unsuccessfully opening e mail one of the things i like to welcome i think we have for folks out of five welcome members of the public are there any public comments this evening so far feel free to make comments later recognition by the chair superintendent report kendall i do have a practice just to lean into the budget just wanted to make the board aware that we go on our best information sometimes that's wrong and you're liable for snow this is related to a previous decision by the commission to reimburse erie brass  plans and anything that we have no right now what we pretty sure is in the ground and under the current circumstances the site plan or schematic was not a product of remounting engineering to understand  stands for best available data to make sure that you run water to it on a regular basis so what are those circumstances they get pumped out to clear it out so that's what leads to this unexpected  and i want to make sure we have a clear understanding of what it is we've been presented with that i think maybe isn't and a narrative would might have asked a couple clarifying questions first please do so start with this argument and then move on from the calculated amounts and i did not have time to go back through and check to make sure that was the case but i know that in that at least in terms of the calculated percentage changes those those were not the say so i'm guessing that some that the town that we as a body town takes action on the expansion system into the gateway to some extent ok so what we what we don't have here is a budget that is appropriate to the system and its operation as it is today looking to twenty sixteen ok i have to say that i think we need to start with that because without that we can't know is how the aspects of the system as it is are projected to perform financially and physically or twenty sixteen without the overwhelming influence of the gateway site so what i would i would say first of all first ask would be that the next iteration of this  be the a business as usual budget where we don't have the expansion in the now that said i think that it's it's very good that you did try and characterize that what the impacts would be but what i would like to see would be a second a day scenario one budget so we have business as usual and then scenario one is where we would be looking at a at the expansion but i think i think we've got to a point where we know what there's not that many scenarios that we're looking at and and what you've got here at least on the revenue side is great we wanted to so this is expansion out to the mobile around the mobile station short of the mobile station not to the trailer park why did why did you give us that one didn't look like own peach timeline then you would be totally hooked to the mobile home park in this oh i need you completely down looks like but then secondly what construction schedule if we go ahead do we want to propose to the town you know so and then henceforth where does that come in here but i'm just concerned that we don't  have at this point in our annual planning cycle cycle at least a basic case budget that we can look at make decisions like some of the things that come up if we have excess revenues do they go to provide regularly for do they go into revisit this in some ways it's pulling some information out to go back to a baseline i think of it just as a revised baseline with assumptions that we're not in one to three year to look at based budget and then we that we made at some point the correct me if i'm wrong here again to only in budgeting take into consideration one hundred thousand dollars worth of project it's up to age it's great that we've been doing better than that but when we but but the question is do we do we expect it formally in the budget or do we celebrate when we get it and enjoy figuring out how to spend it as opposed to put it in the budget and then allocated before it has any chance to show up so how would a bonus that anticipated wages that we build our household budget and i think at the end at the end the the  the uses that the money gets put to maybe in may and probably will end up being the same that i think candles made an eloquent case for them being put into reserves but i would much rather have the money in hand and decide to put it in reserves and plan to put it  reserves and then beggar the reserves because of that comes up one way you know it's it's a mixed and it's it's it's there's not a heck of a lot of difference but it's from budgeting perspective it does tend to make things a little more predictable modestly more conservative which is probably a good thing probably not vote does it make sense to you guys kind of what's your reaction to that and i'm sorry like what was the figure you've put em just is in the budgeting there's a lot of money that just went someplace i was shocked to find that we had twenty five thousand dollars you know stores are that's crazy reserve my we reserve a few years back water resources got changed where they have just one operating room and i think you have a water reserve with one reserve so you only have three cans and nothing gets put into the reserves until the end of the year if you have a surplus it doesn't get put in through the budget as a payment i just took me to any management class and one of the things that they tell you should have three separate types of reserves there's actually five pipes that they recommend that we don't need a debt service reserve but we do need the ones that are in this place and then they say that because we hear a lot what's  target how many thousands of dollars do you want and they look at it as you shouldn't look at it as many dollars you want in reserve you should look at what percentage of the revenues you get every year are you going to put in your reserves if you need them another thing i learned in the thing is that it is the worst type of budgeting that you can do is that you look at when you spent last year and you put it into an issue that's not taking into account picture what you need to spend you as long as you're not increasing the number of bodies you more or less know you've got kendall has given us an explanation in the past that septa drive a new receipts are a product of the state of play of a very volatile market county and depends a lot on what the state of repair of the other wastewater treatment systems around here if i'm remembering correctly and so and that is you know that's that's beyond our ability to predict i think that so far we have exceeded the budgeted amount every year but it's never been predictable  but i'd like to see the facts you know just so there's a hole here in my business in human services some of which are unpredictable you may not be driven by them understand it's there's a lot to it so that you would yeah that would go into a budget narrative i'm just start we're not talking huge money here i mean if the variation in actuals looks like it's been  hundred there's actually only one actual figure here which is one hundred eighty six thousand hours in one year which is twelve thirteen so we have before that we don't have after that increase that this year was because we're doing very well the move will continue some of them to be the most conservative approach would be safe zero and any revenue you get is additional revenue which as you describe half of it goes into cost the other half can go into these are i'm just saying that's the most conservative approach so weird rewire and if it's somewhere between zero and a hundred fifty farm bill all the sudden because when you look at what you got for revenues and income and then you plug in the values that they recommend here for the reserve accounts as a revenue percentage in you don't need to adjust the rates when you look at the wastewater side of it on your wastewater rates are well they're just too low even with one hundred fifty sept if you can get to the minimum percentage of what you should be putting in for your of because of the depreciation and equipment i mean it's been ten years now since we had a foster's upgrade most plants undergo an upgrade every twenty years so you're halfway there and that was several million dollar upgrade that i always hear earl are was the commission and the commission tends to say raise i hear from the folks that the rates are too high we need to lower the rates what i heard quite loudly from a lot of the customers and everything was poor me because now you're having to adjust my rates and not only did you have to adjust it this time that you've done it three other times because we go this way and then we go this and that's the classic curve that they show you in here is that poor management results in this up and down as opposed to increasing the rates it's like remember power rates go up a little bit up a little bit phone company up a little bit everybody goes up a little percent revenue career a collection system capital fund is three percent revenue year in the wastewater capital reserve that ten percent is that your most important so if i read this correctly you're proposing to go from nineteen thousand our capital reserve reserves in fourteen fifteen to two three four sixty five thousand hours or so in fifteen sixteen note the top the top three minute three lines are the only reserve expenses the sixteen to fifty four sixteen to fifty it was ten thousand leave i don't understand the nine thousand versus the ten thousand figure nine thousand was the collection system me i see three line items the short term capital fund the collection system capital fund in the wastewater capital reserve and there are three different mine and three different ran over those can we call them all reserve funds so the grand total of all those revert reserve funds in fourteen fifteen was a total of nineteen thousand down and the proposal for fifteen sixteen is it is sixteen and change sixteen and change in twenty seven l talking the same thing here i mean what in it's different because we've had just one reserve account you really they want you to break it up you know it's at the end of the day it's how much money are we putting reserves and how much money that's it to the uninformed and i appreciate the reasons behind it it just seems like it is it's an unusually steep curve in a single year as in the past years i reserve one fifteen nineteen you like this it's not because you would have been putting that money into the reserves and it turned oh you were short on your revenue if you would pull the money back and reserves to meet your expenses if you had to or you wouldn't just rates which would be important since you would a choice if you don't point putting it into the account like that you could potentially get to the end of the year or you could be sitting here just as we are twenty five thousand dollars in a way that we've been doing budgeting is that by waiting to the end of the year hoping that you have a surplus we have a lot of discussion at the end of the year as we've had with bob and eighty thousand more rate really for reserves and there's still a question if you build a raid into your budget so the folks you know look he's got twenty seven thousand going into the wastewater he's got sixteen to the collection system is going to you know sixteen to the capital and to put ten thousand and twenty thousand and thirty thousand in when the no comes do take that sixty thousand read out look on what it was your towards your payment and you have your budget built up to thirty thousand dollars for reserve payment i think i'd like to see is not only the baseline as you describe chris but kendall if in addition to a dollar increase can we include a percentage over increase decrease because that's where it striking just to be transparent when i look at nineteen going to sixty five it's kind of buried in here until you see the percentage increase and it goes up one hundred percent it would stick out and i'd just like to make an overt yes i want to i want to make it clear that basically philosophically i agree with kendall's direction on this that you know i think we got into the situation we got into because we did not have with the current members who remembers that and i think there was a general feeling that the board support the public for for avoiding those kind of big jumps so what i think i want i just what we clear the my mind questioning is not in any way going back on that i think we're headed in the right direction it's just how to how to handle it in  way so that we truly understand what we're doing with the money and the risks that where that we're inevitably engaging and also that we can be clear with the with the with the users quickly and how much you know so this is i appreciate how much work goes into doing the multiple versions of this and  other comments for coming back the next from what we'd like to see so a baseline you have a percentage increase decrease column and we didn't get a chance to go through your narrative but on and presuming the narrative then we can get update so we are made course there are a couple of wheels turning here so i'll just introduce this joint then jeff ask if you any have any comments so we're doing two things we've started the initial negotiations with the mobile home park about what would it take to extend the line the rest of the way what revenues what costs as discussed in multiple previous can meetings that is a significant issue because there's a large volume of use and a large number of users way out at the end of the one i sort of speed it up it also has some unique features because it is a mobile home park so one of the things we're dealing with is an expanded income survey residents of the mobile home park which goes not just the financing but potentially to grant phones which of them could be say forty five percent of the cost so a forty five percent of the construction costs are paid by a it obviously changes the bond and you'll bond payments very substantial so it's a major factor so there are some wheels turning on both of those directions i don't know how much more we can add about that at this point and revenues for us as a as a cost for other users and how do we find something that that's going to be acceptable that allows us to do the project and make it affordable for for the mobile home park residents there's still some information we're we're trying to flush out for we can continue we have a session next week where we're going to continue negotiations at the select board meeting we're going to look at a question for issuing death of a bonding question for town meeting and it's a little more complex than what i first thought but i have some paperwork on it which will and i'll explain everything but there's two important steps beyond the negotiation one will the select board agreed to put that funding question on for town meeting  effect if it's on town meeting what's the vote going to be and then you always have is it necessary for it to be on town meeting do we have more time to work on it and i get the sense from the negotiated committee that we they they at least want to try to put something on town meeting this year and i know bob reaps in the back the the rapes are looking to develop their plans they're not going to do a complete build out this year but they want some assurances what they're possibilities are and i think there's steps in negotiating and and the outcome of a bond question are real important to them is as much as it is to to the mobile home park at this point so there is a lot of moving pieces a lot of things that have to come together  it appears that government is being so and ponderous and this but and i'm not going to deny that we're we're taking it slowly but it is complex and it is a lot to ask of people along with that goes another program or what the current users are trying to pay for it then it means that new users the revenue from the new system has to be adequate to pay the cost of the new system and the wheels are still turning with some of that what would that look like that hence the the income serving the potential ran on this and also another assumption buried in there an assumption that the current that the extension would be net cost or a net rate neutral for current users the first year not two or five or ten years later when some additional users might come online so there's to set some parameters  what it would look like and that sweet spot if you will is somewhat small it puts us between not a rock and a hard place but a narrow band of what works for both current users and new users so that's i think why well we are talking about that we need to well some of the base infrastructure cost that's one of the other things we've talked about the new users paying not just for the extension but appropriated share of the other infrastructure the other costs and me in the was going to say most of a bruce just said but also that i believe that green mountain's analysis showed that if the new users you know a reasonable projected cohort of the new years is actually a very conservative projected cohort of new years  brought on line paying current rates at expected flows that those revenues would could be expected to cover the finance necessary financing stream and if being charged now that was the thing that turned it from a i mean i think that publicly we've stated that we will not include we will not engage in a project that will increase rates on current users but i think politically in order to get this approved it would be certainly beneficial to say that we believe that this will lower rates and i believe that that what and in the please jump in if i'm wrong about this but there was what green mountain some analysis suggested no guarantees but but the least the pencil that pretty well on paper here's the cap carving out or the obstacle we face of the mobile home park representative said in this room we're not paying those ra so jeff maybe you should do that could you remind people when the next negotiating meeting it will be next wednesday are there and so maybe we c do an executive session for fifteen minutes after next we're at the tail end of our next water sewer commission meeting for the purpose that chris just described in executive session update on those doesn't get this specific kind of fine but what you care mystery is is this going to happen right and i think that we should be able to generate an answer to that faster than three years that we really have to trailer park or there's the spot well so it is sort of reach out question if they're failing system this is in their area it would help the case for the grant application so there's a finite number of propert i don't know if we'll be able to hold the meeting at the meeting but plan to meet right we also have a couple other items to make sure we get the approval of warrants maybe and pass us round if you have a chance to so david you look at those those are any questions reagan or it's a meaning past those around and then approval of minutes just to move those forward and then come back to another  comments on the minutes that went out to somebody fifteenth in january fifth like to make a motion to approve the minutes of december fifteenth ok this draft further discussion all in favor any further discussion timelines on favor say aye aye aye and it is unanimous as well then back to the final item which is the lincoln city report and financial reports so i'm sorry a sort of short we have about five minutes left for this last item from kendall or jeff are you prepared to talk about those i look over the both of those documents the financial a plan for continued the gateway extension and executive session to update all members of the commission and the go on to go she asians and then leave the meeting today we talked about a