larry our records keeper for the evening and we're here on january twenty second two thousand and eighteen for the regular meeting of the light board we're going to be going slightly out of order to start with the general manager search piece of this and i'd like to ask rick white from grew us it's a button on that it's nice to see all you again i just want to give you a quick update about the general manager search as you know the week in between christmas and new year's i interviewed about thirty to  i developed a solicitation letter got my hands on a new england power public power association inventory mailed out solicitation letters to  all of the current general managers in new england asking them to look at the opportunity and as a result of that i got some feedback from a couple of the general managers that i know  that the current salary that the town of belmont pays for its general manager is a little low as a result of that i had a conversation with the chair as well as the town's personnel advertise today was one hundred sixty three thousand dollars plus change but think it's one sixty five one sixty five and i was wondering if you wanted to at least for recruitment purposes given the feedback that i've seen consider increasing the maximum level of the the compensation at least for advertising purposes to to a number that's more competitive with at least the data that we received and for the rest of the board where the town council said the we had to have this discussion and open session just however we had just think about yeah we we've checked with that so we have to be careful about how we talk about this the question in front of us is whether or not to increase the upper range we're asking for we're proposing and we're advertising with a range of salary the idea is to determine whether or not we want to raise the upper end of that range just to give us a broader shot at applicants we're not saying that we're going to pay that we're not going to talk tonight about what we're going to pay the person but we're just talking about whether we want to broaden the pay range in our advertising for the position because a in light of that information rick just provided and be rick has received some feedback from some people in the as i mentioned i sent out a solicitation letter to every member of the new england power public power association as well as a brochure and i got feedback from many of them telling me what their salaries  are we certainly can do a comprehensive evaluation of the comparability issues that you've identified this is something i discovered thursday  and that's fine and i just want to compliment your staff jessica and shauna for you know putting in an effort out to do the survey quickly just so that we could have this conversation with you regardless of the comparability issues and having limited data there's enough data there that tells you that the max where you're at isn't competitive with the field and we can go back and give you those comparable data and by the time that you actually negotiate a salary with a potential candidate but what's clear is that you're going to limit your your search ability given what salary data is out there right now if you have a maximum we brought in the range we're not saying we're paying a but we're brought in the range just to attract a larger pool of applicants given the fact that i've sent out solicitation letters and gotten feedback from the candidates i would like to tell them one that you've you've you've considered an approved a an up upper end a range not to say that you're going to you're going to bargain that and encourage people to apply and i will go back work with your staff and give you some comparability data about customers and rough the of experience but it's clear to me that given the data that i've seen preliminarily the differences between the six communities here isn't so great from belmont to justify the hundred sixty five to one hundred ninety dollars ninety thousand dollars difference  given that you want to recruit you want to recruit quickly and you want to get moving with this this recruitment my recommendation is that you you change the operand for recruit design make sense and i think that's that's entirely sensible i we're just talking about the advertising at this point we're not talking about paying the per your advertisement and you can't go back and say ok even though we said it's one hundred ninety we're really not and we're not saying hundred nine we're saying is between this number and that number for the general manager but we don't did we change the range at that time or in two thousand and thirteen two thousand that was what mr palmer's contract was about what right now i think it was three or contra the it was just we're like the burton absolutely yes so we're we're not going to we don't we're not going to have a separate human resource department for the white department no no mum's that's off the table there's been good collaboration i think in this process and we would like to see that go the general manager was included in that study those numbers have been carried through with the small incremental upgrades every year two percent of self the interesting enough there is paying compensation study on our agenda this evening but in that study the general manager is not listed and was not studied i guess in the inside that study so th there a long time you could but you could knock that bottom up by the same amount you're not going to top up english if the bracket but i mean i think honestly grue we talked about whether or not to even bring this to the board but i didn't feel comfortable having this decision made with three she was talking about you know i don't blame you along with this but but is i don't know what the responsibilities are at these other departments so a i don't know who we're recruiting we're not recruiting general managers press recruiting you know just in general me something that's looking to step it up into a role but i'm looking to attract someone that has at these departments in their current role to bring in here i don't i don't know and that's saying we shouldn't do that but sometimes you recruit someone that's looking to step up into a general manager role to further his or her career so sometimes you know they have and perhaps that's part of the negotiation  the market by say one fifty one ninety ok does that seem fair or is that yes just so you understand what the market is i think there's probably about seventy five general managers and knowingl had any number of conversations with any member of the general managers an ear and the feel i get for the field is that there are a lot of power public power plant managers even new england wise or nationally in the same phenomenon that you have with town managers and town administrators is that there's a crop of baby boom general managers who are now retiring and there aren't as many middle managers who want to do the job or competing for the job as there has been in the past so you have a very limited pool at least in new england but we can i do have the inventory of the national and and the national power public power association and i didn't want to start mailing these brochures out with with the different so arrange until i started talking to you i can send out another email to all of the new england managers and and correct it and i think i'll get some results out of it but i didn't want to start sending the hard copy of this to the don't meet until a month from now and then we can't wait yeah i appreciate that so the next item the working a back to the first time in which is the executive session to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining i b e w local one o four the expectation on the agenda of a fifteen minute director of operations well as the acting general manager over the late fall into early winter here we're starting to gear up to really it's spring time a construction season and started on structure and finding  engineering manager to the acting director of operations position to put the focus on the construction season going forward here talking earlier this evening with with rick white as far as the search for the general manager it's put looking probably guessing around ninety days or so and depending on how that shakes out the director of operations could even be longer than that so i think plugging that gap with the put in an update on the cost of service study that we're performing so we've been working with the firm that we chose to leave financial services they at this point they have all the data that they need from the li had several conference calls they have what they need there they're churning through the the data they're still telling us they're on track for a late march completion on that so as of late march called first of we have to work with exactly this is the foundation of you know building up from there grow there it's different programs or or production it's important know what the current cost of service is in terms of the rates that we're charging i know i should know that number i don't have it off the top my head but you know i'm not asking for a number i'm just asking if you if you have that data and the reason i'm asking i bob forster told me your several years ago and maybe as recently as a year ago that when the players play or pond station was under construction anticipated so this goes back to when the contracts were being vision by town meeting that the rates were increased to protect the light department from the eventuality of some unforseen events around the construction of that project and so what that says to me in a mine in form because i don't have the data is that you know if if you weren't building the boiler on station you would have had rates like this but because they were concerned about the risk the rates were bumped up a little bit whatever i don't know the number  station is built and it came in under budget not a lot but you know it's still under budget so you could assume a steady state basis bump back down because that premium that's in the current rate base wouldn't be there anymore and then i hate to beat the drum but i'm going to in the current rate base i know with a ninety nine percent level of confidence that the pension in the overhead payments are in there and and so i want to i want to understand where the money that has been collected for pension and opeth is now and i want to understand how that fits into the rates going forward because i feel very strongly and i'll be recommending this in connection with the upcoming budget cycle that the enterprise fund pay their their full cost on those expenses  go back to your original question i maybe misunderstood you but the last rate study was completed i believe in two thousand and eight in two thousand and thirteen or thereabouts it was a refresh it wasn't a true on cost of service study i fortunate thing is that bob forster i believe is on the permanent audit committee yes and that is he on the municipal like gordon has you know guys are yeah so he's a great guy he's a straight shooter he knows his numbers you the three substations we have to connect if you will the pipe to the new substation all of that transmission line of work has to be done i'm assuming this can be considered as part of the cost of service yes absolutely look at the other projects got two thousand and seven it's important to note on this that we're only talking about what christie sector of climate action of course so the climate action plan in two thousand and seven showed like department or electricity sector thirty sixteen point seven three percent the sloshes data we had another four point five eight that was renewables but we can't claim it as our clean or green energy because we do not have the rx to retire on those ok and then overall the other seventy eight percent or so was great power so how we track against the climate action plan is of that maximum thirty percent sector sixteen point seven three percent which breaks down to a different number was is what we're talking about here i'm also showing in the right here and what's ours is talked about a minute left i'm sorry go yeah looking on the bottom i thought i'm yes sorry apologize changes at the last minute on the bottom is the estimated supply mix for two thousand and eighteen and you can see that we're at seventeen percent we expect to be at seventeen percent that number is going to change with the new percentage of how much power we purchase i don't purchase so it's a percentage of the overall final number and we will know that until the in two thousand and eighteen the you'll see the two thousand and seven baseline was a little over eighty four thousand tons on the energy electricity sector the next shot in the next paragraph there two thousand and fourteen that was a an update to the two thousand and seven so the energy committee is doing this as an overall project for the entire town and they did a upgrade or a refreshing two thousand and fourteen and they are showing us now that through no action of the like department that the the c o two so have been reduced by forty seven percent from that eighty four thousand tons to forty four thousand tons or forty four and a so using two thousand and fourteen as our starting point for this update the third shot of two thousand and seventeen we are showing that we have it's fifty seven said fifty seven percent forty one tons roughly down to thirty six stardock thirty seven thousand tons yes just over thirty six thousand tons yes you know i thirty six so it is a little confusing because we're only talking about thirty percent of the of five and i was not to get some of the stuff up on the bottom of my website as i as we complained about in the past at the belmont but if you go on the portfolio page it's been blank for years as to what the breakdown of our power is it would be nice to start getting some of these numbers up once they're verified in your eighty percent well this is only you have this only thirty percent of the eighty percent because by my lights not the whole thing no i understand but if if it reduced to eighteen percent and thirty percent of eight percent is five percent more on carbon you know purchases or in the general as opposed to what we purchased you have the transportation sector with your electric vehicles becoming clear there and just the hybrids hurry too but i still want to discuss the stuff because it's here before us we can start the board of selectmen meeting late the only thing we have to pay attention to there i think is the public hearings on the demo deal yeah that's it so you know let's do  work here but there's some kind of issue with the rex can you can you explain the wrecks that if you keep the wreck something happens and if you sell the wrecks something happens and i think in the past we've been selling all the wrecks i don't write and tell them tell me in the public what that means show so in broad terms there is not a  up in massachusetts there's a clean energy standard and that stand it directs the ious to reduce their field to emissions by a certain percent every year know that there's no twenty five but then we're not greening up but we can claim to clean the green attribute of that right and that's really the sticking point so it's a way to really pump money back into the industry to keep it moving so if the developers of wind farms or solar farms things that age or if there's money in the system they're going to continue to build so it's the way that the government you know ok so where there's no receive a bull's rex sold mean here no because rooftop solar i see fills here tonight i feel graduations on your campaign rooftop solar that's that's not a wreck that's bought and sold that's i mean they don't well it's not bought and sold by the like department right so we do purchase the energy the excess energy from rooftop solar ok because we do not own the rock to that rooftop blue can't read hydro hydro at about seventeen percent and then rooftop and direct solar is doubling to one point six six percent and that's the two thousand and eighteen profile that's our estimate we keep in mind of that  that chunk of power for one year and just grid power while we go through this process of the purchase power policy that we'll get to in a little bit ok so that then we can so that that's what's showing up at dish and on the grid here in the yellow but that once we have this discussion that the only reason you did it for one year was to give us time to talk about in the ideas to replace that with something green rights and then i just want i have to say this that the the solar the rooftop and direct solar that really helps out in august with the peak peaking demand when those prices are set oh absolutely yes anything we do is just plain that please yes this is a in august right well in  the heat of the summer for us in the town of belmont yes there's a it's a very complicated topic but there is a a peak that utility reaches and ours is typically in the summer months of typically in august  past year was actually in june we don't know so in what happens is the way the ice so the independent system operator thank you so i so from new england the way they calculate our capacity number if it's in that timeframe and that's what they're going to reserve and that's what we have to pay for we may not use thirty for every year we may be down to thirty two or thirty one or something of that nature but depending on the usage and the amount of rooftop solar or other things in the town but because we hit that number of thirty four well that's what they lock us in now on so most utilities and i should say most but a lot of utilities are actually finding ways to lower that that peak so that in that particular time frame when the iso grabs that number it's a lower number and then you're on the hook for a lower amount and you can you can save significant monies in your energy purchased so solar rooftop solar contributes to that but i remember from last summer you are also said turn off your conditioners at some point yes yes yes so you know when this is coming right to some degree when we have asked people to reduce their energy  the new pay scales that this paying compensation study produces for it's at that that very back of the package for your information i sat down and went through this this plan  for several hours with h r on several occasions and although she's not here this evening she felt that it was a very well put together study at a high level walking through the study what they did is they you see the nine factors and you see the seven levels of points that can be associated with those factors you know what they did is they took for the number one factor knowledge education for factor assigned to each position and when it was all said and done you have a total of points associated with each job for each position that's how they then set the pay the overall compensation for that for the light department within that study there was also some question as to the compensation for several specific employees if they were being paid properly i'm reading this correctly out of the eleven positions seven or above average to or below average into this not enough data where we can that route you know what if it's that the yellow but she'd say i'm looking for yellow shoes because they've got the salary survey data the belmont like current salary in the comparison and over one hundred percent of them are over one hundred percent two or under a hundred percent to have insufficient overall averages it seems to me it's one hundred ten point nine percent they're close they're not grossly over for the most part  pretty much whatever it's above or below is fairly they are still it's not it's what our current grade numbers are at the gym boys are paid at that rate right now we're not talking about that right it's not their actual compensation it's telling me that currently the director of operations is a great love and level and that great a level level based on the comparison on the minimum side it's one hundred eight point four percent over the survey over the you know over the minimum number in the survey you know our starting point understanding higher by eight point four percent yes and on the max inside the max is six point three percent and like i said seven of them are above grade above range two of them are below rating manager is twenty point six percent or the minimum that's the largest one and twenty two point seven percent on the macside it's pretty significant yes the countless twenty percent on the minimum twelve i mean and then the energy in  that's what we were at when this survey was done and the new data is the february first two thousand and seventeen and it says revised and to an eighteen that revision by the way was just adding in some columns that they left  changing any of the numbers so let me ask you this so this is competitive pays a seven point five percent of midpoint from y according to the to the vendor that plus minus seven and a half percent is that pays o midpoint you want to be as you'll see there's a minimum of midpoint a maximum and seven half percent in either direction if you had to pay zero so these grave what the skin numbers in the in the chart here are tracking the yellow numbers are they are not the general manager's position right the rain the range right and then the the yellow sheets in there that was a the secondary piece which is to would address individual employees so  what long and short of these numbers i can tell you that if you look at the two thousand and sixteen numbers which were approved by the board in the overall last paying compensation study back in two thousand and thirteen in that they grow at two percent as the board votes to provide polos this new two thousand and seventeen if we did nothing and we didn't we didn't approve this and we just stayed where we were a two percent increase over those two thousand and six which was the seven point five because that's three years sheets were based on the two thousand and thirteen survey one on one that's what i want to do to really understand because it appreciate you trying to explain this craig it's just a lot of information it's an important decision for us and really more time so that what is there is there is no is there a timeline on this that needs to be done purchase power policy which a lot actually happened since the last time we met so you know and again this is more of an update just to so everybody understand what we did you were called our last meeting