good evening we live yes hi good evening i'm bonnie freedman on behalf of the belmont league of women voters i'd like to welcome you to the warrant briefing for the june first annual town meeting for financial and budgetary articles i'd like to thank the belmont media center for once again filming this forum live and also replaying it later on television and the internet for those who cannot be with us tonight now i would like to introduce michael chair of the warrant committee who will be presiding over tonight's form thank you thank you bonnie very much and thank you very much to the league of women voters it's always great to have this kind of event sponsored by the league of women voters and the work committee to give folks an opportunity to ask questions about what's going on a town  little bit of learning just a little reminder on ground rules this is a warrant briefing which means it's an opportunity for people to learn about what's going on with the war in two articles to ask questions that you know may be better served here than in for example a town meeting this is not the time and the place to make your argument to practice your speech to debate the war in articles i'm sure we'll have ample opportunity for debate at town meeting this is the time for asking questions the number of members of the town departments in the school departments as well as the work committee that are here that are happy to answer questions i will make sure that we stop no later than nine pm of course if we can finish the earlier than that that would be perfectly fine are there any questions before i get started right so when we start going through the articles beginning of town meeting and some proclamations and things like that and some updates that will be given by various members of government so so that article nine just for everybody's recollection is the reconsideration of the nonbinding solar and again it will require two thirds vote in order for it to be reconsidered are there any questions that people would like to ask oh sorry one other thing i will continue to use the rules that the town moderator has it has create which i think are good ones so that if you do come to them like please plan on asking a question  if you have a follow up that's great if you have more than that please move to the back alliance of the others will have an opportunity to you to ask questions ok any questions about article nin put this on the ballot and it's entirely logical that to explain exactly why he's done so to thank you for doing that so that you have a question that's nice and question david you have to know the answer that clarify where appropriate but in this case the work committee did recommend unanimously favorable action on article ten are there any questions are about article ten ok article levon is enterprise funds for water and sewer and storm water services  stormwater enterprise there's six point three million dollars of appropriation on the water side there's eight point three million dollars of appropriation on the syrian stormwater side the board has approved the water and sewer rates on the basis of these amounts that are in this article and they are terrible represents a two point six percent increase in rates versus last year are there any questions about article  evening glenn clancy director of community development fred we're actually finishing up two different sewer projects at the moment one of them is an infiltration and flow project the other one is one that is aimed at clean water so there's a significant amount of realigning with that well i mean the stormwater conveyance system is being upgraded i wouldn't say that's a primary focus it's sort of a secondary benefit because the clean water projects are really aimed at keeping the dirty sewer water in mains what we're finding is because of an aging infrastructure that the sewer water is leaking into the storm drain system and so the combination of replacing sewer main and linings who i'm in and sometimes actually replace in storm water is well we're able to keep those two systems separate i think that moving forward we obviously have work that we want to do in terms of storm want to management i wouldn't sit here and say that that's the primary focus right now long but a encourage everyone to take a look at it and so at what i'll do is i'll go through this at a high level and then we'll open the floor for questions so give you a bit of background in terms of how the budget is  developed give you a quick overview of both the revenue side and the expenditure side a quick update on free cash and for stabilization funds that we have and a bit of information on long term trends which i think are overall the town to oversee them and to and to ask lots of questions back in the late fall or you know early winter we created initial allocation which essentially established the original budget targets between municipal side and the school side so that was forty two percent to the to the municipal side for fifty eight percent of the school side and that's using the numbers that were voted at the last town meeting so in the fiscal fifteen budget those are the splits so we start with that as the initial place needless to say the override was clearly the major game changer this year in terms of infusing more money into the budget the budgets were drafted and they were just voted on may twelfth by the school committee the thirteenth by the work committee and the work for the report was sent out on the fourteenth at a very high level on the revenue side this is now a one hundred million dollars budget so an interesting enough when you have one hundred million dollars budget the percentages and the absolute spend ends up working out pretty pretty well so you have eighty one percent of the budget you want from property taxes and it's eighty one million dollars coming from from property taxes and therefore broad categories of revenues so you've got property taxes in the orange or red you've got local  receipts in the yellow you've got free cash and a couple other buckets in the in the blue and then finally stated which is chapter seventy eight and some other stated it's in that in that great portion and again i'll talk more about this in detail at town meeting with this chart does it takes some of your back that takes the eighty one million dollars the red portion the property tax portion and says look at where the property taxes come from so the property taxes come the lion's share of that is last year's property taxes right and then that's the red and then what happens is the two nap percent increase which proposition two and after stablished creates the additional one point eight million dollars in the yellow new growth comes from is four hundred seventy five thousand dollars in the budget right now which is the number that comes from the assessors an estimate of new growth in town and that's additional tax revenue that comes in the gray is the three point eight million dollars of debt solution revenue and just to be clear that number is actually less than it was in in the last several years and the reason why is because we actually paid off the tenor a in fiscal fifteen so when you pay off that debt that means that the revenue stops coming in it means the cost also goes away and then the little sliver that sticking out of the sliver that's taking out of the two point eight million dollars in overawed funds that's two point million of the four point five million that's deployed in in fiscal sixteen and i'll talk about where the rest goes in a minute so again if this is the overall revenue picture right  hundred million dollars revenue picture we just talked about the read also give you a little detail on the yellow which is local receipts i won't get into detail on free cash and stated because that's pretty straightforward but on the yellow it breaks out this way so these are local receipts are six point nine million dollars of local receipts the four big and relevant buckets were to be aware of is motor vehicle excise which is three million dollars in the green the blue is ambulance receipts which has as we've now transition from basic life support to advent to come to basic an advanced life support that number is a little bit bigger than it's been in the past recreation programs is the yellow at seven twenty five and then finally the other big bucket is licenses and permits the the orange which is what little over a million dollars and that's of course building permits for homes and other buildings and that collectively represents local receipts so if the overall budget is one hundred million dollars and the top line again comes in from the revenue hundred million dollars in revenue that used to be ninety five there's a five point three million dollar increase and start five point three percent increase i apologize that is largely from a combination of new growth from the two not percent increase from the over those of the big chunks of that local receipts is up just slightly and stated is flat and and as i mention the debt is down a little bit so the majority of that increase is actually coming from the property taxes so women do is a focus on the middle column which is breaking down that one hundred million dollars into its cop into its expense components so what we do in the fall is we first take out what we call the fixed costs so the fixed costs those pieces are essentially not changing they're not something that we actually manage directly as a town there are fixed essentially and so that fifteen point eight million dollars is first taken out and then that that leaves you the operating budget and that eighty four million dollar operating budget that number is the piece that then gets divided into that fifty eight forty two split all right so this the forty nine point six million dollars actually ends up being now fifty eight point eight percent it's more than fifty percent because the larger portion of the of the overall money went towards the school side and then the town and capital chunk which is the thirty three million roughly in the one point eight million that's now forty one point two percent of the remainder and you can see the various growth rates the school growth is where the largest chunk of growth is coming from because again the override money is going there in two to meaningful extent and then the you can see that from a percentage basis the capital discretionary budget also grows a fair amount because we're adding roughly fourteen thousand dollars into the capital budget that grows at therefore by thirty thirty percent ok just to be really clear that when i say the discretionary budget of capital this is different than the roads override money which i'll get to in a bit and we will talk about a little bit more so there's an additional so actually on the next page i'll show  you this road piece which is one point five four nine million dollars that's roughly one point two five million dollars of override money from a long time ago and then three hundred thousand dollars of new override money which makes that now one point five five million dollars so that's the roads non discretionary essentially and then the one point eight million dollars of capital discretionary ok so this is the fixed cost the fifteen point eight million dollars on there was on the previous page sixty nine percent of all of the fix is in the form of either pension or debt as i mentioned before debt has gone down a little bit because of the chattering pension is up by eight percent which i'll talk about later the roads expenditure is up by twenty one percent a little less than twenty one percent and the minute man is up by just under eleven percent that as i mentioned is down by about fourteen percent so that's the fixed cost this is then the operating budget the eighty five million dollars or eighty four million dollars roughly of the operating budget i mentioned before the fifty eight the seven of this list is everything but captain discretionary is six of the nine motions that will with it will vote on in article twelve so article twelve has nine motions six of them are the first six here and the other three are pensions debt and minuteman which are not shown on the start but were shown on the previous page so those nine represent article twelve and then capital discretionary which is the two point two percent sliver the one of the smallest one that is part of article sixteen which will get to you in a little bit with ann marie ok so schools and then police and fire make public safety public services is public works and community development and facilities human services star general government is next and then human services which represents health health carbon library council in asia the next group is insurance which is that kind of orange sliver the three point three percent and that includes thirty four b spending and just to be clear what that is that is current health care costs for current retirees so we talk about zero pad later that is future health care costs for retirees thirty four b this chunk right here is the current health care cost for current retirees and then again couple discretionary is the one point eight million that will get to an article sixteen right overall the municipal departments have been funded at levels services are better the school department avoided cuts as a result of the override or there's an increase of sixteen years and there's additional funding for special education and another other costs healthcare costs began have remained flat  which is terrific and as a result of that we've been able to make some additional investment into the sort of the financial taskforce recommendation around recreation so those eight thousand dollars of savings from the musical side that's been put into  spending three hundred thousand dollars for roads two hundred thousand dollars for sidewalks additional money for discretionary and additional money that will ultimately go towards the the new fire since the fire alarm system at the high school which again a lot emery talk about more  now free cash just very quickly i realize it's a little bit of an eye chart but hopefully this will make some sense so we started out on july first two thousand and fourteen with seven point five million dollars of certified free cash every year for cash is certified on july first so that new serve occasional happened on july first of two thousand and fifteen the combination of work between the word committee and the board of selectmen resulted in a recommended guideline that we will be using for for maintaining free cash of between three and five percent of the devoted operating budget so since last year's operating budget was was ninety five million dollars three point three percent of that is the  million which is that lower blueline five percent of that five percent of that ninety five million is four point seven six million so the idea is that we would want to have based on this guideline between two point nine million and four point eight million roughly of free cash so what you see is we started with seven point five million dollars and the red chunks are the areas that we've either already appropriated or are potentially going to be appropriate at this upcoming town meeting so we allocated one point three million dollars for belmont center we did that back in november the budget that you'll vote on in article twelve has one point seven five million dollars in it from free cash the snow and ice number that was already voted last time around seven hundred forty eight thousand cash as a total of three hundred sixty seven thousand dollars or from all sources but three thirty five from free cash where we end up with is three point three million dollars of free cash that keeps us in the guideline and we typically see is every year that you have this pattern where you use  cash and then there is a certain amount of replenishment of free yeah sure that happens either because of revenues that come in higher than expectation or expenses that come in lower than expectation that number over the last six years has been typically on the order of two and a half million dollars a year so you would expect to see that three point three million go up and that will then allow us to put some more money for operating in the future as we've currently planned like the allocation the you see that one point seven five allow us to put money towards zero pad and give us some essentially rainy day money for things like snow and ice and other purposes ok now we currently have two stabilization funds we currently have a special education stabilization fund and we currently have a general stabilization fun and sorry we have three months and we actually have three stabilization funds today which is a special education the general stabilization fund and the stabilization fund the we will potentially create a fourth stabilization fund is article nineteen which is a capital debt stabilization fund so we effectively deplete the special education stabilization fund by removing two hundred fifty thousand dollars in the last may town meeting there's a little bit of interest that's still in there but that money is largely gone there will need to be at some point presumably a reallocation of money to that to that fund but that does not exist in the current in the in the in the numbers will have before us the general stabilization fund is article thirteen which is the article comes right after article twelve that's the article that takes the the remaining money from the override so if you remember before we had two point three make sure i get the number right two point eight million dollars in money that's spent in fiscal sixteen the remaining one point six one point seven million dollars is then deposited into the open stabilization fund under article seventy under article thirteen i'm sorry which allows the override to then be extended over the longest possible period of time and not have to do another override the opec stabilization fund is article seventeen which is the three hundred sixty seven thousand dollars that i mentioned before and then finally the capital debt stabilization fund is article nineteen and the purpose of that is and we'll get to a little bit later but it is to create opportunities for when we sell for example town property or if we happen to have excess free cash it allows us to put that money into a capital that stabilization fund and use it for the specific purpose of these four projects which is the high school the police station the d p w in the library whether that's for studies or potentially to defray the cost that is the in the intent of the capital debt stabilization fun i'm actually talking longer than i expected so i apologize in terms of long term trends just at a very high level you probably heard me mention this before but you know we have we generate revenue on the order of two and a half to three and after cent growth employee compensation which represents nearly seventy percent of the budget is growing faster than that revenue number and as long as that is happening that is going to create pressure on the budget so that is a i would argue the number one challenge for us on an ongoing basis we've had growth for quite some time and romance and growth in mandated school cost particular on the special education side we've had meaningful needs for capital maintenance and infrastructure investment which we're now starting to make somewhat of a difference on with with the override but there will be other projects that will have to be have money spent on and then we have you know continued growth for example on the pension side and a significant pension obligation that will have to be dealt with so he paused let me stop there actually i'm again apologies for going a little longer than i expected i hope that was at least somewhat helpful as an introduction open the floor for questions about all of article twelve and and for the well i'll start with article twelve actually which is the entire budget so the budget just to be clear well folks are coming up individual perforations so for example general government four point four million employee benefits this is the pension p six point five million this is the insurance piece i mentioned which included the current  retiree spending and public safety and on and on yes  for snow or budget so basically they're both different types of savings account clearly stabilization fund regard to the special education stabilization fund now is a piggy bank specifically for use to cover special two and we're budgeting two point one seven billion next year which by my math is a seventy five percent increase from where we are this year and i'm just curious then there seems to be a dichotomy between your earlier stated that budget david so so in that account basically health insurance salaries are account so basically not all are bargain units have settled so basically it's really the health insurance slash alexanders or account so basically the increase in the balance is based so just to be clear what you're referring to is essentially the insurance accounts which has some retiree health and some things that david just talked about that's not actually where the majority of health care expense is in the budget most of that is actually correct me if i'm wrong david is actually baked into the various budgets of the various groups  current pensions as well as the unfunded liability and then this two point seven seven which is article c emotion c has in it the health care for current retirees the current of care for current retirees we can so we can confirm that might be good even my understanding is that the there is a large portion that that is and again for unfunded liability but i i believe that it's part of it is for current and part of it is for unfunded is that right ok so make sure you say correctly the six point  current pay as you go system and how much is too is is the to add to the pot i don't have the number off the top of my head that is the aggregate amount i was i get it i get ok are there any further questions about article twelve yes was slightly mistaken when i wrote that that it's not actually a new fund it's actually existing fund that has a relatively small amount of money in it as the general stabilization fund i think to some of the questions were asked earlier each of the stabilization funds are designed essentially to serve a particular purpose so unlike as david was saying before free cash which essentially is just the holding place for the money that is an reserve that has not been assigned for any purpose these for stabilization funds are designed to serve particular objectives so the first fund is designed to serve for when we have an extraordinary overages on special education the second which is the one you're asking about fred is designed specifically to hold the money from the override that is not being used for two thousand and sixteen but was explicitly talked about during the the vote process as being able positon reefer money to be used not probably in two thousand and seventeen but probably in two thousand and eighteen and beyond so in two thousand and seventeen  had forecast a four and a half million dollar budget gap or when i say we i mean the financial task force had forecast of that and so the the overriding theory would then fully cover the two thousand and seventeen money and this money would not be tapped at all if that were to bear out as true into the fiscal seventeen it's fiscal eighteen and nineteen when we are when again the financial taskforce forecasted budget gaps that are potentially larger than four naff million dollars that this money would then be t that specific purpose the open stabilization fund again is specifically for opac and the capital debt stabilization fund is specifically for these large capital projects but that's the logic and intent behind putting the one point six seven million in the general stabilization fun ok so we've now talked about article twelve just to be clear we've effectively talked about article thirteen which as well which is the stabilization fund that we were just talking about a moment ago so that's the one point six seven million in the in that stabilization fund are there any further questions about that so what that does is it allows us to tax by whatever the amount is voted but it does not require the taxation of whatever was voted so how that actually happens mechanistically is we vote a budget th then deploys those funds so in this case two point eight million dollars of the four and a half million dollars was as assigned to two thousand and sixteen budget and unless there is a place for that money then it does that for the remaining piece the one point six seven million dollars then it does not get levied in fiscal sixteen now that doesn't mean that the levy met when it doesn't go up in fiscal seventeen and it goes up by the four not million plus the two point five percent but it means that this one point six seven million dollars gets lost forever from the standpoint of being able to be spent from a budgetary perspective so the design was to put this money into a specific place so that it could be used for the purpose that it was that it was described  this does require two thirds vote and you know i think the way one might think about this is that we voted as a town a debt exclusion for the pool and that didn't mean that we were actually going to build a pool that meant that we were able to raise the money to build a pool and then the town to town meeting actually voted to actually spend the money on a pool so we voted to raise taxes by foreign after center for start four point five million dollars two point eight million dollars that is going to this budget right now and one point six seven million dollars is going to the fourteen so article fourteen i like when dr this but article fourteen is the authorization to transfer balances this actually takes balances from a number of different categories that  you know for example the one point seven five million dollars in free cash which is also called the unreserved fund balance it actually moves that money into the operating budget there's money that's moved from water revenue gender across cost from the the municipal light departments to offset the tax rate so there are a couple different essentially moving around of money that is very typical that we do and those are represented in these transfers in article fourteen and any questions about article fourteen so we'll move on to article fifteen so this or by the way is oracle fourteen which gen just outlines the various numbers the six hundred thousand dollars which is the letter b is a number that jim williams was just asking about the one point seven five  million dollars from the on reserve fund balance is that one point seven million from free cash again on reserve fund is free cash that goes into the operating budget and then again a couple other transfers that you'll see u sorry yeah so if you take me to fifteen so article fifteen is the authorization for upfront funds from chapter nine how highway improvements this is eight hundred one thousand dollars what happens is the state basically gives us aid specifically for the purpose of making road improvements and so when we talk about the roads on that fix charts bar charts like a side which was one point five five million dollars roughly that that number again was one point two five million from an old overawed that we did three hundred thousand dollars from this overrides that's one point five five million and then you've got eight hundred thousand dollars was not on the screen for chapter nineteen moneys and so when you add that all together you get a little under two point three five million dollars or so of money that goes towards the roads now one of the questions that i had as just a citizen the drives around the town and you know has my car bouncing around was if we wanted to spend as much money as we possibly could on the roads what would that actually look like and what i heard back from me development others essentially was because of the planning that has to be done with sewers and all that and the fact that we only have a certain number of months where roads can actually be constructed roughly tune of two point five million dollars is really all we can spend in a fiscal year so when you see us spending this much money between the capital money for the roads and in this interim thousand dollars for the chapter ninety improvements you're essentially seeing belmont spend not only the most money it's ever spent on the roads but also the most that it actually can in a given year within reason spend on the roads so if anybody asked you why are we spending more on the roads or century spending the most we can on the roads question and it seems like some of the sidewalks that we replace sections within a very short space of time that break down you know we're always behind on and we did the override raise extra money for it so we're never going to catch up with w  just a couple things on the trip road project well the top pay for the design the actual project construction project management is under the control department transportation responsible to manage any  sidewalks our public works department will manage that process and basically we have inspectors who will manage to test the the quality of the concrete will manage and inspect when the forms are built when the concrete is  first of all i don't know off the top of my head washington street school st the years that we did those repairs i can tell you that generally speaking sometime in the two to three year time frame for roads that have been rebuilt  primarily we begin to see the cracking in what we call the coal joint which is where the two different passes of asphalt meet each other you know we've we have very tight specifications for the asphalt we have tight specifications for how it's down frankly i mean there are vagaries row to row that i scratch my head at the same contractor doing the same work under the same contract i can show you roads where i can't find a coal joint seen the world was done so well and i can go a street over and find you know defects or deficiencies a year or two after the road was rebuilt we do our best to hold the contractor to a certain standard concord have a new was a row that we built last year a section from cambridge coming in from cambridge westbound lane if you drive on that section of road today you'll see that there are markings and silver paint areas where would you know we have identified deficiencies in the quality of work the contractors coming back to make repairs they're going to do an infrared repair on that roadway because we're not satisfied to have a section of fairview avenue that they paved last fall they're going to come in and grind that top off and repave it all over again because we're not satisfied so we do our best to stay on top of it i wish i could tell you i wish i could tell you that every road that's paved every every operation that occurs that that the outcome is the same that it's of the highest quality i can't do that i can't give you a good explanation as to why it is the way it is but i can tell you that when i go from community to community i see that they're wrestling with the same issues that we are something has changed in this industry over the last twenty years or so i don't know if it's the quality of materials of a certain regulations and how those materials are developed but the longevity of these materials just doesn't seem to be there anymore and you know as i preach to my staff we have to be better not only about the inspection when it's being applied originally but also in the follow up work that we do in the two three in year four out from that operation to make sure that we're doing the crack sealing that's necessary to you know to sort of a rest in any event that cheery aeration and give that road a fighting chance of a good long life time were sixty out of one hundred what are they now and will we ever catch up as far as raising the percentage claim clancy i don't have that number  you know i think the last time that we actually had that figure we had a recent inventory that was done of the entire roadway system in belmont i haven't done an entire roadway evaluation in several years i did take approximately one hundred twenty five or one hundred fifty roads in the last year and a half to two years and have them of value weighted i didn't see the point in spending money on it on roads above and beyond that hundred or so because it would just be so long before we got to them the data were never any value to me so i don't have the entire inventory graded where i can give you a good answer to that question i can tell you and there may be some people in this room that have actually gotten e mails from me to this effect  i get e mails and phone calls from people saying i live on a particular road you know why haven't you fixed it and all and i look on my list and i'll say ok well based on the evaluation that was on the pavement condition index on that road it is forty eight forty  nine which is a terrible road anything less than sixty is a road that requires full reconstruction that's that's what the engineering majors will tell you the sort of punch line to the information want to give it is ok you're at a forty eight which is a terrible road but there are the three hundred certainly helps the i've got a funding model that looks out over twenty years and i can tell you that in that twenty year period we get to where we want to go the the important thing about the override in terms of our mansion program was in addition to providing additional funds what it was allowing us to do is go back and do the mill and overlay repairs on roads that were reconstructed twenty years ago because without that influx of money what we were what we were running into was the possibility of spending the money to reconstruct a severely deteriorated road and then after twenty to twenty five years when that road was ready for a mill and overlaid so basically a surface treatment without the additional funds we wouldn't  have the ability to do that which means we would have been just in the cycle that we're in right now which means we would have had to let that road just go and continue to deteriorate until we found the money to do another full depth reconstruction so if  legacy and speaking of my legacy one of the things i'm really hoping to do it in my exit years here in the town of belmont is to be able to point to a significant number of roads in belmont that would have the ability to be milled and overlaid and not have to go through that folder of reconstruction or all over again i think that's important i think we're heading in that direction and i think we're we're in a good place to get there it's just going to take time in town and that there's a misunderstanding in terms of taishan what the town can do for a private way i wonder if you'll see if you words about that sure as i recall we've got approximately eight miles of private road w damani statutorily the town of belmont cannot repair those roads the town does have a certain obligation or a requirement to keep those roads open impassable the standard that we always refer to is open impassable for the the issue there is if you look for example at what i refer to as the new hill the hillcrest section of town one you're talking about roads that were built fifty years ago that they have survived this long is somewhat remarkable how much longer do they have you know and there are people up there and they're making a good effort and they have made a good effort in the past to try to bring the neighborhoods together to make those repairs they haven't been able to do it the town is very limited in its ability to sort of force t help them get to where they need to go their biggest challenge is building a consensus with the property owners in the butter's on those roads you know i can cite examples of roads that literally have nine of butters that can't come to an agreement on what to do and then when you get into you get into the whole chris neighborhood where you've got largest larger roadways more voters bigger neighborhoods the last time someone took a real effort out of they got forty percent b my understanding that the water department is a main user of woodland typically the a bottom is the ones with frontage running parallel to the roadways the furor at the butt end of a layo technically i don't believe you have what they would it's private in my understanding is not then i should like to try to have that conversation happen elsewhere if you don't mind as michael said it's a little out of scope so why don't we keep going actually if you don't mind and we're going to move to the article sixteen which is the appropriation of capital expenditures borrowing for radio transmission equipment and for fire alarm system and then finally the one point five five million for roads that are outside of chapter ninety three sure if you want them up here i know my limitations all right if you haven't already burned out the calculator apps on your electronic devices to nice this this will do it this is definitely going to tax your mathematical skills  the article sixteen is divided into four motions and i will speak to each of those four motions at our meeting i will give a capital budget report that will be more extensive i also would direct your attention to the capital budget report in the package that you received electronically or have picked up from the town clerk's office because that gives you a lot more detail broadbrush statements for tonight capital discretionary as always the capital budget committee places  very high value on safety in particular public safety after that maintenance of buildings and equipment to prevent catastrophic failure and then roads and sidewalks which have already substantially been addressed i'm going to highlight some of the things in the capital discretionary list and then i'll talk about those items that are being pulled out and are being treated differently because they're going to be bonded so when you look at the master list here we are right here department of public works let me just highlight that the sidewalk maintenance at two hundred thousand dollars that is from the override the other item i'd like to highlight here is the turf field utility tractor this is a piece of equipment that will safely clear the new hammers football field so if we have snow or something and need to clear this will safely do it it also can be used for maintenance so that it will be used to you know stir up the sand and whatever else is there and keep it very well it's also a piece of equipment that can be used in other areas on other fields so very versatile piece of equipment let me jump down police department i'm going to come back to and when i talk about borrowing the library note that we have funded half of the request for a feasibility study for a new building the board of library trustees will pick up the other half so the full cost of that study is ninety thousand dollars  and that is to look at what might happen for a new library on site and further details we can call on the library people to expand on that but that's a partnership between the two of us  when we look at the fire department also hold that new bands i'm coming back to that under facilities that's the next biggest chunk and remember over the last couple of years we have combined the maintenance of all of our facilities town and school and right now we're also getting the library on board so that all town buildings will come under this heading which makes it a whole lot easier i think for everybody in the category of public safety we are funding town school upgrades this is a five year plan this year is one hundred thousand dollars as we go forward actually that amount escalates to two hundred fifty thousand dollars so it's important that we keep that moving forward and it does do both town and school buildings that also is a partnership the capital budget committee is putting one hundred thousand dollars towards replacing there are true basketball court floors on the main floor of the winter field house known as the varsity  the j v we are replacing one of those and private donations are replacing the other so together both of those courts will be done we hope this summer the other item i'd like to draw attention to is the butler fire alarm system replacement again public safety we placed a very high priority on that so that will also be taken care of when you look under community development we're looking at sidewalks we're looking at traffic mitigation and that deadly intersection sycamore street i think everyone from that neighborhood and everyone who ever travels in that direction will be happy with that when it's done and finally we have allocated one hundred thousand dollars towards the community pass feasibility study because we have been assured that without the study the path cannot go forward but that when it goes forward it will be going forward with state and federal monies that's kind of the highlights there when you look at as we go down on the slide to pavement management we've already talked a little bit about that the two thousand and one override which allocated one point two million dollars add to that the three hundred thousand dollars from the override money that we were given and then we kick in the chapter ninety funds our chapter ninety allocation for for this year from the state is five hundred thirty five thousand dollars the eight hundred thousand dollars figure comes from additional money that was allocated to the town this was money that was given back to us it had not been signed off by the prior governor it was signed off by this governor and it's from the f y budget but we're putting it all together and as noted previously that brings us up to about two point two two point three million dollars to spend on the roads which is a good thing ok let me start here and entertain any questions on i don't know if we should be spending money my understanding is that the board of library trustees is one hundred percent behind this and their motivation is to be ready for the next sorry kathy cocain chair of the library board of trustees so our request for sharing the cost of the feasibility study is to look at the possibility of a new building a renovation of the existing building or an addition to the existing melding it's a fifty year old facility and we've had the heat fail six times who are in the process of looking at the s best us so we think it prudent to do the work to understand what the cost and the options are and then inform a longer term decision so we think the time is now and we have that fact pattern and we can plan there is a new grant to round coming out then so if we the town ninety so we're all aging a little bit and that's twenty five years ago the butler was done in seventy eight seventy nine this is part one of a two part program in both of those schools to replace those boilers the replacement the figures that we've given you here actually roll in piping replacement especially also basement everything that needs to happen to make that a completed project in both buildings we will do more next year but right now what we're doing here is a substantial amount of it and it's the whole thing it's not piecemeal  i would direct you to our facilities manager because he can give you much more detail on that i would just and while he's coming up i would just say that the reason that we're doing it is we don't want to find ourselves next year in a winter like we had this year with any of those boilers failing while students are in the buildings and so it's better to jump on this now and do a good job and that's what we intend to do j just could i suggest because you do have some specialized knowledge as does mr boyle perhaps afterwards the two of you could talk and i are now because i'm sure you could learn from each other ok thank you very any other questions on what we've covered thus far ok let me moved in move into then the two borrowings the cavil budget committee met this year and we reviewed all the material that we had and then in particular when we met with both the police chief and the fire chief we realized that there was a law are there were a number of items out there that could be combined into one large project and after a lot of discussion that in fact is what we did and so the borrowing for one million or wait six is for joint public safety communications center of quitman and portable radios this is going to be a ten year borrowing what we're doing is partially trading our bonds for public safety equipment which are coming off of our books and then we'll have to add some more to it too to make up the difference what we're doing is police equipment on belmont hill transmission equipment console and other equipment in the police station which takes care of all of the safety calls for fire and police and then the radios that go with it this is what have been a tour three year project we're trying to combine it into one year and it breaks down like this the one point zero eight will be borrowed and if you go back to the main list under capital discretionary under police department you'll find one hundred twenty three thousand that is part of that project and that will come directly out of our funds this year out of the discretionary funds and so the goal is to get all of that done all of it will be bought at the same time and hopefully we have some good communications and beyond that any detail you need you're going to have to talk to discretionary money every year so it stays with us it's one of the reasons why we don't love borrowing but when you look at the need sometimes the only way we can accomplish purchasing this kind of equipment is by borrowing but yeah it comes right off the top of our budget right exactly right so we already had on our books one hundred twenty thousand dollars in borrowing for fire safety equipment is the breathing apparatus that comes off this comes on it's a little more ok any more questions about that ok next one motion c is one million zero five five in borrowing this is for the belmont high school alarm system and this is another kind of tricky thing the full cost of the alarm system or the estimate of the full cost of the alarm system right now today is one point two million dollars that's kind of a lot of money in fact that's our whole capital budget so what we're doing is taking it will be borrowed in two thousand and seventeen in two thousand and sixteen the one hundred twenty thousand dollars in cash will be put towards that to reduce the amount that has to be borrowed in two thousand seventeen so we're doing the fire alarm system we recognize that this is a serious need we recognize because we've been told by chief rozelle and others that it's very important that we do it in that we cannot wait any longer to do wish so we're willing to bite the bullet and fund it it's a short bond because we hope that very soon we get on the list and that the whole high school will be renovated a in everything that's in the plan we had hoped that that decision would have come from the state earlier than now that maybe five years ago or maybe even two years ago we would have had the money from the state to do that it hasn't happened and so we have to go forward and replace this fire alarm system so that's see any questions on that if we end up with a new school in a couple years can we use alarm system and we are hopeful that parts of it can be reused but we are well aware that a lot of it cannot be reused you know but we're doing it because if it should fail it isn't a question of just fixing something because the system is forty years old they just aren't parts available to fix it there's nothing out there to fix it and if it fails and one can't fix this ordinarily in a small building you have a fire watch it happen in a building the size and scope of the high school it's too big it's too spread out and we don't have enough fire personnel to do any kind of watch there and you would have to shut the building down and the other question  a motion to step back if one of these motions fails for example if this motion here to bomb the fire alarm system fails then it doesn't happen we don't purchase a new fire alarm system and you're right you make a good point that there's one hundred twenty sitting in motion a that is allocated towards that and not sure what happens procedural bonding any bonding always requires two thirds so b and c would require the two third's of the allocation of the roads money and just the discretionary budget does not a stabilization fund for our unfunded liability so we talked earlier on about the one point two million dollars we're spending on the pay as we go there is three hundred sixty seven thousand dollars in the stabilization fund and that goes towards the unfunded liability now for those of you th actually look to the work committee report already the one from the liability as of my knowledge a couple days ago was one hundred ninety five million dollars turns out that the actuary a study that just was reported back has lowered that liability to hundred seventy one million dollars so the three that is an unquestioned fact the issue is how much is that going to cost so last year or least as of the prior actuarial study the cost of that was estimated to be one hundred ninety five million dollars to very large  number as the actual study was redone and that was actually just shared with the other day with the work committee that number has gone from one hundred ninety five million to one hundred seventy one million so it's really been reduced by twenty four million because meeting how the growth of health care is going to grow so that hundred seventy one million by the way is a function of assuming that health care costs are going to grow by eight percent in the first year then seven percent then six percent then five percent and then it continues to grow at five percent forever now what i said earlier on was that our health care costs actually has grown by zero for this year and it grew by zero for the previous year and i believe the year before that now there's no guarantee by the way that that number is going to be zero right but the actuarial sumption is that it's going to go by eight seven six five and five forever if for the sake of argument that number goes by three percent less than that each year so instead of eight he goes up by five and it goes on by four and then three and two what that does is it takes what was one hundred ninety five million dollars to any and makes it an under ninety million dollars so i don't mean to suggest that this is not an important issue this is an incredibly important issue for the town but the trick is is that it really is largely based on what's going to happen with the growth of health care that's a very important fact so we're going to you know we're going to look at this very carefully i know it's a very important issue for jim webb is a very important issue for the border selectman it's a very important issue for the work committee you can be sure that on both issues of pension and open it will be more work will be more discussion and you know we will manage it very carefully ok so let's move on to article eighteen which is the authorization for revolving funds these are basically you know individual accounts that are you know from the rock department and the council on aging and conservation commission the board of library trustees etc and these are dollars that have to be actually authorized by town meeting are there any questions about the revolving cou station that is the intent of this is to create the capital that stabilization fund and then as again properties are sold like that we have a place to put those monies are there any questions about that lot david confirm this but my understanding is that it simply creates this fund with the relatively generic language that you see it any money that's put in there that must be appropriated by town meeting and must be done with a two thirds vote and it can be done without explicit regulation as to you know with how much money goes towards those projects but it has to go towards one of those four projects or some combination of them is that correct all right so we'll move on article twenty which is the amendment to the minuteman regional vocational high school regional agreements expected my understanding is that this article the petition is going to be postponed is that correct bob it's also i had heard that there was yet another possibility and this with the secretary of education changing the rules so that people could get out set the operating tuition a number of communities who are amongst the largest sending members of men and have lobbied the state d s e who is in the process of reducing their tuition for a while the combination of the tuition they paid a surcharge for students who are under special education plan and their own transportation costs were bringing their nonmember costs pretty actually and perhaps you could sit here if you are in mind the next the better for you right so so the next four articles are the final four articles that we have and they all citizens petitions that were submitted by jim williams our selectmen and county member first one and so i'll let jim actually talk a little bit about each of these four and what they mean and give folks an opportunity to ask any questions they may have motion and i've done an example i'm not passing these out sell the idea just an idea and is ellen cushman says if you if you put an article before or a motion before the an article before the town meeting you have to be prepared to have it turned down so i'm prepared to have it turned down but i think this one is for the greater good i think they're easy to write the example i've given you which i'm not going to read  is that can you put that on the and i think people at home can see it but basically this was article eight from the last town meeting which allocated the five hundred twenty two thousand five hundred dollars and c p a funds for the electrical upgrade project for belmont housing and i wrote this up based on the discussion that the selectmen had about this five hundred twenty two thousand dollars and i think that if we had provided a town meeting a day in advance this explanation for our recommendation it would actually serve to reduce the number of questions that come before town meeting when when we're considering articles so for example one of the issues here is whether the town should finance repairs to public housing that that's actually the responsibility of the state and the selectmen decided we would send a letter to the state which david has prepared and i think that made town meeting feel better about doing something that is morally correct but that strictly speaking is not fiscally our responsibility so i have this article proposed and i stand the see what town meeting says i'm happy to answer any questions about it if these kinds of decisions and if for example the decision is made the day of the town meeting which would preclude being able to write it down and circulated in advance of article twenty two is i believe that the town needs to have a projection model that matches the commitments that it's made to its  citizens or its creditors creditors including employees i don't think this is difficult to do in moree would you help me on here i have a sample of one i don't expect people to  read this tonight but you can email me and i'll explain it to you but briefly what it is it's a twenty year projection model it has three years of history which we already know it has five years of projections which david in the financial taskforce did and then i've done what i call a steady state action which is what we used in my former career to to try to understand the direction of entities and organizations that we were evaluating from a financial standpoint so i apologize for the impossibility of i'm not going to go into the numbers but the analysis of that this this scenario shows is that in the twentieth year without the override the annual deficit widens to twenty nine point seven million without the override in the unfunded benefit payments the deficit whites to whites to eighteen point three million without the override in unfunded benefit payments if expenses are managed to have three percent increase a steady state budget surplus emerges however unfunded benefits school underfunding and capital project needs must be addressed so this is just one scenario in this is one way of looking at our future and i believe that we need this twenty year projection model so that we can establish directionality and run different scenarios  we've talked about quarterly free cash flow account tonight i really appreciate michael's slide i think it's a brilliant slide it certainly makes of cash flow clear however i understand that the  warrant committee is advice quarterly of the free cash flow count and as we understand tonight that would just basically be an update from january first of two thousand and sixteen now is that right and they do and it june thirtieth of two thousand  so what we would find then is we would see these disbursements and then we would see any additions to that free cash flow account we obviously would be apprised of any disbursements because town meeting has to vote on it before they can be dispersed so i think it's simply again to this question about additional costs since the report is being sent to the warrant committee oh you have to do is push a button pick up the public address people provide their e mail addresses if they're going to make it available public to the town clerk you have that distribution list you put the button push the button and then every town meeting member will know quarterly what that free cash flow amount is the last a last one's a little more esoteric but i want to work with david kale on beginning to think about the managing the town from a risk standpoint and in the official in the official literature this is known as enterprise risk management but basically what it is it's the idea of thinking about your entity from a risk standpoint and i think people have told me that we think of our town as a vertical organization so that you have somebody in charge of it and then in from you know the directions flow down but it isn't true but what we have really is a horizontal we have a horizontal business and we need to a den of five the risk in each area of our of our government so that we manage to that instead of worrying about things like thirty thousand  dollars consulting current contracts as we fell into last year an example of this is as a member of the board of selectmen i'm also a member of the white board and i've been working with jim palmer and other people on on the municipal in the municipal light department and the major risk in the municipal light department believe it or not is not so solar is a really tiny issue that can be easily managed  however the major risk is this substation that we're building and so that's the kind of thing that we want to focus on also i think from a financial standpoint and you know floyd nice change remarks tonight but my view is that opeth this is a major risk to the financial well being of the of the town and i'm not really selling my ideas what i'm saying is in terms of the risk what i'm saying is that this is the board of selectmen and  the various parties that are in charge of various aspects of our government we should we should identify for ourselves what we think the major risk or in each of our activities in than manage towards that rather than  getting distracted by minutia which we tend to do from time to time so that's the concept behind this one thank you jim very much i hope that was a helpful introduction to those items i just being mindful of the time and respectful of yours if there are any pressing questions that people feel like they need to ask right now please do so otherwise what i would say is the work committee will take up all four of these articles on wednesday to either join or to watch and there was to be opportunity a town meeting to discuss as well are there any questions right now