have a couple of residents we like to recognize as well as police the board wishes to offer their condolences to the families of william t to ross mr ross his brother david is a precinct a town meeting representative thomas p fox mrs fox lorraine fox was a long time nurse at the ed when a joan school robert or father in law former assistant child clerk bonnie pore to the families of william thomas and robert in many faith traditions it's believed that then surely we'll all be together and i hope that brings them some peace and comfort younger brother died about ten days ago and the board wants to also recognize his service and his loss and i appreciate that thank you very much thank you  proposed to the consideration of the budget by the several department heads as you know we have meetings scheduled this week this evening which is tuesday tomorrow night wednesday and thursday and it's expected that would vote at some point either thursday of the following tuesday monday being a holiday and then forward the board of selectmen budget recommendation to the committee on finance and taxation i presented to the board of budget message dated december thirty two thousand and eleven i'd like to summarize parts of it for the board is explained so i came up with some of the i think are all going to be present at the mass mean this simple association meeting on january twentieth where we expect that his excellency the governor will address the members of delegations from the cities and towns and tell us what we expect to get for local aid local aid being approximately twenty percent of our revenues the other eighty percent coming in primarily from the tax levy garnered from the property tax and local receipts and  the state has a very challenging time ahead of it in with that backdrop we face some crucial decisions and with cost in several areas that increase by greater than two want to have percent you can see that will have great difficulty in providing level services to our citizens these fiscal realities and no new situation for this  board to consider we went through the same scenario last year and do the lows the fiscal realities last year i attempted to propose a balanced budget full of fiscal year that were in the fiscal year two thousand and twelve and at that time i asked all departments through their respective department heads to propose a budget represented a five percent decrease over the prior fiscal year of two thousand and eleven in then we would make adjustments from there and knowing that this would be both controversial and painful to those budgets that were affected i attempted to reach a consensus with the major stakeholders in the process of forming a budget by proposing a budget liaison committee i proposed having preliminary meetings with representatives of the committee on finance and taxation the board selectmen school committee and our financial staff to review available revenue and to suggest an appropriate split of estimated revenue for the present year and despite several attempts to convene this meeting representatives of the school department didn't seem like attending this meeting was a priority for them and that budget liaison committee never had a chance to address the issues in but nonetheless as the charter dictates the process went on but it went on without a consensus and last year i asked the department heads to explain the impacts on the a budgets and i adjusted the budgets after a close look at their critical times during the ramp up to the fall i put on the agenda with the board night and for fiscal year two thousand and thirteen budget seeing if the board wished to point out to the board we have had quite a lot of turnover from last year with certain department heads partment heads have had a chance to review the needs of their departments and they've done a very good job justifying their requests and i've asked them to address here is that the  determine they have critical needs and there is no department that has been affected more adversely in recent years as i indicated in my budget message that is in his second day of training in quantico virginia at the f b i leadership institute before he went down to virginia i went over the budget with him he broke it down he justified all the ills there is support the chief put that in the budget i think we should support the chief's efforts in syria in dress to critical needs in this particular budget the fire department has some critical needs as well for full staffing we'll hear from my chief dollars later tonight as we'll hear from the superintendent of public works john batchelor doing vast the department heads to see if anyone is in need of a reclassification to make sure everyone understands what they are expected to do within their respective departments  department heads to see what training they can assist the staff with help anybody that needs training in any particular area one particular area that all of the partner had seem to agree on is the need to have  more training in assistance with respect to information technology to that end we had proposed to add to the line item some additional training and support for staff in the department budget sin you will see that as we go over the budgets right before actually a final document was submitted to you we received information from the school committee that the information technology director did not wish to continue the practice that had been in existence for some time in suggested the separation of services with the id departments and to that end is a recommendation in the budget you'll hear thursday night for id director for the general government departments with respect to some budget highlights  thank you bill role was with us the town accountant and i thank him for all his assistance on the budget and with three respect to some revenue projections on the revenue side general fund revenues are projected to increase by two million two hundred seventy eight thousand five hundred ninety nine dollars or three point two six percent over the present fiscal year of two thousand and twelve and by a way of comparison the present year that we are in the budgeted revenues grew at three point nine percent year over year when you compare it to fiscal year two thousand and eleven you know as the board also knows the fiscal year two thousand and thirteen revenue growth is augmented by two new philly new local option taxes that were approved at the two thousand and ten annual town meeting that is the motel tax as well well as the food excise tax with respect to the tax levy a projected tax levy of fifty one million eight hundred forty two thousand six hundred fifty eight dollars as presented in the calculation that we have presented to the honorable board which includes a figure of two hundred thousand a new growth i note to the members of the board that there is not a lot of activity as far as new construction but fortunately we do pick up values as of january one on two projects one at the store randolph line known as the lodge where we pick up some revenue from the lodge of the value one january one of this year and we also pick up value from alter woods on the stock canton line in the combination of those two pretty much count for most of that two hundred thousand dollars of new growth with respect to state aid we're projecting a small increase in funding for net state aid by the amount of one hundred fourteen thousand eight hundred eighty seven dollars and the total amount of state it is projected to be approximately thirteen point six million dollars again the board will hear the same time i do from the governor with the governor's proposal will be and at least will have the start of a discussion and then it will go into the house for consideration of house two with respect to local receipts due to the state of the economy we project that local receipts will continue to decline the biggest area of the client is in excise tax revenue people buy less in the way of new automobiles and that reduces the excise tax receipts yes to made it local receipts projected for fiscal year two thousand and thirteen is six million two hundred  seventy seven thousand eight hundred eighty eight dollars and in the spirit of fiscal conservatism this is ninety percent of the fiscal year two thousand and eleven actual rubber nose because we don't have the actual for this fiscal year we're  fiscal year two thousand and twelve as we just ended the first half of the present fiscal year with respect to free cash free cash is estimated at two point five million dollars actual certified free cash is expected to be available to us for the determination of the figure by the end of this month january two thousand and twelve with respect to some general budget considerations w respect to wages i'm i am including the figure of four hundred twelve thousand for collective bargaining agreements and as of this writing we do not know how the collective bargaining process will follow so instead of putting any raises in with line items in the budget in the select wins budget we have a reserve listed there for collective bargaining agreements and we also have a figure in that budget item that for settlements or whatever the come up during the fiscal year so in this dollar amount may have to be adjusted as the fiscal year unfolds here with respect to our existing programs the fiscal year two thousand and thirteen budget projects to be another difficult year for the town we will need to evaluate all of the town the partment and the programs that we should have to serve our residen and see how we can improve on official seas with a view to the bottom line some areas of expenditures to highlight in the budget on the general municipal budget this budget as proposed is recommended to increase by one million nine hundred eighteen thousand nine hundred forty dollars or eleven point two percent this reflects an effort to address cuts from prior budgets that figure incorporates the fact that several years in the recent past the general government departments have suffered disproportionate losses  with respect to the budget and those losses generally have a nerd to the benefit of the education budget the general municipal budget as proposed is approximately one third of the total budget after deducting for joint costs with respect to the education budget the recommended budget for education for both the stoughton public schools in the southeast and regional vocational technical high school will increase by nine hundred thirty thousand eight hundred twenty three dollars or two point five one percent the education budget as proposed is approximately two thirds of the total budget after deducting for joint costs when i speak of the joint costs the joint account budget will increase by one million one hundred ninety one thousand eight hundred eighty five dollars or seven point five three percent with respect to debt service this expenditure is expected to increase by a little less than one hundred thousand or two point eight percent i have indicated in the budget message a supplied the board with a copy of the handout that was distributed at the town meeting of two thousand and eleven because it was of note that the figure that is listed there on my exhibit a indicates what the school department represented to be to be the total amount of school employees in fiscal year eleven and they listed what the represented were the total amount of town employees in fiscal year eleven and i wanted to know to the members of the board you'll see that that number there that's proposed in exhibit a that follows page twelve of my budget message happens to be the same number that you will find in the school department budget at their page ten and their page ten they have a figure of employees and they take that figure on their page ten those pie diagrams so called and you see in the top right column on page ten top right part of the page the numbers that happen to match what is on exhibit  those numbers come from data from the mass department of elementary and secondary education the problem with that number is that number is supplied to the department of elementary and secondary education by the school committee in the in the school administration those numbers are not correct matter of fact the cheer passed out to members of the board this weekend a two page letter that had some background information in one of those sheets and the chair would know this better than i me because there's several enclosures but jim and stag noni had a handout and it made a reference to how many the joint accounts and specifically the top sheet would be called municipal school charges in inside the municipal school charges this is a she and i believe it's  this worksheet with the school department advises the department of elementary and secondary education of certain expenses and i note that some of those items are a wrong now you'll see the handout that in the bottom right you see school e o y and of here worksheets for two thousand and eleven and if you look at the top of the handout that the chair supplied the members of the and you'll know that it lists how many school employees participate in the health insurance plans and how many town employees participate in the health insurance plans and it gives a figure that three hundred forty seven school employees participated in the health plan for the fifth and june thirtieth two thousand and eleven then you look at there then you'll see the town it says to sixteen well that should be interesting because the school the town employees it says a two  on page ten now even there even there figure says we have more employees than they put on this and the figures are wrong right they they say this two hundred sixteen town employees on the health plan that was correct so you can have two hundred sixty minutes a poll employee is told they say this five hundred eighty five school employees if there is that many different folks that are on grants those grants should be considered part of the budget to the reason i say this is it speaks to how you divide up the budget the board will know that on exhibit b that follows exhibit a in my budget message i made a reference to the payroll and how many people are on the town payroll and i present to you a confidential confidential payroll information with certain information redacted such as social security numbers that list of employees now listens for the second quarter of two thousand and eleven that's the it's the second quarter that is the quarter that's a second quarter for that fiscal year it was printed on june twenty ninth two thousand and in june thirty is for june thirty's payroll right now without getting into every line item i just point out at the in the last page there w seven hundred eighteen employees that's not counting people that get ten ninety nine snow i don't want to get into that but all i'm trying to suggest to you is for someone to suggest that the information that is on those diagrams that is supplied by d e s c should stand for the proposition that it is put in your packets is incorrect it's a wrong inference that town in fact supplies more aid to let the partment than is stated that has a direct bearing on our budget because sometimes people talk about the budget and they say hey give me a needs based budget or give me a budget that assumes revenue is x or assuming revenue is x if we divide it two thirds one third of whatever the percentage what do you come up with and i would suggest to the members of the board that general government departments have suffered a disproportionate share of the budget even if you give any credence to this fiction that is two thirds one third thing which came out of a budget screw thousand and one they had a way just for that it was before bill was here but some of his predecessors had a little tough time and they had to make some adjustments but all i'm suggesting to you is the  numbers the numbers needed a little different look so when people say hey how come you did a lemon point two percent for general government then you only went up x percent for the other side whatever they have gotten their share and then some over the years but on the needs based budget these departments need these positions none of this stuff is fluff none of the stuff is patronage none of the stuff is things that we do not need him by the way most of it isn't even new most of the positions that are referred to on a review as new positions aren't new positions some have a little different name to him but they're not new positions they're not new bodies they're not new belly buttons they're  t different duties but not new positions so when you put all that together i would just suggest to members of the board that the general government  departments have a needs based budget and i would ask the board after you have a chance to talk to the department heads that are very ready willing and able to defend the a budgets that the board supports what is proposed for those  general government departments in the way we had asked the department heads to queue up tonight was the first part i would be a police department the second one would be fire department the third would be d p w i'm certainly ready to respond to any questions members of the board have of me for anything that i proposed to to you any areas that we overlooked will certainly  fix them or whatever or if there are things that weren't in a package so whatever we'll get the backup information to you is certainly a busy time period but if the members of the board  had any questions for me at this time or in a later in the presentations or be more than happy to respond bill rowe was here a town accountant with very good command of  year to date on our present fiscal year as well as a pretty good feel for the actual two thousand and eleven that we just wrapped up and we have proposed budgets for fiscal chairman if you had any questions or members of the board i'd be more than happy to respond ok thank you frank in first of all i'd like to start out is thanking the town manager in the department heads for putting the budget together  practices i wrote in my letter has been as we've always just taken last year's and in as the town manager outlined as last year we he went into a meeting and started with cuts but this is the first time that i can recall from being a town meeting rep for a number of years in only being on the board for a short period of time that we've never really asked the town departments to give us a needs based budget i think it really opens our eyes up to the needs of the the town departments at a time you know as the when the economy and things still aren't the perfect but it gives us a lot of things to consider but we also get to you know look at what the impacts are to the other side as well so with that you know it's not going to be easy we'll you know based on the two budgets submitted we're looking at a two point six million dollars deficit so you know as we go through we'll just have to keep that in mind and make some you know it's going to some tough decisions and a long process as we learned last year some moneys became available later on in the process of revenue she'd always changes so we need to be prepared when we're done with this to be able to give some priorities if there's things that we cut then let's have a priority list to go back in  as if money becomes available as well so again thank you to the staff for putting this together thank you to the town treasurer who put a lot of the information that i requested together on debt service and everything hopefully the boy it helps is talking about a full time this is people that are getting paid sixteen bucks to coach again that's why there's so many more this is substitute teachers some of these people's gross wages are sixteen dollars twenty one dollars those aren't full time employees so i don't think that the the information that was provided in their budget is fallacious i think that it's apples and oranges there are some th motion on the consent agenda go down one of the revenue she talked about to turn back a little bit on the debt service if there's something you want to add and then the unfunded liability where we're at with that for this coming  year well the sight of the top property tax levy down two and a half percent is expected to be fifty one million six forty to sixty eight estimated new growth of two hundred thousand total tax lobbyists of the one million eight forty two sixty eight the board of selectmen will be setting the tax rate around october of this year if we include the two and a half percent increase here who's ever on the board will have to raise the tax level two and a half percent because town meeting will have spent the money  now's the time for the board to decide if in october we want to raise the tax levy less than two and a half percent now is the time because i know there was at least one member that was very frustrated last october that we couldn't go less than two and a half percent because tao meaning it already spent that money but this is something to think about there's some  selectmen is going to do and if the board of selectmen who's ever on it at the at the appropriate time doesn't do what this is so we're going to have a revenue shortfall we're going to town meeting they can spend all this money and those of us who've been in town meeting for twenty of this is the twenty ninth year for me and i was a child meeting will spend every nickel at the finance committee says it's available and then that ties the hands of the board because this is so much that we're going to raise the levy two and a half percent and there's some other raises further down that i'll get to when mr rove gets to  basically where estimating that to be more or less level from what it is and in fiscal twelve sixteen million one sixteen a twenty seven you know i think you have a back hopefully have a backup sheet your package which and the assumptions used again as mr crimmins mentioned that governor's proposal would be out around the end of january we we are still receiving two hundred ninety four thousand and forty four dollars from the mass school building authority for the o'donnell middle school resident renovation i think we have more maybe seven or eight years left on that the assessments i used t month the special town meetings i want to just clarify what i've done here we're estimating a one percent increase per year  cisco oven twelve and thirteen what sometimes happens is again we can't predict when contracts are going to be settled and ratified or if they're going to be ratified but we usually ratify some at a special town meeting within the annual and others at the annual town meeting so what we've done in this just the ballpark assumption i've set aside two hundred thirty thousand for  eleven in fiscal twelve and a so called special town meeting that too and that two hundred thirty thousand represents one percent per year roughly thirteen million dollars of general fund payroll l hundred fifty thousand dollars already set aside so roughly three hundred eighty thousand to cover the two years the two fiscal years and we've already set aside in the percent so that's should say it says four hundred sixteen inscriptions such it should say four hundred twelve thousand four hundred twelve thousand and four for fiscal thirteen and that's part of the thirteen fiscal thirteen selections reserved for collective bargaining and nine union increases so total of six million to seventy seven eighty eight projected the enterprise accounts reimbursed of the general fund those are your so called indirect costs that comes to a million five seventy eight six twenty one so we have ambulance cedar hill public health sewer and water those are your basically your costs that the general fund pays for on behalf of the enterprise funds health insurance life insurance pension the there is no overlay surplus so far overlays overweigh for those who don't know is the allowance for abatement set exemptions each year we set aside some money for that and then if it's not used if we don't have abatements that are in excess of the allowance then the board of assessors can vote to release that money into what's called overlay surplus and that would be a one time source that i are going to be working on that and see if there's some money to be released we still have those pella tax court cases out there level rise and personal property poles and wires and so forth but we're going to take a look at that so that might be a possible additional one time source title five are seats reserved for appropriation what happens is people have signed up for the title five program and they pay that  the town pays out of the grant money or actually it's a loan loan grant interest free loan and and the homeowners pay us back over a certain period of time and that money goes into a fund then once each year we transfer that money over to the general fund to offset the debt service on that interest for people on the principle on the industry interest free bond so we have two of them out there now so  twenty thousand six ten would be the offset on the debt service on those titles on that title five long we did receive one time additional cherry sheet aid i think it was roughly sixty four million dollars statewide they're making an exception on this on the they make exceptions on this one tiny thing they did they had the same thing in two thousand and four you can either you can appropriate it during fiscal twelve you can if you had set your tax free fiscal twelve you could use that as a source or you can just let it flow and free cash at the end of the year so that was one hundred ninety five thousand and forty one supplemental so that comes down to total general from revenues of seventy five million eight seventeen one fifty two and then we have what we call the other amounts to be raised these are your non budgeted amounts that we have to set money aside for and report on the tax recap and again these are estimated amounts the assessor's overlay or the allowance for bateman as it is and exemptions for fiscal thirteen that's made about seven hundred thousand the snow removal overdraft for those of you are familiar the store move is one of those accounts that can be legal legally be overdrawn provided the provider we nee some procedures has to be approved by the town manager and the finance committee the overdraft and then that overdraft is raised on next year's recap and then we have we have some enterprise funds with estimated general fund subsidies cedar hill we we had west meaning that to be fifty three thousand although you may you may see in your sheets if you have the excel sheets that's that's might have changed a little bit the water fund rest a meeting based upon a five percent increase which was similar to what we had last year that we would have a subsidy of a forty five thousand nine twenty seven the superfund restimulating three hundred ninety two thousand based on a five percent increase in the ambulance fund based on one point one million dollars worth of we're estimate and the and the proposed budgets would be five seventeen one sixty one and then there is a what we call an a t m articles set aside what we do is we have articles for which we can only pay cash we can't borrow for them so we'll set aside money for that at the annual town meeting so for that for the annual town meeting the town manager is setting aside a million dollars for non borrowing articles or articles for which we could borrow but we tell meeting the next pay cash or for the stabilization fund and then another five hundred thousand to perhaps put into a post employment benefit trust fund to try to knock down that hundred seventeen million dollars billon on the actuarial study that you had in two thousand and nine so so the total after the total available after the other must be raised to seven to me seventy two million to fifty seven zero sixty four question yes i know it's a teeny weeny little print but there's an assumption here that after a town meeting but probably before july first we're going to raise water rates five percent and so rates five percent that's a commitment if we accept this revenue that's a commitment the board maybe not every individual on the board but been the board is accepting that they're going to have to do that and the biggest problem i see i foresee in its not anywhere here and i can understand why not is there is an article to offer a tax reduction to those over sixty five conservatively that's going to cut at least one and a half million dollars out of our taxes i mean seniors  fastest growing populations to their fifteen percent of the population is ten thousand parcels do the multiplication now multiply that by the thousand dollars each will get off and you come to one point five million dollars whether or not that passes and we have to remember the town meeting skews older than the general population ah that's not accounted for here that somehow we're going to have to end it i double checked my warrant is supposed to fix to start in this fiscal year so i mean we need to keep that in mind that it this this number in assumes two and a half percent increase in the tax levy it assumes a five percent increase in water a five percent increase and so are any and it assumes that that article will fail now if those things don't happen this deficit number is going to be over three million dollars it's not going to be one point seven one percent and assuming there's an eight hundred thousand dollar duction to the schools so it's really two point six million deficit right now based on the budgets as they were submitted that was one of the things they asked bill rowe to supply us with is an estimate on how much we're going to raise the water in the sewer rates to make them balance these are enterprise accounts they should be self sufficient and they shouldn't be burdening the general fund and you know some of the things we need to be looking at and this is why i went through all the debt and gave me all the information on debt is we get to hear the stops if we want to keep the rate down we need to really look at not looking at what is it that we really need to do what we when we need to do it and what how much we have to raise rates the following year instead of you know approving all these things and send them in and then find it out or you get to raise the rates you know trying to get a ahead of this instead of behind it as we always seem to be every year but you know we're looking at we have to raise rates if we raise them in the first payment the sort rates by eleven percent or eleven happened so i know bill wanted to say something so again and the you know this is based upon an estimated amount of retained earnings we should have the retained earnings the so called free cash for the enterprise funds by the end of january so i get these numbers probably change quite often i just don't see millions of dollars coming into the coffers i mean these numbers will change up and down to a degree but i don't see over three million dollars or four million dollars rather than later on after the budgets already voted that's just a recommendation to the moderator which on a program about the taxes tax exemption yeah because that will send everybody back to the drawing board is as well so even though i've been at this now for four years i'm not sure i'm prepared to say that that three million dollars will be the deficit i think it's way too premature it doesn't take into account  what happened last year which was at the end of april after all of went through the machinations that changes the banks nearly three million dollars appeared in april  not suggesting that will happen again this year but there is a good chance that the local aid the state aid may be better than anticipated there are opportunities to do  what the town manager started last year which was to begin to sell off some parcels that to generate additional funds there are other ways to look at this and but just as a as a general comment perhaps the best thing we could do is given that there is some uncertainty maybe we should prioritize and instead of spending hours  talking about paper clips and pads of paper and things that we do maybe this board should say these are our priorities these are the services that are the most critical and i certainly would be one that would be happy to say that any government entity whether it's the federal government the state government or a municipality needs to decide what its priorities are and i'm certainly willing to say that first and foremost above and beyond anything else we certainly need to provide public safety and then i think we can start to work our way down the list now what comes next maybe that's clean water because that's all part of public safety and then maybe it's good public education but at some point something will have to get cut given the numbers that we have so instead of beating up department heads and instead of you know trying to cut a little here and cut a little there you know maybe we should have this discussion about what are our priorities i would certainly say for me anyway first and foremost public safety and i think given that we have the police first a second it certainly gives us a chance to say we support these departments we support the recommendations of the town manager and then we can move our selves down the list of other departments over the next couple of months so that's just just a thought a green with you ok bill if you can is just and so when you move along the unfunded liability was about sorry for the being so wait but thirty five minutes is a late for us well i just want to make sure he's informed thank you open this evening by reading a letter from police chief paul she asked me who as a town manager just mentioned is in quantico virginia at the f b i national academy very prestigious appointment for our department only eight slots were given in the state analyze what we do how we do it and how to do a cost effective way we have examined our organization strengths and weaknesses we have undergone an organizational change to professional development accountability and service we have forced to make choices about where the organization needs to apply its resources both financial and human to have the greatest impact my budget appropriately and realistically fulfills those needs we have barely able to respond to calls for service alone prevent them we have seen an escalation in calls to service know that during the daytime on tuesdays wednesdays there's asian sundays we average only three police officers on the road patrolling sixteen point three square miles and servicing a population of twenty eight thousand residents we frequently run with minimum shift to the lack of manpower face to say four officers on the street per shift compromises our safety as well as the problems another concern is our ability to follow up and or respond to major crime we presently have three generalists and one task force detective they call out to respond twenty four hours a day seven days a week to all major crime we sadly don't even have a school resource officer this manpower shortages cause a persistent and chronic use of overtime money to compensate for lack of office offices are regularly denied time off to a minimum manning we had forty six officers at our highest manpower level back in fiscal year two thousand and two we've been forced to cut position since i cannot change staffing levels due to the existence of collective bargaining agreement we need to move away from the late seventies style of reactive police and move toward the future of proactive policing in order to increase our operational effectiveness and efficiency simply put our present reactive model of policing requires us to sit and wait for crime to occur is a passive response to an active and growing problem and flies in the face of modern day policing modern day policing requires us to be engaged like community before during and after an event has occurred the most vulnerable in our society children elderly and the disable receive the attention they deserve in need with the present staffing levels of manpower we do not have the capacity to move to that next level we have identified a few programs services and activities that will make a difference and allow an organization to reach our desired future and mission responsibilities i have outlined the positions of silicate the restructuring and streamlining of the department as follows deputy chief of police to school resource officers one housing senior cannot take it to the next level without us support a few things i would like to add to the chief's comments on them the chief doesn't touch on some of the things we're dealing with at the station such as the effect of long term illness injury on duty and the holes that it creates we've been stripped down to the point where a handful of illnesses puts us in a very difficult position from an overtime standpoint we have contractual minimum mannings and we're forced to hire overtime most of our line supervisors now have administrative duties assigned to them and those administrative duties take up a significant amount of their time and it decreases their ability to be street boss which leaves us open to liability one hundred eighty three lawsuits a failure to supervise only i detect a division right now handling general calls at a height we had five and they asked graham one to do all they can but their workload is immense we have one that detective for juvenile crime at its site we had and in addition to that the two school resource officers were in boss by the school by the school superintendent at a meeting by means we've had to slash some to me policing initiatives because we have been able to afford them and if i could get you to look at the first sheet i gave you in department comparisons our budget quite frankly does not compare to like sized apartments and like sized towns if you look at a town such as dedham on the far end they have fewer residents they have less of an area they responded to almost one thousand fewer calls and we do yet their budget is almost seven hundred thousand dollars more than i was and that goes around in this general area we're finding this in just about every police department i have a handwritten note on the bottom there we are at a norfolk county dept no county chief meeting last week and we were asking those departments what are your overtime but as you're well aware as has been set at one hundred eighty three thousand they were all after million we had we had we're operating on a shoestring compared to other departments of our of the same size the national institute of justice recently did a study stating that there was an unavoidable spike in overtime when that when you pare back the police force and we're dealing with that now and in addition to that greg floyd who is the  being salted it's definitely increased also for the first time in probably ten years we're forcing officers to have to work overtime i junior ops is being told at the end of their shift i'm sorry you can't go home in that the year two thousand we dealt with just over twelve thousand calls to service whereas last year we doubled twenty three thousand one hundred fifty nine and over the last three years we've been well over twenty thousand in contrast if you flip the page to the next one you'll see how our staffing levels have steadily decreased from a high of forty six down to a low of where we stand now thirty eight as far as patrol officers go if you then take those numbers and split them up on diagram number three you'll see exactly how much our office is a taking on in year two thousand the average soldier police officer dealt with two hundred seventy five log calls per officer on average last year or offices that was a six six hundred ten their workload is going through the roof and finally i have a couple of the figures on the back that the actual apses for two thousand eleven was actually thirty four because we've had a difficult time hiring our final two we're bringing a lateral transfer on shortly and was still in the process of trying to navigate the civil service waters to bring in our last hire the bottom line is the chief will not accept anyone who will be a thirty year problem for the town we don't want to cause problems here that have been us in the past and we refused to do so the calls requiring a report in two thousand and eleven with thirty five hundred seventy three that's an average of one hundred five point one written reports parole officer i calls per day sixty and a half calls per hour two point six five our average shift three offices these are the figures we're dealing with in closing i'd just like to say that our offices of work very hard to make necessary departmental changes we've asked the opportunity and we've asked the opportunity to make the residents proud and i think we've been successful in this endeavor last may you five members aboard attended an awards ceremony that subdue him and all the stories of hardship and heroism in between we have shown that we have very good at what we do the change has been palpable not just in the department but in the town i'm not ashamed to say that we've led the way to a more positive and from the credit ation process to adopting twenty first century law or for some philosophies to holding ourselves to the highest standards we have supported the town i think our offices deserve the town to support them i thank  hired a firm and asked that firm which was highly respected one of the more respected search firms in new england to go out and find us a first class top notch police chief and we spent seven or eight months quite a bit of money and those highly professional people that we hired went through fifty seven or so candidates and brought that down to three and selectman anderson led that search and did a nice job and the board had to choose one of three individuals all three qualified and in early two thousand and ten shortly after we hired judge  of us consulted with judge crimmins to get feedback from him as well and in the end this board voted to hire chief shasta me he is in my opinion more than met our expectations he's significantly exceeded them his skills his expertise as professionalism is thirty plus years of experience have been they welcome welcome by the department his leadership has been outstanding and i think that's evidenced by his being invited to the f b i academy down in quantico so clearly this department is going in the right direction under his leadership  i'm not alone foresman person i'm not a criminal justice expert i can tell you that we have a person sitting in the corner office who had eighteen years as a as a judge who spent eighteen years in the criminal justice system and he can't say enough good things about what's going on in this department and about the leadership of that department she she asked in these performance speaks for itself i don't see how we can ask this department and asked these leaders judge crimmins she asked me to lay out a plan after eighteen months to take this department to the next level they did that they've given it to us we've had an opportunity to add to digest and and yes they'll be some shortfalls and will have to make some painful cuts town meeting will have to make some tough decisions but for me  in my estimation safety is paramount i mean i think our children and our seniors need to know that we've made a commitment to safety and so i don't see how we can't do anything other than recommend that we move the town manager's budget intact forward to the fan con for the for the next phase and that would certainly be my recommendation to my fellow board members thank you  by just a couple things and i think that sort of and has to certainly laid it out pretty well and i can remember going through that whole process of how we selected g shasta ne and we did have some tough and there were a number of police offices avers there were here tonight and i remember standing at this end of the table and after the appointment i turned around the chief was in here and they must have been about twelve police officers in plain clothes and i said we made the right decision and we did i think that at this stage the chief brought a philosophy people have philosophy of how you want to move the department you brought philosophy that wanted to train the men and i said last year at a time meeting we had four members of the stone police department including a lieutenant he had that went through the lead of course there'd been all of the training that has come along the man that unified men and women  and i think now with the philosophy in place the direction that is going on i think that the next thing in the tools what are we going to do and what do we need to do to support the philosophy i think also one other thing that  was safety and you talked about it lieutenant and i think safety is a two way street if we're running the staff we don't have enough people out there backing up our offices when they make those calls and i can remember when we were choosing when selectman like frisky  we spent over twenty hours looking for in the the evaluation not the evaluation but the consulting firm and i can remember one of the questions that i asked and joe and i had written down questions that were the same for reaching a consulting firm was i was very concerned about police officers who go alone to whatever the case may be a domestic a something like that and we need to bolster that whole staff up so in essence i'm very much in support of what the preet and the police chief has brought forward i am support of what the town manager has outlined in the budget and i agree with slick when they asked us that we should move forward and if we need to make that in the terms of motion i'd be glad to do that thank you how many there is right now you have thirty eight patrolmen in the budget how many actually work thirty six so there's two vacancies correct and they've existed for over a year it just seems to me if it's important should have been well can i answer to that mean the issues we're dealing with the constraints through civil service we have gone through a hiring process any police chief will tell you that the hiring process is a year long the problems we've run into is that we've bypassed sixteen candidates which is unheard of for this department and the reason is because the chief has taken every effort to hire the very best officers that we can find we don't want to high a thirty year problems the problems we're dealing with is every time we bypass somebody we have to wait months the civil service to send us an additional list and that's why it's been taking so long and are still we are waiting for the latest civil service list because the latest exam was just certified to come to us so we can start the process over it's not it's not a perfect process by by any stretch of imagination but that's what's ha mention so there are people out with long term illnesses we don't get this information you don't need to name people but there are there are four people out injured there are no nine people out injured i have two supervisors right now one injured on duty who's been injured on duty for quite a while and i have one who's in a long term illness status who's been out for the last several months i've had patrolmen several patrolmen in the last several months have had shoulder surgeries knee surgeries burst of newborn children we've really been whacked with this year but this thirty six people are can work today  and i'm always interested in someone who's going to answer the call because my siblings never rose above patrolmen i mean detective and court officer but they they were patrol  the other positions those people are they're not going to be responding when city walls calls that somebody is breaking into our house i don't expect the deputy chief will be responding i don't think the i t crime analyst will be responding to school resource officers well that's where you would be wrong when we do we do i had i had the school drop myself for three years and i responded to all manner of calls if the shift was strapped we went if i'm in my so right now there are no school resource officers we have one juvenile detective but he's responsible for all juvenile crime he spends a significant amount of his time in the schools but we have no school resource officers now and i don't understand why the schools aren't willing to pay for those positions i do have contacts at the high school and i understand that there's been some significant issues it's been in the paper this is no secret  certainly the school would feel safer to the average student if they periodically sorry a school resource officer as they use it rather than offices responding to fist fights and whatever so i can understand why the school isn't willing in a budget that's twice the size of the towns to carve a money for the school resource officers since it's to their benefit to their get a quicker response and the average student will feel safer because i am getting information from people that say that kids don't feel safe anymore so i can understand  important i just don't understand why i have to pay for why schools can't pay for and i know that you can answer that question obviously it's important to me that there be more patrolmen now why do we need six dispatchers what the chief plans to do is what most of the departments around us do is move to a civilian dispatch center so that we can put officers on the street right now we have one officer in in this batch at all times effectively taking an officer of the road when i dispatches a route that's an over time we only have four dispatches so there are holes throw the dispatch corps that get filled fairly regularly so that's a reason now i may have misheard you is a state law that there should be two people answering the phone so right now one of them has to be an officer no there are plenty of departments that have civilian dispatch and it's so what's the state law why is there have to be a an officer there it doesn't but we don't have one person on the desk it it's a nightmare for that person i mean don't they have to be like an ark of course because they have to answer the radio name one telephone calls anybody who comes up to the window for requests is a significant amount that you have to do so th feeling is that if this six that always be two on duty and there'd be no need for an officer to be in the dispatch area yes ma'am he would at a vet at a minimum it would significantly decrease the number of times an officer had to dispatch  the dispatch the person in the dispatch area the dispatcher would be responsible for observing the prisoners or do you have to have an officer do that we have thirty minute checks officers come into physical checks of  prisoners unless the suicidal in which case it's fifteen minutes so when a police officer has to do the actual thirty minute check it can't be a civilian that's in our policy that it's an officer i have no more questions  what he's trying to do going forward and i know talking to or think you've answered as far as the dispatchers i was under the impression there were actually more officers on on the on the dust than than just one but so that i mean that that's why i was i have no problem putting more dispatches on to put the police back on the street that's where they belong you mentioned you were shot on patrol or any of the other p lieutenants short or are they running full right now right now we're running to where we're authorized but as a as a detailed earlier every single one of my supervisors has a collateral duty that takes up a significant amount of the time because we don't really have administrative staff no i just why just didn't know if i just wanted to make sure there were another you know budgets that would be about the people weren't well oh yeah i'm missing two sacks a mission to saddam's right around one injured on duty and one to long term illness but i'm but i mean they're physically you you have the officers they may not be available right now because of certain things but i mean you actually do have a monitor in with the creation of a new position obviously the way the department is set up today this becomes a collective bargaining issue and this is the first we've heard of this even though we've been in the negotiations for a little bit of time and that's my only concern with creating a new position before we go through the process that's all of that but that's addressed more to the town manager than the so that's that's the main thing i mean i you know i see some things that over time have seemed to be a little bit off but small in doing a great job and everybody knows the change and sees the change i find interesting is that what the comparison just sent us and i would look and say you know if you look at the comparison of the town and norton norwood here by point nine million dollars in then you look at the number of calls they have they have a few more they have about four thousand three thousand more calls than we do and but there per capita spending is also significantly higher  what you guys are the chief is proposing doesn't seem to be i'm reasonable staffing wise and is that you said is the safety of the officers as they respond to calls i think it's when you look at the other cities and towns around us it's kind of alarming to the number of calls that norwood in stoughton answer compared to everybody else being in the neighborhood of ten thousand calls additional growth with these other folks and then the staffing levels you know you're seeing your calls  for service doubling and we're doing that with less offices than you had in two thousand that's correct i think those are things that you know the residents really need to know and the reason why the chief is looking at what he's looking at and requesting this office is divine have you built in the new positions under law say night differential holiday pay court time in service training has all of that been built in things like laundry dry cleaning have you built in the build the budget as if the new positions already existed or will that information have to be added later concurred i just want to make sure i wasn't speaking out of turn that is included so through you to select when walsh yellow point about when you mention all would i mean there was a day that i log some time at the de eighty eight central street and you see over at the dedham district where norwood cases go they handle a lot tougher type of scenarios and so that underscores the point you were making which i think some very good one you look at norwood similar to similar population they have more calls for service as far as total amount but the type of call is a lot tougher in stone and i said in the other cities and towns are a lot you know listen if only lower than stone and he goes for the number of calls so then it's a real eye opener and everybody chairman did you want to try and move each budget motion to move the budget or how do you want to handle that and we've done it different ways well that's yeah i would be prepared to make a motion to move the police budget forward as presented by the town manager to the fan com if you want to do it that way item by item because i know we're going to have to make some decisions later on at some point so you know when we set the meeting you know we want to do a new budget on tuesday night so we could review we we want to be able to vote a new budget a or finalize it tonight next tuesday which happens to be the day after a holiday if we wait until thursday in and  that if we want changes you're going to have half a day friday to get them done so they can get out to us over the weekend so we can review it to vote on it on joe's throat so i mean that's that's the issue with weight and in my mind anyways that that was the issue about waiting at least if if you were daunting to go along might give you and your staff some time to at least try and keep up with it so that it wasn't so daunting at the end but i understand what you're saying short and what i also i mean we're running behind if we stop now to debate the police budget what's going to happen is it's time to people that are have what are later appointments are going to get i feel short shrift because we're going to be tired but yeah well you know on thursday maybe we were going to have to have a long night and finalize things and so the taloqan can make the changes so all right let's just get on to the fire department twenty two percent increase in calls and a fifteen percent reduction in the workforce i think this this affects the most part of it is the trying to maintain the shift strength tool of an men per group the importance of that is the ability to staff that second ambulance and it it affects our overtime budget and also affects the safety of the residents of the town still currently i'm looking to increase just to three positions to bring us to twelve positions per shift we have two openings at this time in fact one will be filled next week and the other one once again it's on to the constraints of civil service and the process that they put us through to get a viable candidate for that position as as you might or might not know all new candidates have to attend the fire academy before they have put on full duty much like the police department you can't just take an individual off the street and put them on the street with no training in a department uniform the importance of keeping the shift strength to a minimal we have fast to transport times for the public this is very important and we are fortunate enough in this town you have to a l s engine companies which means advance life support so they do have paramedics on board and they can start the process of saving someone's life without the actual ambulance there but the importance is the and the higher survival rate is the transport of that patient at all times ensures the safety of the firefighters and the residents if we go on a fire call the increase in ambulance revenue also comes  play by increasing staffing that we took a ten month comparison during the time that we had the federal grant and there was a federal staffing grant available for a ten month period that allowed us to ambulance brought to back to the town by one hundred one thousand six hundred twenty eight dollars we took that exact same time period when we were only had the availability to staff to nine men and we only ran the one ambulance and that was the difference in money and i have comparable towns i'm not sure what the police department but i did hear nor would we have burlington can't know what i use for the three comparable towns for their staffing population square miles i use them because that is what the town itself actually used years ago during contract negotiations when they go into the fact finding moan when they're heading towards a betray sions was agreed upon towns the burlington fire department instance has population of twenty five thousand they have twelve square miles they do thirty nine thousand twenty responses per year they have minimum staffing of thirteen men their overtime budget is six hundred  thousand souls can fire department will small enough twenty thousand population one thousand square miles they do thirty eight hundred responses twelve men staffing per group six hundred thousand and overtime six hundred thirty six thousand one hundred ninety eight dollars and then we come to stoughton twenty seven thousand population sixteen square miles last year five thousand four hundred ninety one responses out of staffing is eleven per group that's only if we are fully staffed but because of contractual obligations and limited overtime budget we were only able to staff to that forty seven percent of the time so by having it you have to understand when we respond and we only have the one ambulance that one ambulance in town if they go to a response will say on highland street which is four point three mile road miles from the nearest station downtown here that whole response will take approximately one hour the transport time the turnaround time at the hospital the restocking of the drugs and the paperwork and all the sign offs at the hospital that's probably one hour that single imbalance is out of town i feel as though if we increase staffing to twelve will give us the option of having that second ambulance staff on a more consistent basis for this town i think it's very important i view it it's predictable non predictable interests get discretionary the predictable over time as you vacation your personal days yearn time off all contractual items that alone accounts for three hundred forty eight thousand dollars of overtime dollars per year by this additional manpower i feel as though i can reduce that not only impacting the overtime budget in a positive manner but it will also impact the safety of the town residents in the fire fight it's to be able to have that second ambulance re respond in town the non predictable over time injury sick and military leave we can never predict what that's going to be much like the police department we have people out we have three members out injured now we had one long term that just came back back surgery we had a person out on cardiac for well over a year those really affect the overtime budget when you staffing is only eleven per group and they have all the contractual time off so we can only staff till nine to do the constraints of the overtime and this extra manpower per group to bring us up to twelve men pro group i think will have a positive impact on the ability to have that second ambulance available and then we have to because we have discretionary overtime that use the training special events and then also weather related events  the holiday pay everything like that all contractual obligations were reflected in the increases in the budget presented ok thank you chief and you know like you outlined is one of the things i if you increase your staffing you reduce your overtime budge and i believe i was almost equal to the one new firefighter that would be put on so you know you really get and you know it's only cost us really for two as far as the increase in your budget plus the incidentals so and again safety is definitely the the key to that if i might win as we've seen this year you know several firefighters have lost their lives and that's one of the last things we want to be seen hair stoughton is that we end up going to a fire even though they are fired fewer between that somebody would be understaffed and sending people into a fire that we don't have proper staffing so this goes along with the all the police a bomb in the fire department i hope i will think carefully you have everyone is working except you have two vacancies correct and one is filled it's first day is monday and how long is your training period twelve weeks academy well but that's less than half of the police so at least with fast learners it will be now a mr chairman are we going to discuss the ambulance after this you know i guess right that you know it's part of the fire department as far as i'm concerned i think in this is as good attack as i was going to get into it at the revenue she drew because i think so go ahead you can talk about the evidence i think it's all the  information that we've got is that the general fund subsidy for the ambulance is going to be half a million dollars and i think  we really have to stop pretending that this is really a working enterprise i think this this used to be debated when we first had the ambulance service whether it should support itself or whether it should be something we provide as a service and even though we set up an enterprise fund and it was supposed to pay for itself it appears that it's going to be heavily subsidized for forseeable future especially with the cutbacks in medicare and medicaid and we really don't know the effect of that the health care that's either going to stay with us because we're going to have a president re elected or whether of a new person almost every republican says the first thing they're going to do is get rid of the health care so it's kind of a we really don't know where it's going  it doesn't really bother me that there has to be a general fund subsidy and maybe that's because i have a frequent flyer i i'm assuming my health insurance pays because i have regular health insurance that they do  pay a significant portion of whatever cost take me to the hospital but it really is a service we provide to the community so that they don't have a situation they haven't brockton where it's a contract and you can be shot by lying on the sidewalk for seventeen to twenty minutes while the contractor gets there granted we don't have that kind of thing too often in stoughton but we do have a population that's skews older and that is the largest growth area in our population is people over sixty five those are people the tendency in violence runs more than the average person except for occasional kid who falls off a bike or something so that's subsidies and a huge problem but it is something we have to recognize that everybody's putting in a little money in their tax bill so that their neighbor gets a four minute response instead of a seventy to twenty minute response when he or she has chest pains ok well shit on a conversation i had with the chief today as well and it's something i brought up earlier in the year is whether w should still be an enterprise account and you know maybe this is something we want to put in an article this year if that's the way to go to look at trying to get rid of this as an enterprise because when you look at the size you're looking at that you know we're looking at us what they can be mis construed as a subsidy and it's a service that we do provide but when you look at is an indirect cost that this is being charge from the ambulance account and it comes back at four hundred thirteen thousand and then you've got to go and subsidize it by five hundred something thousand  it just doesn't seem like it's makes any sense at any any point anymore the service is there it's part of the department and the service is fantastic and i think you've got to be willing to pay for it and if we're subsidizing we're saying we're going to we're willing to pay for it chairman i think selecting walsh made a good point we have an aging population there are more calls for service in the trend is going up well they are not for accounting purposes we continue with an enterprise in chief dollars certainly is not due to fire service but new into the role as chief he'll be coming back to the board later in the year to have the board to review ambulance rates and one of prior chiefs have come to the board for the board consideration to approve imbalance rates the board in its wisdom of the chief to break down the calls for service and you find out that you have a senior population and most of them pay for the ambulance through medicare and medicare only pays a certain amount for that ambulance run and sold is is a built in deficit as far as those runs the runs cannot pay for themselves when you have medicare there can be some adjustments but the board as not seen fit in the past or raise rates i don't know of this board wants to contemplate that but the population that they serve  insurance realizing that we're not always going to collect especially from people that at least in massachusetts everyone is supposed to have some form of of insurance because we used to have a problem collecting from folks who  didn't have any insurance and and did not fall under medicare medicaid so that situation might be improving i just think that with all this chat about cost control of health care of being this is a significant health care cost but that the alternative is calling a cab and i can't i'm so old i can remember when star didn't have any ambulance service and the police would put you in the back of they used to have the station wagons black and white station wagon and the police officer wasn't even trained as a first responder as they are now and they just layed you in the back of your mother or your father rode with you to the hospital and start didn't have a hospital so you probably went to brockton or norwich i don't want to go back to the good old what we have now is is superior to what if if you live in other communities i just lived a half mile further across the line and broughton you just you just can't compare the service john you question the only question i have i'll ask it is very simple i know you talk about your meaning and so forth and you have a lot of contractual obligations have you ever looked at or considered whether obviously would be collected by any change in the way the shifted up with the twenty four on twenty four  twenty four on four four or have you ever looked at it from a financial standpoint to see what that may do to your budget they're out in this multiple different shifts out there  i know there's one that's out the west coast it's a twenty four hour shift but they do fifty six has it's a fifty six hour week verses are gentlemen do a forty two hour week over a cycle and good luck to the town manager and whoever's collective bargaining she is getting that i mean that would that affect things absolutely it would affect your overtime budgeted effect the number of men per shift but would be the first ones on the east coast to have something like that maybe again used to be that way i'm just saying i'm all american is with the times we're in tow and looking the door what we have to do as it has any consideration been done just to look at that to see what might be able to be done budget wise if you change how things are done ike i have looked at it once again to be something for negotiations i understand that yeah  know if we're not given the information to know what ramifications there ah it's tough to make a decision when you don't know if you mean the rim cations to change of a shift and if you don't know what the financials are to what how do you evaluate which whether you should be pushing for this or not what do you look to make a change or not if you don't know if you don't know what the cost to compare how would you know whether it was worth pursuing i know the previous chief had indicated on a number of occasions that the shift work the way it was was killing as far as the budget that's why i was wondering if anything was overdone to see yet one of many factors involved not just necessarily the shift a lot of it has to do with you know you minimum meaning which is easier for an important reason for the safety is residences wiles of firefighters minimum staffing  they have a large workload in i think just increasing in we have an aging department i mean the average age i believe is forty three now and i hate to say this but with age comes a little more injury more sickness and more time off is used because of that and that affects your budget so i think by increasing the staffing that could bring in some younger fresher bodies and help vitalize the department and keep injury time down and that that helps keep the staffing to leaven which will help increase the revenue in the ambulance i was wondering that's all that some of the some of the things that just come up in general and that has to do with the increases in salaries that i just don't know why the ok stick both the thank you thank you thank you chief just a couple questions hear it i don't know how this happened but somewhere along the way we were budgeted for three groups of eleven one group of twelve so i just hiring the three that would give you bring all the groups up to twelve men per group ok twelve individuals and the other one is that in your budget you have captains lieutenants and so on how do you break that out when you say i have eleven people on the shift and you have different companies and so on one is for a captain in charge of the house and a lieutenant on the ladder one how do you do that we have one is a captain in charge of each group and then there's a lieutenant in charge of each engine company engine company directly how about the ambulance the ambulance never goes without an engine company so when they get the scene lieutenant is in charge of the scene the senior paramedic assigned to the ambulance would be in charge of the patient right and the other one that i just wanted to ask about whereas you said i believe that you have fifty four hundred some we had three thousand one hundred twenty four ambulance responses but some of the well two thousand six hundred fifty six or more auto  accidents they don't always transport ok but they make the run because of the you make the run right we don't know until we get there whether or not we're going to be needed ok the last one i'm going to ask is interesting i overtime in the you said one of them was special events one a special events fourth of july they request an ambulance up at the helm a night a ride  fourth of julys a big one that cost us that substantial do the crowds at the high school those are all gentlemen that are on their time off they get paid overtime to be there they  what's interesting they take a tiny ambulance and they get paid overtime to take the time the ambulance to the field is that what you're telling me oh no they're working for the time we shut down an ambulance and we treat people at the scene many minor injuries every year what we do is we are here for the worst and hope for the best we have estimates approximately ten thousand people come to town for the fireworks so we have to increase our staffing because of the ten thousand people that come to the they're only there for a four hour detail and they're not getting paid ten hours to a you know the four hour detail and if they're down at the field chief and i don't mean to pick on to twitter just for instance for information if they're down at the fields with the ambulance because of the crowd and so on i agree with that ok why would we not just send the ambulance and so on staff on duty down there and they operate from there because it's at the height of vacation time in we only have one ambulance for the entire town it's of a patient over time no because we don't bring them into work to shift we don't bring them in for that four hour detail it's a special event we don't bring them in for the ok ok thank you ok chief just one thing is if you could is get us copies of some of the information that you talk about so we can have it i noticed a typo on one of them so i didn't want him for all these done then his brief ten year already is the chief having been sworn in in august of two thousand and eleven and he did a great job in this budget but i'd be remiss if i didn't have a chance to ask him to tell you a little bit about the other had he with is the chief in addition to prevention of property and fire prevention and emergency medical services but more time consuming a function and i just want to the chief to touch upon that because having worked with them in that event known as you know tropical storm irene and its aftermath there's a lot to that i just that impacts his department and what he has to do is one of the touch upon that if you could this is another special event that i was remiss in not inform you about  in some of these probably the emergency management director is a lot about coordination coordination of services in prepared this we have constant updates we have to review with the state of the mima we have to do web broadcast with me on a constant basis it is time we did organize i training room it's station two to work izzy emergency operations center we have multiple phone line connections computer connections monitor and a webcast capability to stay in contact with the state and all viewable resources femur and during any type of emergency you also might have noticed one of my articles and i wasn't quite sure if i was supposed to put it through an audit for the council on aging for a generator after that incident we had to look over everything that happened within the town do a quick analysis and where we came up short where we need to approve we call it a post incident analysis in the five business and pretty much same thing in the emergency management business so it's a constant evolving department actually another department within the department and also part of that is a coordinate all the reimbursement activities whenever for instance in the last week president obama declared and sections an awful county the disaster area due to the recent storm in october that freak snowstorm i don't believe we've already sat together with down with a representative from the femur i should say a member from the public works member from the police department and myself and we coordinate all our expenses that we incurred dern that type of incident any time you see a decoration of a disaster for the commonwealth of massachusetts we have to sit down we put together all our facts and figures any extra money as it might have cost us any extra equipment we used and we put that all formulate that all together for reimbursement by the way that reimbursement goes to the general fund just in case anyone is on so right now we are working on the  irene is upwards i believe i want to say upwards of right around thirty thousand dollars for the town that we should be receiving back we get seventy five percent of the amount we request so that's that's also very time consuming because the federal government as you might know requires everything done just right on the exact form for it it's quite a process and it is time consuming i know it's time consuming for mary from about she handles their expenses for that and i put in a great word from randy at the public works does a fantastic job the public works takes usually the biggest hit on these disasters between manpower  equipment the last time we reimburse was for last year's snow storm during i believe it was forty eight hour event january twenty first through the twenty third i believe it was and we reimburse for that so it's a it's an ongoing ongoing two management jobs within the town it does continue to grow is but the good part about it growing is more and it seems like more and more funds become available for the town to get reimbursed  you mentioned communication and so i wanted to just sort of ask the question about and we think a communication a lot of that falls under this category generally call ip or information technology and we'll take that up later on in the budget process but i just wanted to see if you had a comment on the ever expanding needs and information technology and how that may be affects you because we see more and more need for these services and the current format that we have is going to change for next year and i think we need to certainly address that in the budget and i just want to give you the opportunity to just comment on on on the changes that are coming well i feel as though to be positive change the communication aspects of getting the word out for a lack of a better term we really saw that during that particular storm with the power outages and it's funny as much as we reviewed the different aspects of communications in we would access the web we were able to put out messages we use telephone messages we use a reverse nine one one that is operated by the north for county sheriff's department and it still almost comes down to when you have a power outage for that long a period we're very fortunate that it was nice weather but that happened during  cold weather situation and you need to get your word out to those people it almost comes down to the old fashioned police cruiser with a bowl on because there's no other way if you can charge all your electronic devices and there's no way for them to use electronic devices i mean the web's a wonderful thing you know technology is a wonderful thing but if you don't have the means to be able to use that technology you can't get the word out i actually want to look into that radio system because they do tell everyone to have a transistor radio and i want to look into that am radio system you might see in different communities around that have that ability to have a radio station and it's just a simple broadcast it's almost like a reverse nine one one thousand back or are that was how much you're putting in for now that was the snow storm and we did not meet the criteria we so i wait a minute we didn't have any added expenses irene you were talking about irene and so we expect to get about thirty thousand back i think it's probably thirty thousand i have to double check my firewall but a generator cost would be the original quote i got was twenty thousand five hundred i think think they are but i think the article twenty two thousand so you know i think that's something that the finance committee should know though that we're getting back some funds that we've already expended and technically it goes into the general fund i understand that but that that a master chef that does that primary packed in that special kosher salt was out injured this christmas much to the dismay of his group members and that was a really at a really reflected well on your department operating budgets and use you know when we have these types of things we got to keep that in mind and so because they may not be reoccurring and the last thing is you know there's been comparisons you know the between the town and in the schools  buy square footage buildings in all these other things one of the things you can't measure you can measure the buildings but you can look at the how many miles of roadway we have how many residents that this fire the police department service as well as maybe bill can tell us what the value property value that the fire department the police department are protecting is in isn't a billion over three million it's over three billion the borders assesses the know how much a property so you're looking at all the assets so when you do comparables remain you know the town may not be responsible for as many buildings square footage and things like that but the the other collateral that the town is looking at and protecting is is needs to be considered as well when you look at that type of comparison and you know so that that's what a lot of things we haven't weighed in and doesn't get said as we go through the budget process as well as a lot of things you can quantify i mean how many people are in on in ikea during their annual sale probably equivalent of the population of stone i mean we have some big box stores that if anything should happen to know i mean that's that's why you have a quality fire department getting all those people out because they're not from stone they  it just a little history on public works as you all know that we're quite different from the two departments that you just heard from the majority of our budget you know where we are now we've probably lost in the vicinity of eighteen to twenty percent of our members were down ten to twelve men from where we were back in two thousand and two yet none of the services of a stopped we're still maintaining approximately seventy one miles of sidewalk two hundred twenty five line miles one hundred twenty two veterans square is one thousand seven hundred twenty six catch basins we have sixty five there was that we now know that maintain over one hundred fifty pieces of trucks and equipment and that's only i'm only talking about the pieces from the public works that doesn't include any of the other departments which we maintain a we also have over one hundred forty seven miles of water main ninety three miles of sewer main we service seven thousand two hundred eighty six were out of service customers five thousand six hundred fifty several connections and seven thousand one hundred eleven rubbish gustavus as i say this this is with twenty percent eighteen to twenty percent less staff than we had ten years ago department where it is a public works department we do help all of our departments is in our own department as well as every department in town we service all of the municipal zz's fire is rubbish collection and snow plowing sanding so forth and so on street sweeping the schools we spend a lot of time in this fire is taking care of their snow removal as well as you know we tried we did help them help to share with their i tickle what they had before a town meeting last year to replace their tennis courts which originally  headed for defeat and it was brought back up because the public works of them a lot of money by removing the old tennis court and getting it prepped for the new materials so we don't tend to try and help out any and all the patents in town work with all any and all departments in town and the majority of our budget any of the increases that i have in there now if it's in payroll it's it would be steps there's no new help there i hope to replace some of my vacancies that i've lost over the past couple of years not to not look at the ten people but i'm anybody that i'm looking for is already in my budget and that hasn't been increased for any new positions and any increases that are in the budget is basically  for education which we have to spend a lot more time and money with education from i see a lot of station operate as things have changed dramatically in that department as we've discussed on a number of occasions they do require more courses more credits it's how to maintain your license you have to keep with that and get some people licensed before it becomes mandatory we also have the number of people who have moved around from department to department is we do tend to promote from within as much as we can we have a vacancy which affects things differently ok thank you john it's not known this and again steve questions with john thank you john and obviously there are what you do is broken up amongst numerous departments and instead of getting into the detail of it i just say having read through this in detail that it seems like you have met the request and criteria of a needs based budget which is the directive i believe the board gave to the town manager and the department heads and so i would just say and from my perspective the fact that you've been able to keep things going  forward after we've come through the worst financial crisis in a generation which started and i guess three or four years ago it appears well coming out of the fact that we've had to address other issues regarding water and you folks have been able to fight through that change and and get people up to speed so i want to commend you and congratulate you and i certainly would support your budget as presented and talk to the town public works department and i'm sure that you know we wouldn't be met all the goals that we have met in the pan around where the group of people thank you john yeah i really don't have anything to add except that i think the public works new positions the list we have only has one is that correct or i wouldn't call it a new position well you're you're bringing back a maintenance so if it's in there for twenty one thousand my guess would be that's probably fifty percent of it well that's all we have did you put other new people in here know no new people but i do have as i say some vacancies that i've had over the past couple of years and i haven't replaced from an assistant superintendents position down to a truck driver's position some laborers positions i still have to pumping station operators positions that have to be filled so you have some vacancies correct that you're working  on are we going to go through each section or should we just lump them or you know is going to question well over them so i had a question on street lighting the electricity it says it's going up twenty percent is th because you're going to turn on more lights no not turning on any more lights actually we've done very well over the past few years we probably lost thirty to forty thousand in that account and we haven't turned off the light yet but we have adjusted some of the wattage down a lot of the want to down so that we can keep them all lit well about it but  year and i can understand traffic light repairs it's not unusual to see one getting whacked down we don't is that because you have that increase because if you do recover the money under insurance it goes into the general fund anyway generally if we if we do if we're fortunate enough to get the money i think they missed a row probably as an answer by  problems are allowed to spend up to twenty thousand dollars of property insurance proceeds or restitution  funds without appropriation the thing that the fire chief was speaking to was reimbursement for personal injury one eleven f reimbursements those need to go into the general fund but there is a specific part of one hundred fifty three a i think it is where departments can spend up to twenty thousand dollars for property damage property insurance proceeds or restitution without appropriation weirdoes the money from the insurance company and it goes into what we have the account set up for each department special revenue funds insurance less than twenty thousand for each department police public works well the whole mile that so it's an insurance recovery but we don't we're not fortune have to get it every time we have a light come down i'll go we have been pretty fortunate i think it's not past couple of years it's all made even with the increase is only ten expended us for your snow removal if she didn't ask i was going to i don't have an actual number because it's minimal now for instance this morning i obviously would send out but did you send out sanders for yeah i've been spoiled up until lunchtime i was up at three thirty this morning so it has been a long and i noticed the assistant department head is empty and it wasn't i mean it was funded not filled a share and it had all been hoping to fill it i'm sure yes it's some point i have i have somebody from in house that  that is acting right now that we're paying out a grade and some of that money will we'd be requesting would be moved from that line item into the yeah that was one of my questions come in  it's working out a great ok but it's just i mean when i when i see certain figures for any salaries as far as percentage just like the clerk the clerk cler ical salary salaries minimal spent so far this year out of a forty five thousand dollars budget it's looking to go up almost eighteen percent and it says one click yeah i think again that's a great step as well is if there was any percentages that were in the contract as well well it's just when i see an eighteen percent jump that it's for one person that seems it's not there's nobody up to this getting an eighteen percent raise i can guarantee you that well that's what's in the budget yeah that's why i asked because these things were jumping out quite a bit of the building maintenance crash when you said you are trying to  if you're going to get into the water i'm sure as well always yeah cover everything if you get questions with them well it's on you know as bill mentioned earlier we don't really have anything for the enterprise fund as far as where they're where they're going to sit they're not ready you know we're not ready to have those numbers yet we don't even have rough estimates but we did see we did see where we were  headed for increases if we wanted to keep the subsidies to a minimum if you will and i think selectman walsh it brought that up earlier and i think that's something we have to consider i mean we have an enterprise fund it should be and i give it ships into the ambulance because of the nature of the largest increases we probably have would be in sewage because we have taken over three new stations for one thing so that getting turned back from that department in that line item so how does that play into when you never really has tried we try to look at each department at least not with a finance committee they try to look at each department on its you move think that but when it's a pass from year to year i mean depending on where in change how old how old the the fleet gets i could be one hundred thousand dollars in maintenance one year and if we replace a couple of the trucks that costing us a lot of money the next year we could be down to seventy five thousand he just don't know if i was the electrical street  budget we spend a lot of time adjusting the the lights in the wattage and trying to get back rebates to him to make it so that we could get more lights to keep the cost down and i think well as we can go by as far as an electricity goes is the ballpark figure that national grid gives us so we could we could try and say that you know go by what we use for an actual but then you know i don't want to have to come back and say you know i'm going to have to shut off lights if i can't get twenty thousand dollars i'd rather have that everybody would be able to all the billing would go through and it wouldn't be right now it all comes to us we have to go out and put the numbers out in in bill  a section of our money i think to get it started i think bill could explain to more it was just a nickel his idea that this was this was my idea we've had some problems with the accounting on for this  the way it works now i'm really not sure how it works though i think what happens is when they get a bill in from the supplier they allocate the bill to the departments based upon the total bill so they'll allocate a piece of it so as far as the accounting goes you not really going to have an actual you should like it the town manager said to me the other day if you want to turn the town manager's budget i know what page that's on and he says  twelve only spent four hundred twenty three dollars on fuel that can't be right so what happens is if you if you're looking to find the actual usage for that department you're only looking at the bills that have been paid the allocated i proposed to john and john thought it was a good idea that we set up an account called municipal fuel depot and now that i think of it this probably should not be a public works account of should be a joint cost to my board right one of my want to consider that and what would happen is john would have like a like a petty cash account he'd have twenty five thousand dollars to pay the bills directly as they came in don't have to worry about allocating anything then he would send the monthly usage reports around to the departments i would do up a what we call a no check warrant to charge each department for their monthly usage and then deposit that check back into the municipal fuel depot account to replenish it that way would be when you look at the account if i give you a december report you know you're going to know his department is in the as i just wanted to point out to members of the board when you decide the priorities that you need to decide when you're supporting budgets my office gets a lot of calls about d p w related matters and we only get a fraction of the calls that his office gets and mr bachelor's office gets calls from residents that have come to expect to get  for example the rubbish say picked up even when they may live on a private way that is in great need of repair and i'm saying his budget has not kept up with some of the things of recent years when people go to town meeting and they request for the town to take over a subdivision the cost of the maintenance of that subdivision once the town takes it over gets picked up by his staff someone may come up with the fact to set and say hey we need about fifty thousand more the bring it up to town standards but even if that fifty is a right on number it department that has to pick that up we have a lot of older ways in in town and his department is getting asked to deal with more and more problems number one  number two with respect to whether it's street lights or whatever we get a lot of calls here for requests by residents of stoughton that are requesting more street lighting in their  neighborhoods as the superintendent mentioned after taking over three new pump stations there's a there's another requirement for his staff there is far as  he's gone over with mr grover to all the buildings to try to save on energy in all his buildings and he's to want to great job with that d e p t is  eight hundred pound gorilla in the room with his department to comply with the d e p t regulations is going to cost us a lot more going forward with personnel in plus the infrastructure town the superintendent can speak to that better than i the m w are a is a connection to how backed up by municipal well system it cost a lot of money to maintain that and we have to keep that going forward we have a lot of because of recent events in town meeting with articles when we're seeing other neighborhoods petition for consideration for the town to take over th streets and again that will be a cost to be borne by his department lastly when he speaks about vacancies he's been doing without less because he's in the process of trying to restructure that the parliament and make it more efficient and i commend the superintendent for that in lastly i just want to say on the question of managing at the problem and i don't know any department that is turn back money and higher percentages and certain years then this suit superintendent he should be congratulated for that he should be rewarded for that because he makes his best estimate this time a year from the fiscal year that will start  six months back when past history doesn't play itself out because maybe we have a light winter with snow or whatever his department turns back money and you don't see that june  one flurry of activity to make any balances go away he's a he's a team player he's a great department head the fact that he's been around here for so long shouldn't take away from the fact we sometimes underestimate somebody as steady as mr bachelor he he deserves you know our consideration and his budget is a bare bones budget there are vacancies that haven't been filled he could use a lot of people his budget is a bare bones budget there's a reference as the chair knows the chair brought to the board new positions  you know in again it's a definition thing it's a way of looking at things but none of these are new positions and they're not new positions for his budget as a matter of fact what we're being mandated by the state to pick up some positions because of water saving methods we have to follow up on in the superintendent is doing a great job and i would hope that the board would find a way to support his still could use a part time clerk ok the funds would still would be similar to what is in there for that my part time work that i have now that is gone officer but it still takes an awful lot of time does a lot of paperwork involved in all these new procurement laws in all the beds i mean department does a horrendous amount of bids procurements we probably do more in a week than most parents do in the whole year so lindsay's desk probably right now has shelves for all the other departments and her desk is piled it looks like it might be part time twenty seven thousand no the only engineer that we're paying for out of water and so would be the system town engineer a junior engineer has been debts not new that's been there forever well we right now the junior engineer p is a full time journey engineer is ian stewart and then there's a new junior positions that he has indicated he's had funding for some that haven't been filled or he just got people filling in the ones some of the jobs junior engineer has been filled right along with paid for that when right so it was in seoul at twenty five go back to so what same line you know what and it's this and then if it's fully funded the way it is a percentage of pay for the assistant in water and so on the junior engineer i also pay for i believe that was that was split and then i to twenty forty percent of the g i s coordinated comes out of my budget as  chairman for some reason i don't know why it happened but when the g i s coordinator position was filled sometimes it's referred to in the budget as a junior engineer that's correct you know and i think that's probably what it is so it's because it's not as much as it used to be so that twenty seven is the forty percent for the lines but they did distinction is this thing i think the g i s is in the public works don't mean somewhere in here as the g i s forty percent because the engineering has it engineering has and i'm assuming it's keep in the same line  the engineering has of it the distinction that we're trying to make is the junior engineer is fires i'm concerned is when i hear that term i refer i'm thinking of mr nolan's position when it's the assistant town engineer i'm thinking of mr tisdale's position or where was that twenty seven thousand dollars last year but but what miss walsh a saying is last year under one department you had a fifty five thousand dollar budget and the year before and the year before and next year in the other department there's been zero money for so many years and now there's another twenty seven thousand if i'm wondering i thought that any line item same position probably it's probably due to the time t one third twenty seven thousand to fifty five so i have a feeling that that twenty thousand and thirty four in the water for the assistant town engineer is incorrect i think that should be twenty seven t fifty five and i think i'm not i think that twenty thousand and thirty four that looks like a carry over from last year so we'll have to investigate that but if you look at water and sewer one thirty twenty seven to fifty five i suspect know i hope so ok thank you yes thank you jon i just had one last comment before you go mr batchelder we had had some conversations a while back this board about procurement and where we actually making progress where we saving money and you had alluded to earlier that the bulk of the time the procurement officer spends doing stuff for you and so i ok yeah even though you don't like the answer sometimes well i mean you know that's a that's a truth to you know when she's being a witch we are definitely all trying to do it the right way absolutely and that's what i mean times we take a different curve to get to the same place and that's the challenge we have tonight thank you jon ok moving on down is the veteran town into two sections we have our state slash local benefits that we pay out which is the majority of the budget and we have a federal record that we do let me just go back say over the last calendar year about a year  ago it was it was getting to the point where things were going to start slipping or i was going to have to cut back on services and that would've been on the federal and fortunately i was able to get a staff person who was going to a great help  she's a great addition to the town and especially to my office and she's essentially taken over the entire state and local program which is the four hundred forty five thousand dollars budget that you see in my budget certainly over see her in this been a learning curve but she's an excellent employee you know one of the things you always learn early in your management life is to hire people who are at least the smart is you a smarter than you and so it you know it worked out again this time so she does a great job and that right now we have approximately one hundred cases you know regarding that and this is work that it keeps people in their homes we have a number of widows of veterans which people don't always realize that we service them as well and it literally does keep them in their homes it keeps like i said kelly lamm spend a great addition to that and when the federal side we have well over one hundred cases at this point in i want to emphasize you know we bring a lot of money into the community with this where when we were you know getting service connected billing  disk ability service connected pensions in that type of thing and a lot of the federal benefits they rappin to some of the state benefits you know if we get a service connected bill disability if we get somebody up to one hundred percent level now they're eligible for some state benefits a state  ity we haven't or rather came out it's a real estate stated tax exemption up to twenty two a clause twenty two d which basically states if a soldier dies from either disease or injury incurred while in a combat zone the surviving spouse is eligible for a four exemption on their real estate taxes for five years and then up to twenty five hundred dollars thereafter we have had a number of vietnam veterans passed away from agent orange related  diseases and so these widows now have this and this is another thing that's unique to massachusetts and so it's good that we've brought this that brought the sense of stoughton so the universities these types of real estate tax exemptions the money that we bring into the town to the federal programs it really all does add up and overall at any one time we're helping about two hundred people actively in caseload through my office so that's sort of a brief synopsis of what we're what we've been up to lately ok way this memorial day flags and a great decorations which tends to be for memorial day things the memorial squiz the wreaths the going all of the memorial squares in the regular veterans operating budget those tend to be flags for for the graves and we like the way the graves on a veterans day on the saturday before veterans day in memorial day it could all be one account now there was a cut in the air the reason it was a cut last year we had a two thousand dollar increase the budget i talked to john and regarding the memorial square dedications public works had been bearing the the complete burden of that and i had spoken to john and john said you know why isn't this in your budget and i said well sure it could be in our budget so we'll put in a request for it   as it turns out i assume we'd be paying for the poles are getting charged for the pole is the only thing we're actually paying for is the signs public works is putting up the poles i guess they either have them or they can get them cheaper that i could buy them in so i don't need as much money in that budget because we're not  particularly the biggest the largest growing caseload i have you know aside from widows you know that's that's a large group but vietnam veterans you know getting older you know being more aware being more needy for the benefits that are out there you know it's  tough thing i just came from a meeting with the stone our veterans council one of things we were talking about was it's difficult to reach people the people that you most need most need to reach the other ones are the most difficult to reach any of us who are looking at different you know forms of outreach and that type of thing but we got in the you know the kids coming back from iraq and afghanistan they come into the office for their welcome home bonus which the states provide and the state provides and we do have some we get a lot of post traumatic stress disorder cases it's stuff on the federal side you know on the local side these kids come back and they have you know they have some money you know that it's the hardest money there ever were and you know with their combat pay and they hazardous duty pay and that type of thing so they tend to have some bucks when they come back their issues are more not not as much financial so i'm not seeing as many cases for them now i don't is that we get information on some courses the state is running for folks like you where we have you know continuous training for things like you know things are always come up so one of it is the second of course it was the website they had so you can apply for the veterans benefits so you can on behalf of the clients or you're probably already using you know the statement that in about a year and a year or over that's on the federal side yeah that's a sort of an improvement no frankly i see it sort of getting worse actually no the making a big push this is on the federal side you know people if they come in for that for the local state benefits we have something wrong in my office and they'll have a check in two weeks and a lot of time that's sort of a stopgap while we're applying for the federal benefits on the federal side there are a lot of issues there you know just today i called their eight hundred number and i have a contact person i can call in boston of providence but sometimes it's you know just call the eight hundred number and you can't get through anymore because they have a national call center now they they have they used to be you can call in to your local local region now it's a national call center and the benefit is supposedly is the time zones move you know you can call up until eight o'clock when it's five o'clock on the west coast but i couldn't get through to anybody and so right put myself in the queue and i called at one thirty today and they said the earliest i would hear back from somebody would be at eleven thirty on friday and so i'm a veterans officer and they're making me wait three days you know so i can just call my client techs in boston law or providence but that's the frustration level that our veterans have to go through and you're right there are those cases and they just they drag on i tell people minimum six months and it could be over a year the only good thing is that the benefits are retroactive from when you file a claim so when they do prevail they get a big retroactive check the problem is sorry the problem is we're often you know people need the money because they have disability and they can't you know earn the money and so they really need a disability and they're waiting in a cause is a significant problem in all of these veterans lives well that's what the concern for me is that while they're waiting we don't leave them hanging we provide help for them do if the if the financial means criteria there we put them on a local chapter one fifteen program and like i said we can give them a check in two weeks and i know we get a seventy five percent refund from the state but it's still it's a burden on every community in massachusetts that it takes so long to get the federal benefits to kick in which means every community needs to about the amount of money they're  using their budget to in the year right in the cases where you know a lot of people would they have disability but it's not a financial situation you know they have a good job so they have they have you know assets or resource of some reason but for those the thank mike for what he does he does a great job for the veterans and he is not only very competent capable he's passionate about this and he cares about people and i think it's one of the things that we should be proud of as a community that we take this seriously ancillary stuff it's important the ceremonies the parades you know the honoring and that but you know you know that you know people need real help a lot of times and we're able to provide that well you know the substance the substantive things and that's what's really good about being able to have the programs we hear uniquely in massachusetts and that we got about something you said scott brown has been having you know seminars across the state you know regarding what can he do on the federal level and it's that exact issue trying to speed up claims and have the federal government be more respons you know but it's difficult they don't give away money for nothing and they have to do to kate and check and confirm information and it's it can be difficult so it's a time consuming thing but i sincerely do think the v a s is doing the best they can with the resources that they have ok nice comments go on his wife's way as she was on it is the two thousand and eleven volunteer of the year by the stoughton chamber of commerce so people said about twenty nine nice things about cindy preserver last night i don't know if you said any thing about mike last night well there were a couple of footnotes but he does a great job in the important thing to know is this he deals with some real sensitive things matter of fact we're trying to even come up with a way so we could talk to his clients without evan people over here things because you know you're talking about medical needs financial things in it's a private thing so we're trying to assist that way and we're trying to work on that but obviously i'd be remiss not to join in but what we're trying to improve that situation over there get him to have a place where we can speak confidentially to folks in whatever and he does a great job the nature of the job does not allow him to publicize is victories which of several out of respect of the people that it actually is true of all i think the other day of all the major decisions that i've made that i've had her involved with every time i've listened to her it's been the right decision it's only when i don't listen to it that i seem to have problems  possibility can ever be prevented but it can only be disk this hopefully discourage and turd he pointed out the big three things a fraud of asset misappropriation would be you know theft of money or inventory or or time top most he made the point that the most important thing is the tone at the top for management management upper management sets the tone as far as good fraud policy goes naturally written written operational policies and procedures and internal control plan communication of the policies and procedures to employees and training and of course monitoring monitoring is what's good or policies and procedures if you don't have people to monitor them  you know segregate duties cross training job or taishan surprise counts reconciliations reviews those are all important and then risk assessment risk assessment to identify potential weaknesses you can be sure that if you get a sinister invention sinister individual there they're going to find out what those weaknesses are and maybe maybe exploit them who knows hopefully we never happens but you know ronald reagan used to say trust but verify very very important principle in my opinion we've got new receipts the procedure that we need to implement we're beginning to get a handle on the purchasing of trolls with in the documentation with the addition that the policy that the board  ratified in two thousand and eight and with the addition of the german officer but the receipts new receipts procedure is going to require a lot of monitoring and make sure it's being comply with properly and it's one that it's working  y i mean a lot of reports are reports you don't generally see management comments that are going to recommend extra staffing but you see things like more timely reconciliations or better documentation or greater oversight those are all things that  auditors point out and you know other than the you know the risk of other than the obvious risk of you know somebody you know maybe defrauding the government out of money is you know you could general jeopardize your federal assistance you know even an audit report a points out that you got a weakness in your internal controls that might jeopardize your getting particular grant or something not to mention the bad press and the fines that might come along with it so near made the point that you can't control pressure motivation or wrastle rationalization but you can't control the opportunities so all these things all these monitoring all these writing of policies  procedures you know a court would require is unfortunate require staffing but you know in my opinion there's more important function that the board would could could do the protecting the taxpayers pocketbook and make in the controls are in place that and that will help to you know deter any fraud so so that's my that's all i wanted to say in that position i want to you know bring that up because i know the board didn't get to vote on it last year that was added by the finchum so i don't have any step increases this year  everything's the same the expenses the audit contract again that's thirty four thousand one twenty five that's seven eighths of the contract school picks up one eighth so the total is nine thirty nine thousand i had was i found out step person was in december that she was going to be going out january twelfth for medical and because the holidays and so forth and so on the finance committee wasn't meeting till january that the day that she was leaving i was hoping to get somebody in house to train them but i couldn't wait to get a transfer i didn't couldn't get a transfer until january twelfth that was then subsequently table for two weeks and it was finally approved on like the twenty seventh of january so he by that time we were pretty well behind the new person came in she was did a wonderful job carol mcmahon i think it will matter but i had to train myself as opposed to the staff person you know being able to train a so i did take time out of my day and we just fell behind so i thought that with the extra twenty five thousand if something god forbid if somebody goes down i go down and with that money there is somebody be able to step right in or you might the board might want to special study like for example john one might want a five year you mentioned five year plans or maybe dead analysis or a power point of some like that john you mentioned a study perhaps about change in the fire structure so you know this was a person might be available to the professional help to come in do special projects which you know our office might not be able to get to right away so and then the other stuff is just off that's basically it any questions on ok first of all you know i like this again thank you know for always help in dak getting all the information for me during the budget process is the second thing is you know i built over the years as war many hats between p q on that internal audit or the town accountant in a number of other things and as a separate you know we get these other things in the place you're going to have more hopefully more time to do some of the things we like to hats and you know so as we unravel some of these things and get more people in place the policies you know hopefully everybody understands that you know we're just trying to make sure the town is following the law during and we're getting the best deal for the town documents that you know purchase orders and other things and i did talk to you about it and i guess it's a question for me was is do you we need to add that in a policy procedures that  becomes one of the things that should be done in half should on a regular basis because it nobody's using it currently and so all the documents are being one place for weather comes down the road you know we're more going to be here tomorrow you know more and more departments are using the attachment feature on the requisitions we try to get them to do that because you know you send something up in your yard mail who knows when or if it's going to get here so we try to we try to you know every department meeting we do we say please you know try to use the attachment feature you can attach your quotes or your any contracts or anything just so it really works out well but the departments of the most of the apartments some of the problems i don't think have scanning well probably most of them do now long they have scanning think it's a good idea to put the consultant fee in there like that because you know you you did get hit very hard would be in shot staffed as it is and when they went out i know it was difficult and i think that's a good way to handle it  and i just wanted because i know this has been posted and people may see that general in the increase on the auditor's salary you know it is large and i believe that really as a result of this position just being put in last year in typically when they first put it in they don't funded it a full year because they figure it's going to take a while to get there and correct just want people understand that you know even though it shows a feeling substantial increase that was  and i've had a lot of conversations with bill over those four budget periods and to see his department finally in to see bill finally get the support and the resources that he needs to do the work that he does now just an observation i noticed a in the four times i've been through this i've never heard bill be so forthright and eloquent  in his his comments at the beginning generally he tends to state in the numbers he was it was good to hear him sort of i talk about more than just the numbers and that tells me that  his is renewed energy and enthusiasm for this is certainly apparent and i hope that that's because the emphasis on accountability and transparency proposing a budget but his efforts in the entire time i've been here i cannot put a price tag on take with me and he has integrity and he's had the joy wearing his many hats of having to say no to people who wanted him to sign off on things when he couldn't do it and he deserves an awful lot of credit for conducting himself as a professional every day he's been here every profession has a society of professional quality he sent a massachusetts is a society called the society of accounting accountants and auditors if i'm saying that correctly and what position hold bill right now i'm going to be first vice president and he is the first vice president in that role he tries to get out of some of those four hour torture department head meetings and work through but a lot of times he he he proposes that the training sessions for new accountants are on thursdays and fact every other week i first came here and he acquainted me with the procurement policy he said hey by the way no manager read this and there were certain positions he said you have to go to school because it's in the book air said who else is supposed to go you gave me the list no one had gone and we made sure everyone in your time and then all of a sudden we had more and more people complyin and right now where we're almost there we still have you know a little way to go but he's doing a great job couple of things the procurement officer  his opinion on the search team to get a procurement officer was very important and we scored with a great one on the finance team bill role was a form the subcommittee of the department heads to make a finance team and they include the town accountant the town treasurer the director of assessing the procurement officer in the human resources director bill is as big a part of that group as anybody and does a great job just so the board knows the internal audit of position which is a very important position and as select millions of you know noted the reason for the difference in the funding is it was put in for nine months and now it's put in for twelve months that's a very important position but we did not want to fill that position until we had the procurement officer in place is the procurement officer in place doing what now lindsay pope is doing that is the system we're trying to make sure everyone complies with the auditor will make sure everyone is complying with that system so you had to get the procurement officer in place first then the auditor second and that's the reason and the method behind what we're doing with that and we're just about to have that fall in and dovetail into place and lastly with the training we do have the k b s system the person who trains as many people as anybody in this building and all this is built in through a bill candy do point in that they do a great job training people to use that system and because of all those efforts we have a system that in a town government that has  integrity at times about what we try to assisted the the potman heads we don't try to use he doesn't try to use what he knows to just stop people from working he says here's what the law is if you want to do what you want to do you have to do the following steps why don't you do those steps and then you don't have a problem and it all works so i would just want to say at this time that nobody deserves more of a pat on the  agreement yes mr chairman i did provide an agreement have gone back and forth with attorney freeman counsel for the developer and the agreement is in proper form there is a new last page that i'll be distributing this evening tonight bill because if you look at the last page of the agreement that you have you'll see that it provided for an ascent on the last page by national grid and national grid was consulted and came back this week indicated that it did not wish to sign off on this particular agreement and instead national grid will have its own separate agreement with the trust and so instead of the ascent that you see on the last page i'll pass out in just a second a new agreement with a different last page that has a new section at the end called effective date and it reads the parties here by agree that this license shall not take operative effect and less than until the licensee provides the town with satisfactory evidence that national grid is the successor in interest to mass electric and as the holder of the electric utilities been over the property has assented in writing to the work proposed under this license acknowledging that the work proposed under the license will not infringe upon or otherwise impair the subject easement held by national grid so that's just a a substitute for the assent so that they won't have to sign off but this license won't take effect until that other written agreement is entered into between the trust and national grid and we get evidence of that a couple of things that i wanted to emphasize the board had questions last time about the the timing of the payment of the sixty thousand dollars in sewer mitigation funds and that is addressed in this agreement on page two in section two the sewer mitigation you know we have a deadline for it being paid of june the first of this year of two thousand and twelve or sooner if the work begins before that date and in addition you'll see on page five under the surety agreement there is also an agreement by the trust to pay five thousand dollars upon the signing of the licensing agreement to help defray the town for its legal expenses in this matter and another question that the board had had last time was what the amount of the surety would be you asked that the town engineer be consulted he was consulted and got back to me and he asked for twenty thousand dollars and you'll see that on page five under as well so i'll pass out the new agreement which again is just just the last page that's differen your word and there is an exhibit that gets attached at the end which was should have been attached to the one that you had the original one and the other the other issue that i wanted to raise with the board i see it's technically not on the agenda but you had asked me to do a written water main specification policy the last time i was here and i did send that along i'm not sure it's on i know that is they say that the developers are anxious to proceed on the water main specifications because they believe the contracting and financing are underway and so a question has arisen as to when the board might be able to act upon it since elements of a license is that it be revocable and so we need to say what the procedure is for revocation to take that's where the shoreline is headed as to the daily driving stature now i know this is to get sixty thousand last year it was there again in this year's warrant for the demolition of the daily drive extension pump not demolished the old one as of yet it's right now that it's an article for this year's town meeting again but he was told distinct states correct yeah and the connection you're trying to make now the station that tying into that can handle this right now yes ok but but it may need improvements or one of a the idea is that  two is details ok we're going to be taken diac consent to have extension station will be ahead of going out to washington street so that'll come out a daily drive ok well that's what i was trying to get a handle on but as i say not since come back in there now in this with what you're doing now are you looking to put this particular line in is the rest of the infrastructure me and done before you start building things i was sure yet yeah they started the infrastructure the deep so where work is stopped for the winter but yes as part of the interest infrastructure for the first phase which is underway the sewer is necessary for the permit doesn't require all the infrastructure to be done before you start building correct so it was set up to be done in phases and yes well i mean i i have to ask you because i haven't been given what i what i've been asking for and what the superintendent have you been down there anybody from your department everything seems to be going well down there everything seems to be fine from from our end all right i haven't spoken to the town engineer about well i concerned i haven't heard from the other three people either so that's all i had joe and i just i haven't got anything back that i've asked for so ok steve young questions and also i thank you and release is it join you have no problem using plastic piping as a procyon and i have no problem with that the way it's written in mr manager you've seen this  attorney quirk addressed with the board before and i know select went into the nose asked for some information building and zoning indicates to me there's been no permits on there and all the work to do one up there is under a comprehensive permit it is that's more than just building it's all the work they're doing and that's what i that's what i have asked for is for all of the patronage report from them to make sure that everything is being done is according to the permit i haven't seen it it's only been two months so i know they're busy and all things are going tough but i didn't think it would be that hard to get a report back so that's fine ok i'm not ready to do this tonight i haven't seen it we were just given it i would suggest we put it on for next week and the question i move the board scientists license agreement and put the water main specification issue on our next agenda second discussion john and that's fine so you know i would have liked to seen the boy just is chairman would that be on tuesday yes could we place that as our first item i mean these gentleman and lady have been sitting here for over an hour and a half and i don't  they need we might as well and i don't think they need to come we just need to have a chance to review it and approve it and we'll be meeting i don't know we haven't decided on next tuesday but right after the consent or maybe before the managers comment so they could really get out of here on time well that's harsh but just so you just you know this court could not be here when we opened this evening she had asked to be put on   i'm sorry is the board ready to give attorney quirke signed copies now or should we send them to her or some other time a couple quick things we're down and all business and we've taken care of the item that was on the air but i was just going to look to see if the board has anything else that they want to bring up secretary has can start looking at this i be looking at probably the seventh and the twenty first which is the first game third tuesday of the month and that's what we've been doing you know the twenty the twenty first a school vacation is that kind of affect anyone ahead as of now frank do you think we need to have another meeting in january at the end of the month twenty ninth i believe it was thirty first yeah i think we probably do you know just night the thirty first of january we should be looking to schedule one we can do the seventh in the twenty eight year when i don't think it will be a good thing taking a week in between being the well that you are when you said with the fourteen well whatever you also schedule like is you know everybody and anybody else that have a problem with doing it the fourteenth i guess you know either way frank all right so it's the seventh and the twenty eighth in february and then sheila will also be doing the looking to do the thirty first of january all right and if there's nothing else i can i can tell you one second morrow night the schedule is six thirty the treasurer collected on a erickson to be followed by pat besler with the ledbury john dennis and recreation budget