let's get on paper welcome everyone i'd like to call the february twenty fourth two thousand and sixteen meeting of the board of selectmen to order i'm sammy baghdadi the chair to my right is marked a little with the warrant committee and i will have mike lehman send in one moment call that meeting to order were also placed to have members of the school committee and members of the school administration here all of the school committee does not have a quorum it's my understand jim all right so if you don't mind we'll start with actually the first item on our agenda which is just quickly approving the minutes of february third everybody should have a copy of that as amended if there is one item in there that it is sort of a filler that we have to fill in which is small increase from the current fiscal year but i would also note that simply the fourteen is revenue sources grown from three million eleven thousand dollars to three million five hundred sixty cents which is a whole eight revenues and expenses i believe are not actually in the budget is that correct that is correct because that's funded from a surcharge for your profit so is that the only aspect of property taxes that does not actually appear in the budget because another is when people are paying for it old that exclusions that go towards paying for the cherry for example that is in the budget yet is that the only aspect essentially of people's tax bill that is not in the budget project so that is where we are for fiscal seventy just a couple highlights but the revenue changes property taxes are increasing from the overall budget of my four point two million dollars and that's comprised of the two and half percent revenue growth of the property tax is about a million nine hundred one thousand seven hundred twenty thousand dollars in new growth that's the five hundred thousand dollars of the when your budgeted revenues are exceeded the end of the fiscal year and with your spend or two that were budgeted come in less than what you had budgeted so if you are trying to be very close to the actual basically your ability to replenish your freak out has to be monitored carefully so there is one hundred fifty thousand dollar reduction in the free cash amount that you last fiscal year from one million some fifty to a million sex not really certain yet what the legislature will do and that's a contingency so basically i mean if you think about it for a moment is the legislature really going to be stated lest less going to be what would it be less than what the governor has propose functions pension insurance benefits is nine percent the budget for his nine million eight hundred ten and public safety which is thirteen million greater percent of the budget overall of a hundred million dollars budget here it is one point four three to see that includes the two hundred thousand for spent years if i'm not mistaken the fiscal fifteen capital budget was one point three nine five so just under one point four million so this number is almost the exact same as that fiscal fifteen number and yet we're saying that there's an additional two hundred thousand for sidewalks and he thought it would be that right so if yours subtract out two hundred thousand you would get one point two million and so what i'm saying is that in the absence of the two hundred thousand the capital allocation for sixth for seventeen is the last in the capital allocation for fifteen so i'm just trying to understand what they th so i want to go right to the power point which is in the middle section of your  really allowed us to be able to deposit funds in those lines that were really experiencing great shortfall over time which then had to have money taken from other line items such as directors line just for all created through twelve folks in the fall so we're really excited to have that kind of proficiency and that kind of ability to our to serve our community well then needs to be someone who watches that were it monitors that so the budget by the numbers yes why seventeen budget was increased by two million nine hundred ninety five thousand nine hundred thirty dollars from f y sixteen this as david pointed out reduce the price it's a two percent increase the total budget for  seventeen is fifty two million six hundred fifty six thousand piastres indicating that the updated amount when we subtract it should but five million dollars for the transfer of the facilities the increase here for health insurance that you thirty eight is eight percent of the total three million dollar increase you happen to know either one of you what the percent increase is in health care cost from sixteen to seventeen just  and that's the same across both budgets is it ok terrific thank you i'm curious and i think it's true the the uses of funds from the override have have have been honored not the right word but there in the budget we held that we put it into year two we took a year to a position of a guidance counselor and we put that into a year when it's generally only have three so we presented that and the public meeting at the school committee but we decided to do it in late august september and we believe that was the only change in the three year plan that we had to place ok so we can say that the people who voted for the override are getting exactly what what they expected to get with with that one in then with regard to pension cost my understanding is that some of the the employees who work in the in the schools are actually are required to join the modern times ok so the question is are the pension cost the pension cost i believe are included in the so called fixed cost in the total budget so the pension costs for those just the cost of the labor force and no one there and that's my understanding i just want to confirm that that's the case ok and then with regard to opeth cost which as many of you know i don't think we're i  think our strategy is no longer valid and needs to be addressed and i'm hoping to still make progress on that even this year with regard to opec that doesn't clue teachers know health insurance and what is that for that's the cost of the plans for retired school employees leaving the check a thirty four b number is that right that there's an something even though you don't see it in the school budget i'm just trying to clarify for myself and for the viewers as well because i talked to a lot of people on the street in who are voters and you know just to make is that when we're talking health care in the school budget it's not for open it it's what it's for health care for everybody who works for the school including retirees the school department ok and that's that's the cost that went up what with respect to it was a two and a half percent ok so then with regard to the pension costs since the teachers are not covered by the town pension but some of the school department employees are in gym maybe you're even into this is the fifty eight forty two split still made there i actually at the school budget and what i'm trying to chill out is what's in the school budget and what's not and when we when we see pension expense and we see health care expenses you know we we need to understand is that current pension expense or is it is that funding the unfunded portion i think that if there's pension expense in the school budget or for employees who are not teachers who are part of the cost are taken out of the general revenues before we do the fifty eight forty two i get it how how do you adjust for the fact that the school employees are not fifty eight percent of the pension  ok all right good and then with regard to in this this again is something i can take off side but there are a lot of people that come with major institutions to belmont in they they move in from  different different locations the children can't speak english they come into the program and we have talked in the revenue opportunities committee on the financial taskforce about talking to those institutions because the intent of the l a law is not necessarily to educate children of people who are moving here for three years and then you know attending the public schools are we are we looking into any of that or is it because that's one of the expenses that ballooning and i think you know people are moving into the community that way it almost as part of a corporate program rather than a community and natural growth in the community we have not approached any private he already university or group on we have brought this the attention of the state where they did their evaluation of programming in the expectation that it shifts subtly the expectations for how much time students needed in the class to lead out of the clash in the direct in n they do see our situation is different from the norm of the state however there's no no no group no great movement you have ok i just was interested if you would talk to them and then this is for david where is the light department i think i know where the light department is but again just for those who are viewing the light department budget is not in the is not in this number i know it's not the full number but i mean it's not in the town number either oh so they aren't there in the well you're not part of the general budget ok and then my last question and thank you one committee colleagues is i think we all remember the reserve fun that was set up for two thousand and seventeen and then two thousand and eighteen to try to avoid another override you know with as the projections went and you you said you're going to update date those abduction projections we talked about that as well so that we can see the effort the financial task force projections yet again this year based on what happened in sixteen and what we're forecasting for seventeen we've talked about that if so what has happened to the reserve is the reserve preschool but we are projecting about ninety to one hundred students over the next four years it will bring us up to one thousand seven hundred ninety two hundred over the next four or year per year per year ok ok fine per year ticket with this year i just did some quick back of the oval calculations the f y seventeen budget general fund only is also twenty seven percent higher than last year's budget it's about seven percent higher than what's being projected right now to be the costs for this year our executive report that are in front of you and in section one as well and lastly our next steps are some technical assumptions they apologized who will release a two point five million dollars you actually have to come facilities department percent so my and my recollection was the last year we made an estimate about what the increase was going to be in health insurance and then at some point later in the year we actually had a clear sense of what was actually going to be as it does that sound right so if i understand that this is an our best guess about what we think is going to happen you're on more questions or general john i thought one of the effect of slides that you had last year was the slide that showed the per pupil expenditure of wilma compared to surrounding communities and if i remember the number correctly we were in the questions or comments ok before you go to the next agenda agenda item i just want to thank town administrator david kale assistant town administrator phyllis marshall superintendent of schools john fay land and finance director tony ecology arrow for all their hard work on these draft one budgets i see many weekends in these documents as well so i do want to thank you for all your hard work and thank you for working so well together and coming up with a harmonious draft one budget thank advance for your work with the partners yeah mike and i just like to add that the board of selectmen will be holding meetings with department heads on march mornings of march eighth tuesday and march tenth thursday now i think that i think that it is an unusual budget year relative to the last many that i've been involved with in that we're not scrambling the one thing that i would say just to echo what we've talked about and in past years is that while we have the benefit of this fourteen million dollar override you know we want to make sure that override last as long as possible so i think part of the sub committee process part of the ongoing department prophecies will be to you know keep that pencil sharp and make sure  that you know we're doing everything we can and we know with a sixty seven sorry sixty nine percent of our expenditure in the form of salaries that would clearly be a critical issue in terms of maintaining a level of salary growth that's actually consistent with revenue growth because to the extent that there is a meaningful disparity between salary growth on an ongoing basis and revenue growth it simply is unsustainable without additional revenue and so i'll just reiterate i think what has been said many times and i just said i'm sorry you have are and i just had to that i mean i to look at in terms of non revenue non tax revenue sources that's one aspect of it there are recommendations in terms of town delivery of town services so there's other work we have to do we were successful in getting  more and more coming to the capital budget committee have been projects which have been in excess of a million dollars and because the capital budget is essentially a million dollars a little bit less than a million and a half that just isn't doable over time you know we can't i mean we last year we chose to bond two of those things and you know you can do that sometimes but i think the town really has to think carefully about these capital needs that are not whole buildings which are de exclusions but are also not really appropriate for the annual capital budget because they're too big but they have to be done and that's something that has been a hole in our structure financial structure for some time but something i think we should think you ok so the next time an agenda is the chief financial reports now we did go through the school numbers those numbers are actually reiterated in john's presentation that he was a fifty thousand dollars gap if i remember correctly and there the the largest variance coming from i think it's seven thousand you said you know out of the situations is there any more laurie or tony or john you like to add about their q two status that day but that's when they are due and final some committee reports just as a reminder of you on may fourth so you'll want to make sure some committee chairs that you have that very clearly in your town you know in the counter david roughly how much remains i don't remember how much the total budget is about  that's the total budget so if forty percent it's around twenty four thousand dollars or two hundred forty thousand so ranchera forty thousand remains  stabilization fund it's a four or a billion dollars fifty that we've never within just a patient an expectation that we would continue to see that every year which we haven't been able to do so that that should be part of the discussion  oh and i know one of the issues in the last several years it's also been a pressure point was fire overhead i presume and that's not a pressure point this year so overall  will and so where is what is the actual new growth number like this year that we projected five hundred thousand but the let me actually go when you realize what they collected on the different now that's in the real estate and personal property of argument we were to allocate one point four five million in the work from the module classrooms i'm not sure that's going to the proposal but let's just say that for that's that that's the case that would take the seven point six million down to four point one five which is a almost roughly four percent of the overall of last year's budget of one hundred million if you member are our our guideline was three to five with a target a force that's kind of right in that in that in that ballpark there are a couple you may or may not want to talk about but you have in mind but the we do know that there is that would fall road money the one point seven five million money that is not anywhere counted in the calculation plus the two hundred ten thousand dollars from fema that we expect to get so when you put those two together yet roughly two million dollars of additional money i don't know if there are any other chunks of money that are known that are not in free cash but we know that are coming our way oh  about taking it from her cash and i think distracted by the fact that female or would fall or others maybe replenishing for a freak out for free cash really is is our first place to go to and i'm guessing i facility no a school but the equivalent of a school building and i think you know i think you know like it or not the unfunded pension expense is going to go up and it's not a joke you know three years now of the ten million dollars so that's not a joke even with this budget we're borrowing fifteen million in the open fund which is going to show up on our balance sheet on two thousand and eighteen that's not a joke either you know this stuff is real and when and i think you know the idea that it's optional that that the opeth expenses optional is true until it's not and once it's not we're going to happen but cash again so you know i think if we have expenses that we can bond in and come up with a different plan for the unfunded pension and i know you know there's going to be a lot of competition for current funds but it's out of the scope of this meeting but i just wanted to say if we approve this budget the way it is we're borrowing fifteen million dollars an unfunded opeth liabilities and we know as we're sitting here that the unfunded pension amortization schedule unless we change is going to go up seven percent a year in three years and be a ten million dollars i just thing like i understand that raising taxes is not anybody's first choice but we also have the option taken center of the capital outlay exclusion because that that allows a town i think i might think i'm a big supporter of financial engineering but if you've ever done it you know this conversation is something that is premature because there are a lot of there seem to be a lot of claims yes on it fifteen was a good year i would advocate for considering whether we're going to put some of that money into the general stabilization fund there was a commitment made to voters last year that we would look to stretch the overwrite as far into the future as possible to me the general stabilization fund i vehicle for doing that so understanding there are a lot of competing needs that are going to need to be discussed i would give that serious consideration at this point right i have no pl premature for us to talk about you know where that money should come from whether bonding is a program which i think is protect certainly something we should consider i think you know it will be a little bit on the top discussion other day when we have more information about that so just a heads up to everybody and then my point in just walking through the free cash is just to give everybody kind of at least a snapshot of that there are some other moving parts as we talked about wood with would follow road and other things and i think the notion that you talked about before extending the override as long as possible and you know what the right mechanism for doing that and whether putting money in the general stabilization fund as i think one thing that will want to talk about more of that we've also talked about the spread stabilization fund which is currently dry and replenishing that so there are a number of different potential uses and for that matter sources of cash and so ok so i'm certainly becoming becoming aware of the time i apologies it is nine thirty one so are there any updates that you are aware of in terms of the minuteman in terms of additional votes as they were both  next question is because the building project will be in front of us sometime in may or june and that's the next sort of threshold question for us as a town whether we support a new building project or not how it's going to be constructed we now have a full face of what the  under the new agreement as we went through a very detailed way on monday the there is a requirement under the new agreement for them to go to school to town meeting goats at least initially so once they get no  about as we collectively as a community think about the decision around the debt in the new school it's going to be important for us to understand what are the what are viable alternatives that we have so there is existing school renovated school new school and potentially belmont finding alternatives for educating students in a high quality technical fashion so i think there will be a follow up process that that sammy and laurie and i are talking about a little bit about how do we think about investigating alternatives for being able to educate the students as we need to just making sure that we have all the facts that we need as a community as well as we're evaluating you know a new school as an option so they'll be more to come on that light of the time there were no updates and from the school committee ok no members of the public