to be not what the warrant committee had originally thought was appropriate but now a proponent of and we pushed as a board of selectmen to have not as much a policy but guidelines in terms of free cash because every year we would have a debate in terms of how much free cash we draw down the vision of local services under the partner revenue suggests somewhere between three to five percent of your operating budget those are guidelines what this article if it's successful will result in a free cash balance of around three percent so we won't go below three percent so it's somewhere in the three to five percent range we think is appropriate the budget wasn't prepared with the into suppression that would be four percent it was just prepared to ensure that we're within that guideline of three to five that's how we looked at the one thing i would remind the spotty is that we did use free cash for the town center redesign had that money required a two thirds majority whether you think that's a good thing or a bad thing considering the current conditions it would not have passed we passed if i remember correctly with a little over fifty percent weiss precinct one i'm usually not a form over substance person but in this case i think the appearance and the commitment that we will set this in a reserve and a reserve fund that has a higher hurdle for taking it out is an important reflection to the commitment to the voters when we said the override was really needed the other thing in this probably points out the obvious for those folks who say gee that two thirds vote i'm not really sure is this a backdoor way not to spend money on services this body just unanimously approved every item in one hundred six million dollars budget unanimously i think  demonstrates that when there's a need town meeting will step to the plate and fund its so i am fully supportive of this article  there any further discussion seeing none let's do it requires two thirds i want to do electronic vote so i think so yes if you're in favor or no if you're opposed of course while you're voting i just we will have the motion momentarily to recess till monday we'll complete action on monday right when do you want to display one eighty in favor fifteen oppose it passes mr full seven o'clock here monday