Finance Committee: April 20, 2021

Transcript machine-generated with Whisper speech recognition (the source video has no caption track). No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:01 I’d like to call the meeting of Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 to order. We need a roll call, so I’ll ask Mr. Nye. Present. Mr. Greater. Present. And I’m present. So we need a motion to approve the revised fiscal year 22 Selectments budget for total operating budget of $2,119,321.28. So moved. Second. In favor. In favor. In favor. Thank you. We’re done. Thank you. Great. I knew we’d move pretty quick here. So welcome to the annual town warrant hearing. But before we dive in, I’ll welcome you again in a moment. We actually have a couple of budgets. Last but certainly not least, Robin, that we have to approve before diving into the warrant. So without further ado, let’s bring up Robin to the Zoom table, if you will. And also, Emma, if you could put forth, let’s start with the clerk budget. Again, these should be pretty quick because they’re level funded. Right, Robin? There’s really no surprises. Yes, they are. Yeah. No surprises. So unless anybody has any questions from FinCom, which I’m guessing we don’t, I’ll pause for a moment just to see if anybody wants to speak up.

1:32 If not, I would like to make a motion in the amount of $208,124 to approve the town clerk’s 2022 budget. Second. Seconded by Emily. Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Pat. Approve. And I’m going to approve as well. Thank you. Moving on to elections. Robin, also level funded and fairly straightforward as Emma pulls it up. Yeah, it’s just we don’t have state elections this year. So it’s coming in under. Yeah, right. Even better. It’s good. All right. Sure. Level funded less. 15456. Assuming there are no, I’ll pause again. But I assume nobody on FinCom. I don’t want to assume anything. All right, so then I’d like to make a motion in the amount of $42,381 to approve the election and registration 2022 budget. Second. Seconded by Alec. So Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. I’m going to approve as well. Thank you, Robin. And apologies for the delay here. And thanks for thanks for your understanding. Save the best for last. Thank you. That’s right. Although we do have one more. True. But we say the best for second to last.

3:06 So we got one more. Yeah, thank you. So we got one more to approve, which is the moderator budget. I did not think Gary needed to be here for this budget. And I’m going to assume we again don’t have any comments here. It’s once again level funded at $100. I’d like to make a motion in the amount of $100 to approve the moderator’s FY22 budget. Second. Seconded by Alec. So Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Pat. Approve. And I’m going to approve as well. Great. Thank you. All right. So that brings us to the annual town warrant hearing. Thank you all for joining. And that will begin. I have a little prepared notes to set the table. Just to kind of let everybody kind of know the the quote unquote rules, if you will, or the discussion, if you will, points and how this whole thing works for those that don’t remember from previous years. Unfortunately, I’m working off one screen. I apologize. So I’m going to I don’t have the teleprompter tonight. Good evening, and welcome to the Board of Selectmen, head of departments, members of commissions, committees serving the town, town administrator, and the citizens of Marblehead. Thank you for attending or in this case watching this public hearing of warrant articles for the 2021 town meeting to be held on Monday, May 3. As a reminder, the warrant is the notice to voters what will be considered and acted on at town meeting.

4:38 The warrant for the annual town meeting calls for actions on town expenditures and other subjects. Some articles in the warrant are general, while others are detailed and specific. As your representative, or as I like to say the citizens watchdog, FinCom is here tonight to vote on articles on the town warrant with financial impact for your consideration. Now as a reminder, the public hearing process follows our traditional meeting protocol. First, sponsors of various articles are asked to approach the table or in our case, the Zoom table and explain the position make the recommendations to the committee. Second, following the sponsors, any additional supporters are invited to speak followed by any of those in opposition. Third, there will be discussion by the finance committee. During the discussion, we will welcome any clarifying questions by FinCom members to the speakers, but we will hold our discussion to the end of each article. Once the discussion is concluded, we will also invite public comment at that point. Once the discussion is concluded, the finance committee can take one of four actions. First, we can recommend approval. Second, we can oppose an article with a recommendation for indefinite postponement. You may have heard us from time to time say IP. This can also occur merely because the sponsor representative the article does not appear at the public hearing. Third, we can conclude that we do not have any information this evening to make a decision and vote to make a recommendation at town meeting.

6:08 Finally, if the article has no apparent financial impact on the town, we can agree not to make a recommendation. I want to make sure we’re clear on that last one. So for clarity, for those that are attending and wondering how many articles we’re going through tonight, we are only discussing articles with financial implications said differently. If there are no financial implications to articles this evening, we will be skipping those articles. And those don’t have Fincoms need to approve or IP or any of the above. Those will just be considered by the town at town meeting. Finally, before we begin, I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank a few people. First, we’d like to recognize Jason Silva and Steve Pujols. In short, thank you for your hard work, guidance, and leadership, and generally all you do to make this town run. I could go on and on about Jason Silva and how important he is to the town and his hard work with the selection and the department heads. It’s incredible. And Steve, thank you for jumping in with two feet this year. You’re very welcome addition to the team. Second, I’d like to thank the department heads, their staff, and the members of the overseeing elected boards and committees. Your detailed hard work providing the services for our town are really incredibly appreciated, as is all your effort on this year’s budget. I’m happy to report if all projections come in accurately, the budget is presented as balanced. Third, I want to thank the Finance Committee Secretary. Emma is an incredible addition to this team. We are so grateful for all you have done this year.

7:40 For those that don’t know, the Finance Committee meets as a committee multiple times over the course of the winter and spring, reviewing and discussing issues and approving all town department budgets. However, the real work occurs outside these meetings when each member in subcommittee acting as liaisons meets with those departments and goes over the department plans, budget needs, and really rolls up sleeves and digs into that department’s fiscal picture. Said differently. People have heard me say this before. At times tonight, you may think this is a, this committee is a rubber stamp of approval. I assure you that is not the case. And I assure you there are a lot of people on this call that have gone through many meetings with us will tell you that’s not the case. And with that, let’s dig in. And I see our town administrator, I saw him for a moment, Jason somewhere in my picture, but I may have lost him again. I’m not sure he was in and out. We’ll get to Jason in a moment. So we’re going to take these on beginning with Article 3. Articles 1 and 2 do not have financial implication, a good example of we are skipping them. So Article 3 could have, thank you, Emma, perfect. Article 3 could, hopefully tonight, let’s take a quick step back hopefully tonight, Emma and Steve and Jason have done an incredible job putting together these warrant article picture for us. Zoom is our friend in this case, you all can see the articles as we go through them. And on the side of your Zoom you can see the speakers who are involved in each one. So it’s unless anybody needs to see any of our faces, it’s my desire tonight to continue to show these articles throughout.

9:14 All right, so Article 3 assumed liability, we could have financial impact for work to be performed. This is a very standard article. I’d like to make a motion to approve Article 3. Second. Seconded by Emily. Alec? Yes. Emily? Yes. Kevin? Yes. Pat? Approve. And I’m going to approve as well. Article 4, I’m just going to call this out so everybody knows why we’re skipping Article 4. It looks like it may have financial implications. It does not, we are not accepting any town property this year. It will be indefinitely postponed. Article 5, lease of town property, this allows the town to lease town property. We don’t have any Jason Craig from wrong. He’s not here, I don’t think. We don’t have any at this time. So, can you hear me? That in mind, oh, you are here. We don’t have any at this time. So at that point, we’re just allowing the town if they need to, they will have the ability to. So I’d like to make a motion to approve Article 5. Second. Seconded. I think that was Kevin. Yep. Alec? Yes. Emily? Yes. Kevin? Yes. Pat? Approve. And I am going to approve as well. Article 6, moving right along. It’s an annual article to enter. Article 6 is the contract to the next test of three years. Essentially what this article does is it allows people to enter into contract, town officials to enter into contracts between three and ten years.

10:54 Again, a standard article we vote on every year. I would like to make a motion to approve Article 6, contracts in excess of three years. Second. Alec? Second. Yes. Emily? Yes. Kevin? Yes. Pat? Approve. And I am going to approve as well. Article 7. Jason’s timing is perfect. Article 7 is when I think we start to get into some guts here. Jason, welcome. Good to see you. Can you give us some background on the revolving funds this year? Again, thank you. And I apologize for being late. I was having my computer was not cooperating. So every year, town meeting votes on revolving funds. We have 11 revolving funds in town for a variety of different purposes. Revolving funds, each one of them have a bylaw that defines their revolving fund and how the money can be used. They are funds that are basically self-funded. So, for instance, Council on Aging revolving fund is generally speaking funded through programming fees that they generate themselves. It goes into the Council on Aging revolving fund and then invested back into the Council on Aging programming. So, all of these are in that vein. The money that’s generated through these departments go into revolving funds for those specific purposes.

12:27 These numbers to the right of the screen are maximum expenditures from those revolving funds for the fiscal year 2022.

12:43 Okay. Are there any questions from Fincom with regard to any of these numbers? Again, we’ve talked about a lot of these throughout the budget season. Alec, you have a question? Sorry? No, I don’t. Okay. Sorry, I didn’t know if I… I will take a moment with this one for any public comment. The hard part about public comment with this thing up is I can only see about six people at a time. This will be fun on Zoom. I’m going to quickly fly through. I don’t see public comment. All right. I would like to make a motion to approve Article 7 revolving funds in the amount of $3,090,300. Second. Seconded by Alec. Alec? Yes. Emily? Yes. Kevin? Yes. Pat? Approve. Okay. So Article 8, Mr. Silva, you’re back. Equipment of several departments. Before we move on to Article 8, could I just highlight one other piece for the revolving funds? It was the next slide, if you can go back one slide. The Hobbs House, I think, is coming. Yes, sir. Please. Thank you. Thank you. So this, under Article 7, we’re also recommending to create a new revolving fund related to the Hobbs Memorial Building. The Hobbs House is the building that has been home to the Marblehead Counseling Center for years.

14:19 The town recently, through the Board of Select, and recently entered into a new lease agreement with the Marblehead Counseling Center. As part of that, the lease will generate a modest amount of money, but a certain amount of money annually, which we’d like to deposit into this revolving fund to allow us to make investments to the building to help maintain and make repairs to the building. Thank you. You’re welcome. As we approved Article 7, we can move on to 8. Thank you. Purchase of equipment. Again, this is a standard article this year’s equipment purchase article. You’ll see a few things that are a little different. We are proposing to purchase two new cruisers for the police department this year for the first time. We’re proposing to purchase hybrid cruisers. In addition to that, the fire department, the fire prevention function in the fire department is in need of a new vehicle. We are also recommending a hybrid vehicle for that purchase as well. Excuse me. The fire rescue boat needs repair to the engine in the amount of $7,500 that’s used in the event of an emergency on the water. Cemetery has been in need of a pickup for several years.

15:50 We are proposing to use perpetual care funds for that purchase, and I believe the Cemetery Commission has approved that use. Schools have requested a new pickup. They requested more than that, but we’ve included one pickup in this article, and then repaired two equipment in the tree department. Any questions on that? Really good to see a lot of this is a good moment for folks to recognize all the different services, I’m sorry, equipment that we’re purchasing across the town from the police to the fire department to the cemetery. Park and rec schools, a lot of funding going on here for a lot of equipment that isn’t talked about in their specific budgets. Any questions by anybody? If not, I’d like to make a motion to approve Article 8 purchase of equipment of several departments. The amount of $239,429.42. Seconded by Pat. Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Yes. Pat. Approve. Now I’m going to approve. Article 9, Mr. Silva, lease purchase equipment. Last town meeting was the first town meeting that we considered equipment leases to help us with our equipment needs. This year, we’re looking at this option once again.

17:25 For this article, we’ve included a Ford dump truck, Ford 550 dump truck for the park department, so three-year lease, first-year payments, $23,000. And a sidewalk trackless equipment for DPW, the amount of $68,000 for a three-year lease. The sidewalk equipment is the trackless, is an important purchase for the DPW department. This will allow them to more effectively remove snow from the sidewalks during snowstorms and also help with a much more efficient operation, not only removing snow but removing leaves from the street. So this is a significant purchase monetarily but also operationally. We will realize efficiencies through this lease purchase. In addition to that, as I mentioned earlier, there are existing lease payments that we have that we’re moving on to the second-year payments, which amounts to $72,900. $27,696 are being paid through the waste department revolving fund. And the 91? Those are the new lease payments in total.

18:58 So that’s the parked truck and the sidewalk trackless combined, the 91,000. Great. Any other equipment? Is there another page? This is it? There is another slide if you want to move to it. It’s a reminder of what the prior approved equipment leases were. You know, I like that. That was not my most subtle moment, I suppose. I remember this. I just wanted to make sure we went to it so everybody could see, our audience could see that, you know, there’s a lot of equipment leases. And again, this is a really good example of all kinds of things. The budget is covering, there are kind of unspoken things in the, quote unquote, normal budgets that come out here, right? From waste department loaders to school bus, tree department equipment, and police department. I mean, there’s really a lot going on. We’re releasing and purchasing equipment in these two articles that are kind of left out of other discussions. And I think it’s important to call out here so that people can see the services that are being covered in our budget. Are there any questions? Yeah, go ahead. There may be one more slide of just to summarize the full picture of equipment. Just so you can see it. Yeah, there you go. Are there any questions from FinCom? Any questions from members of the public?

20:28 I’d like to make a motion for the amount of $191,596. For Article 9, lease purchase equipment. Second. Seconded by Alec. Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Pat. Approve. And I’m going to approve as well. Article 10, capital improvement for public buildings. Mr. Silva. Thank you. This year we’ve really focused on improving our capital improvement plan. We have finalized the capital improvement plan that I think we all should be proud of. And I think that’s where our energy attention has gone into it. A lot of these projects are a result of that work. And so I’ll run down these quick, but if there are any questions as I go down, please feel free to stop me. We’re moving at a good pace. I mean, go quick, but don’t go too quick. This is another one I like people to hear, and I won’t give my spiel afterwards if you run down these at a nice pace. But I think it’s really important for people to hear these three slides. I think they’re really meaningful. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. So the street repaving is $100,000 on the capital improvements. This is the first time in quite some time that we’ve allocated town funds to support our annual repaving program. As you all know, we receive approximately $450,000 annually

21:59 in the Chapter 90 program that the state sends to cities and towns. And this is the street repaving line is to supplement the $450,000 we receive. By no stretch, is it sufficient to address all of our repair needs, but I think this is a good step in the right direction. There is the Animal Control Building we have on Village Street. There’s, it’s a small job, but it’s a necessary job of just, there’s some open penetrations on the first floor from the basement that need to get prepared. Building department, the Old Town House and the Ocoz Building, which is right down the hill from Abbott Hall, where I am, are in need of, they need to get repainted. Ocoz Building has also some minor repairs necessary. So we’ve included that in the building department capital requests. Finance requests are IT related. We’re still in the process of upgrading our town computers and purchases, computer purchases from Windows 7 to Windows 10. And we also received the $120,000 Community Compact IT grant. And so this $40,000 is to match that grant that we received in order to execute the project fully.

23:36 Fire department has two pieces of it. One is headquarters, which is turnout gear and equipment replacement needs. And the Franklin Street Fire Station has been in need of window replacement for a while. There was appropriation a few years ago now to do that, to execute that project, but it was not sufficient, so we need additional funding to do it. And we’ve also, the town planner has also applied for a grant through the Mass Historic Commission to help offset some of the costs, but we expect about $30,000 if we’re successful in getting the grant to be our portion of the project. The rail trail, we’re excited. We also received the $393,000 complete streets grant to make improvements to three crossings on the rail trail. Mohawk at Pleasant, West Shore Drive at Tower School, and Smith Street at the post office. And as you might know, we went through a pretty robust public process to develop a rail trail, comprehensive rail trail plan. So from that, we have conceptual design plans to make these improvements. What this $50,000 is meant to be is to take those conceptual design plans and move them to construction documents that we can then bid and initiate the project through the grant that we received.

25:17 We’re very excited about that project. Mariali, that’s the municipal office building. We’re asking for funding to replace exterior, mostly exterior, but some interior, doors and locks, and also replace the alarm system, which quite frequently malfunctions. Recreation and Park, the Seaside Park tennis courts have are in desperate need of resurfacing. And this is, I think, the third year of this request. So I’m pleased that this was able to get to be included in this article. Police station is in need of building improvements. The roof replacement of the lobby and the detective offices has leaked in the past. It needs to get repaired and replaced. And the exterior trim of the building is is in need of repair as well. School department. These are these were the priorities that the school department submitted to the selectman’s office. They’re mostly fire alarm replacement, fire alarm system replacements, security, card swipe system, installation, and then there’s hardwired CO detectors in four schools.

26:54 Seawalls, we’ve been, I think, doing a really good job with keeping up with seawall maintenance and repair. This funding is to go towards that continued effort to maintain and repair our seawalls. Towerway Garage is the DPW garage. They are in need of an exhaust system for the mechanics garage. This is a definite priority for us and right now we essentially use the door as an exhaust system. So we do need this. We do need this desperately. And then, as you know, we’ve renovated the shoe shed. Excuse me, I’m a little hoarse from yelling on the basketball court this weekend. So the radio box alarm, it’s a new alarm system that we’re hoping to install the newly renovated shoe shed and we’re working now with Essex National Heritage and the historic commission to make that museum. The total request is $857,189. If you want to move to the next slide. So that funding, as you all know, we’re in the process of selling the former Derry School. It’s received all-town approvals necessary. And the next step is to close on the sale.

28:28 Once we close on the sale, the $870,000, according to Mass General Law, needs to be deposited in a special revenue account. And to be used essentially for the purposes I just outlined for capital needs and capital improvements. So the idea is to utilize the funding from the Gary School sale to allow us to make these capital investments. Thank you. Thank you. That was really helpful. Maybe go back two slides for a moment, Emma. Are there any questions on either of these two slides from members of FinCom? Again, really good example of the things we spend money on to improve our capital environment. Can I make a comment? I just want to say I think it’s great that we’re able to make the additional investment this year from the sale of the Gary School into reinvesting into our existing buildings and even offsetting some of these investments with grants, such as the complete street, which I think is a fantastic program. So I just want to say I appreciate that we are making a much bigger investment this year in capital improvements. Yeah, no, it’s great. Anybody else?

30:00 Members of the public, I don’t see any hands up. I would like to make a motion in the amount of $857,189 to Article 10, Capital Improvements for Public Buildings. Second. I’ll give it to you, Kevin. Alec? Yes. Emily? Yes. Kevin? Yes. Pat? Approved. And I’m approved as well. Article 11, we’ve been at this a while, so I can give you a quick history lesson, but it’s going to be indefinitely postponed. It’s not needed as it’s covered if you’re paying attention. In Article 10, we’re setting aside $30,000 specifically for seawalls. Article 11 historically has put some money aside. In fact, a few years ago, we had to put aside a fair amount due to storms, and we actually had some excess that has over the last couple of years been exhausted. And now that that has been exhausted, it’s my impression that for Article 11 may not be here next year or in the next couple of years because of Article 10, it may not have a purpose. Seawalls can fit in Article 10, but we’ll see next year. Article 11 postponed. It definitely postponed Article 12. I defer to Emily to take over for a little while. Thanks. Great. Well, I’d like to call Amy, who I think I saw was on the call, to come up and talk about

31:32 Particles 12, 13, and 14. Amy, are you… I am here. Hi. Good evening. So, Article 12 is our water construction article. It’s for $768,853. This number is the audited retained earnings number from the previous year. And it will fund maintenance, capital improvement projects, emergency repairs for the water department. Are there any questions from the committee? And any questions from the public? Use your hand. I don’t see anything. So with that, I’d like to make a motion to approve Article 12 water department construction in the amount of… Amy, correct me if I’m getting this wrong. $768,853. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. Great. Second. Seconded by Ben. Ben, could you take a roll call, please? Sure. Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Matt. Approved. And I’m approved as well. Great. And Amy, you’re up again for Article 13. It’s sewer department construction. Article 13 is our sewer construction. It funds capital improvements, maintenance, and emergency repairs for the miles of sewer

33:04 pipe and the 28 pump stations that we have. This article is from retained earnings from the last year. And the audited number was 917,246. Great. Thank you. Are there any questions from the committee? Comments? And any questions from the public? Okay. So with that, I’d like to make a motion to approve Article 13 sewer department construction in the amount of $917,246. Seconded. Seconded by everybody. Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Ben. Thank you. Yes. Pat. Approved. I’m going to approve as well. Lots of enthusiasm for the sewer department. And lastly, Article 14, water and sewer commission claims. Article 14 is a standard article. It is for claims to the water and sewer commission can work with the board of selectmen. Could there be any type of claim during a water or sewer construction project? So there’s no dollar amount to vote on, but this is just part pending claims. So there’s actually a financial impact, so we’ll take a vote on this. So I’ll make a motion to approve Article 14 water and sewer commission claims.

34:35 Seconded. Seconded by Pat. Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Pat. Approved. And I’m approved. Great. Thank you very much, Amy. Thank you. And we’ll move right along to Article 15 storm drain construction, which is now. Well, Jason, you can speak to this, please. Yes. Thank you. The article 15 storm water drainage construction is recommended to be funded at the same level that it has been in prior years, which is $314,000. And are there any questions from the committee? And again, are there any questions from the public? Okay. Zoom issues here. I’d like to make a motion then to approve article 15 storm drain construction in the amount of $314,000. Second. Seconded by Alec. Can you do a roll call? Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Approved. Pat. Approved. And I’m approved as well. Great. Thank you. And Article 16 Essex North Shore agricultural and technical school. I’m not sure if Mark Stroud is on the call.

36:08 So I don’t see Mark Stroud, but if everybody’s comfortable, I think we had enough information. I’m comfortable or moving forward with a motion. I don’t know if there’s any issue with that. I think that’s probably the right thing to do given we had enough information from the outset to do this. Right. And we have this slide and we know enough. Unless anybody on FinCom wants to speak against that, I think we should move forward and maybe. Emily, if you’re comfortable giving a round out about it, or I will, whichever, I mean, it’s essentially just reading the summary of the slide is fine. Yeah. I, you know, from what I understand, it’s a, it’s a set fee for students attending Essex North Shore agricultural and technical school district based on the enrollment numbers of Marblehead students attending every year. And this year, it looks like it’s the amount. The assessment is $652,000. $652,000. I can’t even see. $652,392. For 30 students, it’s down a little bit in enrollment from 48, from 46 students last year. So there’s a little bit of savings of $145,000. So if they’re basic, I’m sure Mark will have a much better assessment at town meetings. I know he’s always very enthusiastic at town meeting and we’ll give a nice address. I’m sure.

37:40 Yeah. So are there any questions from the committee board? Any, any questions from the public comments? Okay, so with that, I’d like to make a motion to approve article 16 in the amount of $652,000. What is wrong with me? $652,392. Thank you. You really want to give him an extra 600 bucks as well. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Go ahead. Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Pat. Approved. And I’m approved. All right. Moving on to article 17. So I’m going to ask you to reduce the tax rate. And Jason. I’d like to ask you to maybe speak to this slide, even though it’s pretty straightforward. So each year we, we have article 17. For this article on the, on the warrant. Each year it includes the payment that the town receives from the electric light department. And the amount of $330,000. And it also includes the amount of free cash. Needed for. To balance the budget. In this case for FY 22. 8, 8 million. Oh, I’m getting, I’m getting the disease now.

39:13 8,950,000. Is needed for FY 22. And just as a reminder. I think the most recent free cash certified. Was approximately 11.5, 6 million dollars. Yeah. I think we can all, I don’t know. Sorry, but I didn’t mean to cut you off. I was just probably going to say the same thing you were about the. You know, The yearly reliance on free cash that we always talk about. I don’t know. I mean, to cut you off there. Want to say something. No. I think we’re all going to say it right. I think we’re going to say it right. I think we’re going to say it right. I think we’re going to say it right. That’s a dangerously low number now. So. We better address it. Yeah, this is. Steve, the finance director has. Has a slide that not a slide, but he put together an analysis. Working with the Collins center who is, who helped us with the financial forecasting, the new financial forecasting model with one together. And it shows that this is the. The downtown meeting if town meeting approves this. It will be the lowest balance. Left available. Quite. Yeah, I know. Steve. I guess I want to add a little. A little more to that for those that are. Due to this issue. I think the short summary is. Once you do this, the Delta between what is certified and what we’re

40:45 using. The goal. And the goal is to. You know, if you’re out there, correct from wrong, but even before I met Steve, this was the goal. At Moses and I talked about many years ago, the goal was always, you know, In the most ideal world, it’s 10% of your budget, or at least. And, and in the non ideal kind of okay situation is 5%. And obviously 5% of a hundred million dollar budget. Let’s call it a hundred, it’s a little over. That is a lot more, right? It’s $5 million. This is just too low. And so we have to start to think about ways to bring up revenue and solve our town’s uses of free cash with other means. I don’t know, anybody has anything to add? But that’s, yeah, we all agree. Yeah. All right, Emily. All right, so if there are not any other questions or comments from the finance committee, are there any questions from the public? That’s me. So with that, I’d like to make a motion to approve article 17, which quick math, which would, I’ll just read off all the numbers, including electrical light payment of $330,000 and free cash to appropriate to balance the budget of FY22, $8,950,000 for a total of $9,280,000.

42:19 I have a second. Talking. Hang on one second. Is that correct? Is that correct, Jason? The 330 is on top of the 895? Yeah. I’m just double checking. I don’t wanna have a mirror. Okay, Alec. All right, we’re good. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Pat. Approve. And I’m approved. Okay, so we have a second. Pat. Approve. And I’m approved. Great. Thank you. Moving on to article 18, unpaid accounts. Jason, I will ask you again to walk us through this, please. Thank you. This is always a small number. This year it’s $7,143.14. It’s generally speaking. It’s for bills that come in after the prior fiscal year is closed. We do have some older bills in the school department and Rec and Park that are from PFC 15, 16, and 17 that also need to be approved this fiscal. But most often, historically, it’s been, it’s usually from bills in the prior fiscal year that come, that we receive once the books are closed. So again, it’s typically a small number. It’s a small number this year,

43:51 but needs meeting approval in order for us to pay them. Great. Pretty straightforward. Just getting approval for spending next year’s budget. So are there any questions or comments from the Finance Committee? And any questions from the public, comments? With that, I’ll make a motion to approve Article 18, unpaid accounts. Oh, God, hold on. I’m not seeing the bottom number on my screen. And the amount of, do you mind just, there we go. Okay, sorry, just one way. I’m in the amount of $7,143.14. Okay. Alec? Yes. Emily? Yes. Kevin? Yes. Pat? Approve, and I’m approved. So, Article 19, there is a recommendation to indefinitely postpone. There’s still a balance from last year’s Special Education Stabilization Fund for the schools of $250,000. So we don’t need to approve any more money to be put in there. Jason, is there anything else you need to really say about this? Oh, that’s it. Okay. Are there any questions?

45:21 Okay, any questions from the public? And with that, I guess we don’t need to take a vote. So we’re all set, okay. But I do think it’s important you called it out and explained. I think that it’s fully funded and wasn’t used last year. I think it’s important for everybody to know. Yep, yep. So it’s so fully funded. Right, it just sits there for next year. Okay, and then moving on to Articles 20, 21, 22. Collective bargaining, obviously still in progress. We’re going to not make a recommendation this evening since there’s nothing to recommend at this point. And we’ll make a recommendation in the future once the negotiations are complete. And Jason, is there anything else you’d like to add to this? Nope, I think that’s it. We are in the middle of negotiations with the three town employee unions, fire police and municipal employees. And depending on the outcome of those negotiations and the timing of those negotiations, we’ll have some sort of recommendation before town meeting, but we’re not quite there yet. Articles 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 are related to salary increases for non-union employees that we are also waiting on as they,

46:52 typically, historically, there is a relationship, as you know, between the union salaries, salary increase, non-union salary increases. In addition to that, as I think I’ve talked about in prior meetings, we also had a compensation and classification study that was done in town for administrative staff and the municipal employee union employees. And so that may come into play for non-union articles as well. So we’re, the finance team and myself are working diligently on this and we’ll have a recommendation prior to town meeting and it’s just not quite ripe yet. Okay, great, thank you. With that, Ben, I pass this back off to you. Thanks, so just to clear articles, this isn’t abnormal, right? I mean, this happens every three years when we negotiate these, they sometimes don’t get negotiated out and meet resolution before town warrant and hopefully they will before town meeting. And if not, we’ll address it then. Article 23 has kind of a similar fate this evening due to the fact that conflict gets us under our quorum

48:24 and we wouldn’t be able to vote on the budget with four. We will hold a meeting in the next week or as we sometimes do, before town meeting, moments before town meeting and we will prove or we’ll vote on. My expectation is we’ll prove after all the work we’ve done and whatnot, but we’ll vote on article 23 then. So we’re gonna skip article 23, but I will say this about article 23. So everybody’s clear in case they’re worried there’s an issue with the budget. If you go back one slide for a moment, I will say all the components of article 23 with the exception of the selection budget this evening that was re-voted, all the components of article 23 were previously approved at FinCom meetings. So this isn’t like something that’s hanging out there and we have an issue, there’s no such thing. We just have to formally approve the article in full that we’ve kind of already approved in pieces. Again, with the exception of the selectments, new budget that they approved this evening, otherwise we’re good to go. All right, so moving on, thank you. Article 24, is Brian Leclerc here? Jason, I think we can move forward with article 24 though as well, right? I mean, it’s a straightforward standard annual article with regard to the town voting to authorize the Conservation Commission and other property officers

49:57 to apply for financial assistance. It’s as simple as that, it allows the Con Con to apply and accept funds for the purposes of, for conservation purposes. Yeah, and I think it’s important that there’s nothing at this time. It’s that we’re giving them the authority to do so in the fiscal year. So with that, I’d like to make a motion to approve article 24, Financial Assistance for Conservation. Second. Seconded by Kevin. Alec. Yes. Emily. Kevin. Prove. Pat. Approve. And I approve. Thank you, sir. Again, as Jason said, 25 through 28 will be dealt with another night. I guess 29 as well, I apologize. All of those will be handled as soon as we are comfortable with the negotiation process. So that brings us to article 30. Mr. Silva, can you talk about Turner Road? Okay, yes, thank you. Article 30 is to appropriate $44,400 to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. This is a result of a policy the Board of Selection has adopted to appropriate 10% of any proceeds of foreclosure sale to the Affordable Housing Trust.

51:30 In FY21, this fiscal year, 18 Turner Road was sold in tax pedal auction for $444,000. And so we’re requesting to appropriate the 10% to support the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Any questions from Finco? Members of the public. I would like to make a motion to approve Article 30 Affordable Housing tax title foreclosures in the amount of 10% of the sale of 18 Turner Road for the amount of $44,400. I’ll go Emily. Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Having. Yes. Pat. Approve. And I am approved as well. Article 31. I’ll give it a go without you. So Article 31 is pretty straightforward. It’s just the release of funds from the transportation network. It’s essentially transfer of appropriated funds that we use to improve the rail trail. This funds come from Uber and Lyft and other transport companies like that, that pay us a fee. I gave you that one off, Mr. Silva. Does anybody have any questions on Article 31? Fincom. It’s a very low amount of money, 78, 11, $7,811.

53:03 Any member of the public? We’d like to make a motion to approve Article 31 release funds from the transportation network in the amount of $7,811. Second. Second by Alec. Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Pat. Approve. And I’m approved as well. Article 32. Chief, are you with us? Yes, Vince. Good evening. Good evening. Good to see you and Abe as always. Well, thank you. We’re replacing the 2006 Pierce, as I understand it. That one’s going from designated to, what’s the terminology we use? Reserve. Reserve. Yeah, going from frontline status to reserve status. Yeah, and the 94 Spartan is going from reserve to retirement. Have I got it right? Yes. Can you, for everyone out there, can you just give us a little bit of background on the pump we’re getting and also, if you can kind of, one of the things that I truly appreciate that I know a lot of people don’t know, it’s been a number of years since we’ve, well, I guess it’s been at least a 2017, right? Since we’ve talked about this, but you and I have done this. You have an amazing, I’m not asking if you’d bring it tonight, but if you could talk about that chart that you’ve shown me of kind of how you have,

54:37 you know, staggered these retirements and purchases, that’d be helpful. Yeah, so we have, well, I have put together a replacement schedule for all the apparatus, as well as the utility vehicles based on NFPA guidelines. After the research. Can you talk a lot about research and how we developed it? So, the guidelines for a pumper truck is usually 15 years in first line status, moves to reserve status five to seven years. A latter truck is usually 20 years, and again, moves to second line status for five to seven years. The engine that we’re replacing is 2006 Pierce. That’s gonna be replaced with hopefully another Pierce. Our fleet is completely Pierce trucks. We have had good luck with them. It makes it easier for maintenance as far as parts and labor and usability. So the engine that we spec’d out is gonna be basically a twin to engine two, which we bought in 2017. So we’re using the exact same specs. That’s good for the firefighters because all the cabinets are the same, the driving’s the same, parts are the same, and we don’t have to sit down and recreate the wheel. So we’re using basically the same specs. We are gonna change the motor over to a Cummins instead of a Detroit because Detroit’s getting out of the fire engine business.

56:08 That’s about it, unless you have questions, like when you have questions. No, as you know, I will say, I’m obviously not just a big supporter of our fire department, that goes without saying, but also the way you’ve set this up over the years is really, if you just kind of look at this plan and the fact that you’ve done everything you can to get as much mileage out of each vehicle, each truck, as you can, it’s truly appreciated. And that 94 Spartan, you’ve worked that thing to the bone, if you will. And we’ve talked about that in the 2006 pierces now in this appropriate place after 15 years, as you eloquently said. So thank you, as always. Are there any questions from FinCon members? Are there any questions from members of the public? We’re getting a new fire truck, everybody. This is exciting. If it gets approved, obviously, Tom Meade, I sure hope it does. The truck is going to be, this motion, which I will make, is in the amount of $750,000 for Article 32, a new pumper truck. Thank you, Ben. My pleasure. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Alec. To be clear, folks, I just wanna make sure, because those that are looking at this slide, the new cost is $706,000. It is totally normal for us to ask for a little bit more, just in case costs go up a little bit between now

57:41 and when we put this whole thing together, or some surprises, right? Ben, Ben, if I may, before you take the vote, you’re absolutely correct. So that $706,000 was the estimated cost, the quote that we received from the company, January 1. From that time forward with tariff charges, steel costs, things like that, it’s gone through $730,000. There you go. So it’s fair to assume that we could get close to $750,000 by June. So thank you for that. I didn’t actually know that second piece, but I set you up nicely. All right, let’s take a vote. Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Approve. Pat. Approve. And I’m approved as well. Thanks, Chief. Thank you very much. Article 33 and 34 are indefinitely post, or I’m sorry, aren’t indefinitely post, but I apologize. Strike that. We’re just skipping them. Neither of those have financial impact, which leads to Article 35. I turn it back over to Emily. Yeah. Great. Yep, Article 35. I have a public library. And I see most of the library trustees, Nancy’s here, a few others. Welcome. And Nancy, yeah, I’d like you to take it away and present this to you all. Okay. I’m sorry. No, go ahead. No, I was just gonna press this by saying the finance committee has seen your presentation several times, but of course, this is a much wider audience. So I would love it if you could give us the answer.

59:12 Right, thank you. Thank you very much. I feel like we’ve talked to Finco about this like three times. So please forgive us tonight if we sound like a broken record, but we really want to use this moment to do exactly how we will do it in front of town meeting. So if it seems a little bit evangelical to you, that’s what it’s supposed to be. So anyway, I wanna make sure that Gary Ambrik can share the screen. Emma, can he share the screen whenever he needs to? Yes, he should have permissions. Gary, if you can’t, please let me know. Okay. Okay, with PowerPoint. Okay. Not happening.

1:00:03 Oh, okay. Looks like we’re there. All right, so we’re standing in front of town meeting on May 3rd. And first, I want to thank the chairman. I want to introduce myself. I’m Nancy Perkins-Arada. I’m the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Abbott Public Library, and I reside at Tin Darling Street. The first thing I want everybody to do is raise their hand if you have a library card. I can’t see hands here, but I’m assuming everybody’s going to raise their hand here. You join over 10,900 citizens in the village of Marblehead that have library cards. So 50% of our village have library cards. The history of service of the library to the community is 144 years since 1878, when the library started in the Selectmen’s Room, now the Selectmen’s Room at Abbott Hall. We moved to the current facility on Pleasant Street in 1954, and the building was last renovated in 1989. That was 30 years ago. The building looks nice on the outside, but if you could see through the walls, you’d understand how tired it is. It’s very tired, and that’s what’s bringing us here tonight. We have critical and failing infrastructure, and we have spaces that were designed for the 50s and 60s.

1:01:34 So the next question you might be asking, if you’re listening, is, well, are libraries relevant anymore? Why should I care about this? Well, you should care about this, because probably the library is one of the last of the democratic institutions, small d, that you can access free information in a safe place. You can get internet access, you can get newspapers, you can get magazines, you can get references, you can use internet. Your public library serves as a community center, a cultural center, and pre-COVID, we were running 350 programs a year at the library for the community, and we will do that again post-COVID. We serve everybody from babies to seniors, from cradle to grave, and we always stay on the board of trustees that we’re probably the only town agency that has the total demographic of the community of Marblehead as its constituency. Even during the pandemic, we managed to keep services going for our patrons, to the very popular curbside delivery program and enhanced digital audio and virtual programming. We’re now open one day a week for browsing by appointment, which we hope to expand very, very soon. We had 128,000 transactions in our little library in FY20.

1:03:04 And the American Library Association says that every day, 4 million Americans go through the doors of 17,000 public libraries. Our library is relevant, and it’s a service to the community, and we are a free, safe, and welcoming place to receive information. But we are running out of time to be that safe and welcoming place. If you’ve ever been in the library with no heat in the winter or no air conditioning in the summer, or were stuck in the elevator, you understand the dilemma. The infrastructure breaks down about every other month, and repairs are getting more and more difficult and expensive. It’s not a question of maintenance. We have maintained the library. It’s a question of lifespan. I just heard the fire chief talking about trucks that go out of lifespan in 20 years. We haven’t been touched in 30. We have a 10-year bonus here that we no longer can depend on. So, the next slide, Gary. If you look, these are the kinds of failing infrastructures that we’re talking about. If you could look through the walls, the electrical system, the fire alarm system that’s not uniform throughout the building, the HVAC that works spasmatically from the building. The elevator, which constantly needs repair. The plumbing, which is not up to step.

1:04:40 The Wi-Fi, which you can’t make a phone call inside the library because the Wi-Fi isn’t properly distributed. It’s not robust enough. We need to regrade the parking lot so that we can prevent any kind of flooding going toward the building. So, when you drive by on Pleasant Street, people tell me this all the time, Nancy, it looks great. Well, thanks to the Driftwood Garden Club, it probably does look great. But if you could see inside the walls, you would see the erosion. You would see the electrical wiring systems. You would see some of the generators failing. And you would know that we are working with limited time. And the next slide, Gary. The project is expected to cost $9.5 million. Gary, could you put up the next slide? There we go. It’s broken out in the following ways. It’s very clear here. 54% is for infrastructure replacement costs. By that I mean, and what I just said, the elevator, the lighting, the fire alarms, the sprinklers, the HVAC, the surface storm runoff, and the parking lot, the emergency generator, on and on. 54% of this. 13% is library renovations. And that would be the library redesign, the revised entry, the circulation desk, the enhanced Wi-Fi, the need to really have robust digital systems in the library.

1:06:13 Study rooms, the teen center, the open garden access. We’re estimating that to be $1.2 million. And you’ll see here that we have raised over a million dollars from 221 donors in town privately to go against this particular goal. The rest of the money, the other 33% of the budget, goes toward design fees, a very major contingency that we’re carrying in this budget because we don’t know what we’re going to see once we go into the walls. Moving in storage, the library has to move out of the building for a year before it can move back in, and then limited furniture and equipment purchases. I want to stop right now and turn this over to just a few minutes to Stu Roberts, who is the principal from Johnson Roberts, the architectural firm that we’ve hired for this project. Johnson Roberts is very well known. They’re from Somerville. They’re very well known. The Commonwealth and library systems, they have real expertise in library design and library renovation. And Stu can tell us a little bit more about this infrastructure business and also how we are planning to put some sizzle in this state as well. So, Stu, are you here? I know you’re here somewhere. I saw you earlier, but are you available? Yes, there you go. Stu Roberts to the world of Zoom and the world of the income.

1:07:45 Okay, great. Thanks. So really, as Nancy said, the major goal of the Abbott Public Library project is really repair and replacement of outdated building systems to extend the useful life of the building. Without these interventions, it’s going to become increasingly difficult to provide library services. In addition, since the outbreak of COVID-19, our design team has also developed a number of COVID mitigation strategies that would be incorporated into the project to provide a safe, healthy, well ventilated interior environment. And then also, while the building is undergoing replacement of infrastructure, it really provides a great opportunity to make some modifications to improve library services for both patrons and staff. And I’ll talk about that more in a moment, but right now I’d like to focus on all the building infrastructure issues. We had our engineering consultants conduct a review of all the building systems in the library, and they concluded that while the building’s been well maintained, that after 30 years, many of the systems are nearing or really past their useful life. And all the existing building systems are either in need of either repair, replacement, or improvements to extend the useful life of the building and provide a safe, healthy, and energy-efficient library. So the HVAC system is really completely past its useful life, so we would be installing a new high-efficiency HVAC system with new automatic controls.

1:09:20 In addition to that, to provide fresh air to the building, we’re planning on a new dedicated outside air makeup system with an energy recovery ventilation for energy efficiency. And also filtration and ultraviolet light air purification system for health and safety. And that’s really in response to COVID. The electrical systems, we would be doing new LED lighting throughout for energy efficiency, and we would be doing new data systems with expanded Wi-Fi capability and new power and data locations throughout the building for patron use to really respond to the way people use libraries today. In plumbing, we have a couple of new toilet rooms that we would be doing to serve the meeting room on the lower level, and that’s to meet code. We obviously would be doing low-flow water-efficient fixtures throughout the building. The original building is not currently sprinkled. The addition is sprinkled. And as part of this project, we would be doing a fire suppression system for the entire building and doing a new fire alarm system as well. As Nancy mentioned, the elevator has been a problem for a number of years. People get stuck in there. It breaks down. And so we would be replacing the elevator with a new elevator that would comply with all of the access requirements. We also, on the exterior of the building, would be regrading the parking area to try to improve drainage, so we’re draining water away from the building.

1:10:53 So that’s kind of the highlights of the goals of the infrastructure improvements, and they’re really all to extend the useful life of the building so that the town can really continue to use the library. But while we’re doing these infrastructure improvements, it’s really a great time to make a few upgrades to the library to respond to 21st century library service needs. As Nancy mentioned, about 1.2 million of the project is dedicated to library renovations, and a million of that has been donated by the, or will be donated by the Abbott Public Library Fund to help fund the library improvements. And just briefly, the library improvements include a revised lobby and circulation desk so that we can improve patron service, improve browsing areas for new books and AV materials, a new Wi-Fi study area that really responds to 21st century library needs, creation of a business area for use by patrons and small business people and people who may be working remotely, small group study rooms to support student collaboration, tutoring, and special projects, a new renovated teen center to respond to the needs of that demographic, and a flexible maker space, which could be used by children and teens and adults as well for a whole host of programs to engage people in the library. And I think also, very significantly, we’re going to be providing better access to the outdoor garden area. It’s really a wonderful resource that the library has that’s underutilized.

1:12:31 So as part of this project, we would be making that library fully accessible and doing some renovations so the meeting room could open directly to the outside. That would allow the library to do outdoor programs in nice weather, and obviously that would be a real benefit today in times of COVID. So I think that’s a really exciting part of the project is what we’ll be doing outside the library there. So when completed, the Abbott Public Library, it’ll be an energy efficient, safe and healthy library that can provide 21st century library services. Thank you, Stu. Thank you. I think we really want you to see some of these renderings because I want you to in the public to understand that while we’re replacing all the infrastructure, there will be some really great physical changes and improvements in the library spaces and uses. And people will know as soon as they walk through the front door, the library is new. They will see all this. So I guess the only question that remains in front of the town tonight is really, does Marblehead want a public library? That’s the question. That’s it. Because without this renovation, the current library is going to cease to be an asset and turn into a liability in very short order. We, the trustees, feel this is the best deal that we can offer the town, the best value that we can offer the town. We’re using the existing building as our commitment to sustainability.

1:14:11 We’ve worked for five years planning this project. All the costs that have been incurred in that today have been privately funded. If we built a new library, architectural firms have told us that the estimates are between $35 and $40 million for exactly the same size building on the same size lot. 40 million, 9.5 million. We’ve raised a million from 221 donors to help underwrite the cost of the redesigned spaces for a town-owned asset, which I think is a reinforcement of the library’s traditional public-private partnership. I think you’ll see from the chart again, the pie chart that we’ll put up here again, that for $8.5 million, because we’re going to give the town a million as soon as the sober ride passes, the public library fund, the foundation arm of the library will do that. For $8.5 million to the taxpayer, Marblehead Citizens will have a new library by the fall of 2023 that will serve the community for the next 20 to 25 years. For the average cost of $6.25 per month, that’s a cup of coffee and a muffin at your favorite coffee shop.

1:15:42 I think the library is deserving of your support. I think this is a value-added proposition, and we’re really hoping that you will vote for the Abbott Public Library renovation tonight. And thank you very much for your time. And that’s it, Mr. Chairman. How did it clock in, Emily? How did it clock in? It wasn’t turning, but it was great. I don’t know. Ben, did you… You know, I didn’t clock it, but I looked at my watch. I think your timing is pretty good for town meeting, too, which I know you’re curious about. I don’t know the exact number, but I would guess you’re under 15 minutes. What’s that? It was 15 minutes. Yeah, that’s what I… Thanks, Eurem. Good to see you, by the way. So many people out here. I didn’t even see you. So, Eric said he’ll give us 15 minutes, but we have to stay exactly inside 15 minutes. Yeah, that’s what I was about to say. So, it seems like you’re right on pace. Okay, great. So, I’d like to answer questions that anybody has. I feel that this group, particularly the Finance Committee, has heard this story so many times. But we have, of course, gone through with you in the previous iterations how we got to all these numbers. You know, you have backup documents for how all these numbers were created. I felt tonight it was more important that we show you or tell you how we’re trying to present the story to the town. So, the town understands this is a critical situation. This is not… We’re not making the library prettier because we think it’s a great thing we want to do.

1:17:18 We’re trying to save the library for the next 20 years. Yeah, thank you, Nancy. And if it’s okay, can I make a short statement before we… Please. First off, I just want to say this project in particular is near and dear to my heart. I was the daughter of a librarian, but that’s an aside note. FinCon has seen his presentation several times, as he stated, Nancy. Over the last few years, the library trustees have been very patient, but the building itself has not. The library director and trustees have been maintaining the building and its systems, but it’s come to the point where the major systems need to be replaced. This is evident by the increasing repair bills that FinCon has seen in the library over the years. We, as FinCon, and as a town, voted to support the renovation of Abbott Hall, and this project is no different. Libraries are as relevant and important as ever, and we need to support this article. Thank you. Thank you, Emily. Are there any questions or comments from the rest of the committee? I have a couple, if nobody else does. And Nancy, again, thank you for the presentation and Emily, your comments after. Is there an update as to the library state grant program? Is there any… The library state… Are you asking me about state funding? Yeah. Okay. I’m glad you asked me, because I pulled that out before this meeting with help from my friend, Phyllis Smith, who knows everything.

1:18:56 That’s because she’s the best. That’s right. That’s right. To give you a brief history, very brief, of the state funding question, we had the… In VLC, you know, the Massachusetts Board of Library Commission officer out to see us in July 12, 2016, because we were starting to look at what could we do? Could we build it? Could we get… If we built a new library, could we get state funding? And she told us at that time, this is 2016, the grant process is irregular and subject to appropriation by state legislature annually. And at the first stage, of course, the planning and design grant of $100,000, if you got it, the state would give you 50, and the town had to match 50. The earliest possible date that the design grant would be open was 2018. And most likely, 2020. That’s the design grant now. And then the construction grant that you can apply for is always two years after the planning grant. So the earliest would be 2022. She also told us that there were 35 libraries in the queue for current construction grants. So she couldn’t give us any guarantee that we would move up in priority in that queue. So it came down to realizing the two biggest issues that prevented us from receiving or going after state funding from Library Commission was delay uncertainty, because we knew that they would not do more than 40 to 50% of the project.

1:20:27 We also knew the more we delayed, the more expensive it was going to become. I think that there’s no question that if Marblehead was building a new library, we would have to go to state funding, and we would have to wait for the time how long it took. But we’re not building a new library. We’re renovating and reusing the library we have. So the efficiency of time and money, the delta of this crossing over between too many years lost and systems going down fast, seemed to us to indicate that we should do private fundraising and go to the town for the override. Thank you. I have a couple more questions or a couple more comments. As you approach town meeting. What what I personally would like to see, and keep in mind that I am voting to approve this article, I’m just wanting to give you what I think is meaningful, not just from my experience but also just as fit as it’s been common as a citizen things I’d like you to consider is to continue to tell the town that while you’re asking for this amount of money approximately eight five, you’re going to continue to do everything you can to continue to try and raise private funding to the extent you can. And the second thing I would say is, to the extent you can explain to the town that there’ll be other opportunities while having a library in itself is awful important that it’ll have some multiple use opportunities I think is also a really good,

1:22:01 really good story right there will be opportunities for other services in the town or just citizens to use the building for for things that historically we haven’t maybe used library just just different ways to to emphasize that that you know it is a town use would be great. But I also think the building in itself is inside I think what Emily said is it really resonates for me, which is yeah I mean we just did a very similar number for a top for a bit hall and this building is in really bad shape. And I think that’s really, really a meaningful part of this story, and just friendly advice for whatever whatever it’s worth but that’s those are things that would be meaningful for me to feel even better about voting to approve. Thank you, Ben. We’ll put those things in. Sure. Thank you. Before you to public comment are there any other questions or comments from the committee. So it looks like we’ll move on to public comment, and Aaron union. We can’t hear you’re in. So, I don’t see her on the list anymore. Oh I see your hand raised. Okay.

1:23:36 Okay. Oh she’s having audio problem there she okay. All right. Let’s move to emotion I guess Aaron you can get yourself righted quickly here. Give me another minute. Okay. I think we’ll just apologies but. Okay, so there’s a question in the chat. Um, that I will just wondering if there’s a possibility to use COVID relief and infrastructure funding to help with this project. That was Aaron’s question. I assume what Aaron is talking about. I mean, she’s talking about just straight COVID relief I think the answer probably no. But if she’s talking about the money that is coming in from the, the, what we’ve all called the $6 million that are coming in. I guess that’s a question for our town administrator or town finance director if you’ve heard anything that this will qualify under those vague buckets, if you will. I’m Ivan. Yeah, go ahead. We really haven’t received any specific guidance yet. Other than, you know, there’ll be a little bit more lenient but again I think it’s going to be tied somewhat to the pandemic in some way whether it’s lost through loss of revenue or highlighted needs of, you know, additional technology be able to work, implement remote working environment.

1:25:15 So, what it’s worth here’s what I would say first of all I think the town should decide whether it wants a library. I think that’s a really important part of this story. I want a library. Other people may not. But I don’t know that this is, Steve and I have already had many conversations very early in his tenure about some of that money needs to go to this problem you’ve already heard earlier tonight about stabilizing the town and there’s that $6 million is going to go off real quick. And I’m not sure allocating it to libraries, is it, first of all it’s not going to cover the entire not anyway, but you know I, I can tell people to spend their money but I’m willing to spend a month on a library. And I think it’s the right move. And I think there’s probably a lot of uses for that 6 million. I’m not sure you know, could some of it be used I suppose if they can if it works if the town says so. Anyway, I don’t know if anybody else on Fincom has other thoughts. It’s a good question. I think it’s actually, I think it is a good question. And I don’t think we should rely on any of those funds, especially for a project this size. I mean this is, this is very well thought out over years. And maybe in the future if there’s an opportunity to offset some of these costs maybe with some of the HVAC work, you know, that could be explored but again, you know, it’s such an unknown that 6 million and there’s, there’s a lot of places to put that and this is a pretty hefty standalone project.

1:26:46 I had a comment, Emily, then I had a comment. I just wanted to also, I mean, all the trustees know this, but I wanted to answer, I mean, a comment on what Ben you said, because I think what you said about, you know, emphasizing the multi use, that’s a great one because it will be that kind of building. But in addition to that, you know, we as trustees have thought through to Emily’s point about future funding as Nancy, you know, referenced in her presentation is public private partnership that we’ve had from the beginning. And we will honor that. And part of that work is going to be part of the foundation arm. The million dollars that the town is going to get from private funding. And we are committed to continuing to raise private funds for maintenance and technology, because we recognize that, you know, as Nancy talked about we’ve maintained this building and the town has maintained the building. But we are going to continue to do that part. And I think that once the town passes this override, everyone likes the winner and our library is an asset. So, you know, I just want to assure anyone out there that we will continue to build on this public private partnership for the library. That’s great. It’s a really good message. Could I just add something really quickly? Yeah, I mean, Nancy, I think you did a really great job with the presentation and, you know, covered, you know, the multiple dimensions of implementing this project.

1:28:18 I think it really comes down to whether the town, not, you know, wants not just a library, but a community center, you know, organized around the ancient technology of hard books, hard copy books and the print intake of knowledge with, you know, while accommodating the technology. So I think it’s been framed correctly, I think this is really a question of whether the town wants a library that is kind of reconfigured for the future as a community center. So, you know, it’s a big night and it’s and it’s a big time decision now. And but I think it’s, you know, I think it’s great that the thing has approved it so we can get in front of the town for a vote. So, you know, of course, I’m biased. I’m in support. It was wonderful for my kids. And, you know, but on the other hand, it is it’s a it’s a big number as well. So thank you. We will we will we’ll start to hit that in the presentation about the multi use and the cultural center because by the things that Sue was trying to point out to us like the garden changes by French doors leading from the meeting room to the garden. We’ve envisioned how once post past post COVID we could even maybe use the lower part of the library for revenue generating events, you know, have people have weddings there or small things that it could be in the meeting room and then they could just go out into the garden, you know, and have small orchestra things or, you know, musical ensembles. So there’s a ton of things that can happen once we have the facility operating again as a really first class facility in its innards will work for us, you know, and then we can actually adapt.

1:30:00 We’re going to have to adapt the things we’re talking about now to even more multi-use possibility. We’ll stress that, though, Ben. I think that’s certainly stress in the architectural conversations, but I don’t know if it got stressed so much tonight, because I think everybody is so concerned that we focus on the infrastructure, because the infrastructure is what’s brought us here. So we want to make sure we don’t gloss over that. We want to really hit people with that. I think that’s something that we’ve been talking about now, right? You guys have patiently waited for this year. A couple years ago, it was, you know, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but we had a big school we were all working on. And then last year we had the pandemic that pushed it. So we’ve seen the presentation a bunch, and I remember a lot of the multiple use. Anyway, it was really well said by Moses. I’ll leave it at that. Thanks. I’ll defer back to you, Enel. There are questions from anyone else in the committee or in the public comments. I’m sorry, Emily. It’s Erin. I know I had technical difficulties. I just wanted to, I put it into the chat, but I just wanted to convey that first of all, I totally support the library infrastructure needs.

1:31:36 And secondly, I was just wondering if, you know, I was just sort of like planting the, like putting the idea out there that there will be ongoing technology next year for needs for at least under 12 students. And so, you know, in terms of like looking at supplementing our private funding and whatever we put in with the town meeting, that, you know, we could explore that option in terms of upgrading the technology with, if there is, you know, money through COVID relief funding that continues to come in. That’s all. Thank you. Yeah, no, thanks, Erin. I think what we were discussing earlier, we, thanks for the comment. We, I think we all kind of are nodding our heads that, well, you know, that COVID money could be used. It’s not an unlimited supply and first we should check with the town to see if they want a library. And we’re all hoping the answer is in the affirmative and then going from there. I think we should move to the question. I think it’s, unless there’s other comments from the public. I think we are all set. So, and again, the finance committee has seen this in depth in multiple meetings before we’ve all fired off lots of questions to you in the past that you guys have diligently answered. So I think we are out of questions at this point. So there’s nothing left to do but make a motion to approve Article 35 at the public library and the amount of, now Nancy, I believe you’re asking for the full $9,437,840.

1:33:24 Well, my understanding, Emily, but maybe the FinCon can help us understand. My understanding from previous, like Mr. McGinn later last time was that we had to actually ask for the amount of the project. And that, though, that we are selling it by saying we also have a million dollars to contribute to it as soon as the town passes the override, that’s like part of the financing deal that would get involved. You know, there was, we’d answer that over. But the project is 9,055,000. So I think that the, I think the override would have to probably say that even though we’re expecting the taxpayer to only have to handle 8.5. So I don’t know, guys, tell me, I’m not sure that I have it right. That was what I was told before, but that’s what we were told to ask for override for the total project with the understanding that the foundation would forward to the town a million dollars against that goal. We better get that right before we vote tonight. I don’t think that’s right. You don’t think that’s right. I do not. I think you’re supposed to be asking for the amount of money you want from the town, not the amount of money of the project. But I defer to Emily, I’m sorry, I mean, I was going to defer to Jason and Steve. We’re on the other way. Sorry, I didn’t mean to talk over you. Yeah, I’ll let Alex, if you don’t mind, I’ll let Steve chime in too, but with Fort Sewell just using Fort Sewell as an example, we, the town asked for $750,000 for an over for the override.

1:35:00 And the full project was 1.1 million dollars. So I believe that it would be the amount you need to raise through the override as the request before town meeting. If Steve, if you have anything to add to that, please do. No, other than I agree. I think if you do the full amount, it gives you the ability to spend that amount under the override. But if you have the million dollars and you know you’re not going to exceed the delta, then you don’t have to go to the full amount. I’d be more comfortable going with the lower number and we have to revisit this weekend, but I don’t I’m fairly confident it’s, it’s the number you certainly don’t have to go to the full amount, but. Okay, so the project is 9.5 million, but we’re asking the town for 8.5. That’s what we’re saying tonight. Okay. Okay. So, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, we state this then so I’ll make a motion to approve article 35 for the reservation of the public library and the amount of $8,500,000. Second. Thank you. Yes, Emily. Yes, Kevin. Yes, Pat approve. I’m approved as well. Good luck. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much.

1:36:31 Thanks very much. Thank you. Meeting. All right. So, moving on to article 36. There are no financial implications actually for the next sub role. So we are going to skip over 36 article 37. 3839 40 and 41 and 42. And that will bring us to article 43. That’s right. Yep. Are we right without everybody’s agreement? Amy, this is a local water assessment assistant program. It just be loan water distribution improvements. Hi, Amy. Hello again. So this is actually just for a placeholder. And we’re a local water assistance program has a certain amount of money that they allocate every year towards the towns that are part of them. This would be funding that would be available after June this year. We are not planning on using it. It’s just really to get it past this first step. If the water and sewer commission decides to use money in the future, they do you’re going to see it at commission meetings at our public hearing for the rate study. Then calm will see it. I’m sure and selectmen. So it’s really not a plan to use the money right now. It’s just to have this first step approved with them.

1:38:10 And then we have a second one. So the only time we can do it is at town meeting. So if we have an emergency, you know, it’s just so that the town knows it’s there. And it shouldn’t I don’t believe it costs town anything to get this first approval. The bonding happens when we actually go go for the loan. So, right. Okay. All right. And then you have to apply for the loan at certain times of the year. It’s only it’s only available a few times of the year. So, like, the loan, we just didn’t February had that not been approved the last meeting. We would have missed this construction year. For high street. Are there any questions from committee? Any questions from the public. Okay, so with that, I’d like to make a motion to approve article 43 MWRA local water system assistance program interest free loan with water distribution improvements. Any amount of $1,000,000. Second. Second by Pat. Thank you. Alec. Yes, Emily. Yes, Kevin. Yes. Approve. Now I’m approved. Great. Thank you, Amy. To article 44 compensation, and I’m going to ask.

1:39:42 Thank you, Emma, and she said I believe you’re going to speak on this. Ask you. I’m going to try to be as clear as possible with this one. I’m going to try to correct what I think is an unintended consequences of consequence of the salary. The town bylaw. So when the town promotes from within an existing employee. Based on the bylaw, one of two things can happen. They can either get a minimum of. They’re eligible for a minimum of 2%. Increase. So they can either go to the next, the next. The grade higher up. I’m not doing a good job of this. Let me start over. I’m sorry. If someone, if an existing employee gets promoted to a department head position. They either get at least a 2% increase. Or the step of the highest grade. Of the higher grade, which gives them a salary increase. I know it’s, it’s, I’m being as clear as mud right now. But what happens is it put restrictions. It puts restrictions on. Promoting from within.

1:41:13 That do not exist when we’re hiring. From outside of the organization. And with a salary schedule that hasn’t been increased or looked at. Or administrative employees since 1997. It becomes a real problem if we want to encourage. A culture that we’re promoting folks from within and trying to grow. Employees from within professionally. So what. What the change in bylaw does. Is if we’re going through that process and if we’re trying to promote an existing employee. To a department head position. It gives the town administrator the flexibility to review the existing salary schedule. To update it based on current market trends. And then bring it before the compensation committee. And then we can. Or in inter request their approval. If the compensation committee approves. Then we’d be allowed to pay. Market for the position. I’ll give you an example. The building commissioner position. Not long ago we promoted from. Within we promoted a local inspector. And the market.

1:42:44 As I looked at it was approximately $84,000 a year. The bylaw has written only allowed. Us to bring this employee to promote this employee at a salary. Think of about $68,000 a year. So it’s really limiting. When I could have. Someone for the building commissioner position. Who was working for another town who applied. And with the approval of the compensation committee. Could have brought that person in at the proper level. So this is if you want to go to the next slide. Is your next slide I think there is. Yeah. Thank you. So this is kind of the rationale. For the change. It allows for the. And some of the siree talked about but it allows for the adjustment salary steps and range. At the recommendation of town administrator with approval compensation committee. When I’m promoting an internal candidate. The reason the rationale for the change is to reward in-house promotion. As I stated by law is pretty restrictive and. Caps of salary increase. And. Especially because the administrative salary schedule has not been updated.

1:44:15 In a long long time which we are looking at as we speak but. At the time this was wrapped in. In 97. It almost penalizes a department. From looking to promote from within in a. It penalizes candidate. So that’s the. That’s the change. Makes sense. Making us competitive internally. And making it more fair for our internal candidates to be. Be promoted with it. I think it makes sense to. To update. 1997 was. Years ago. Are there any questions from the committee? I should add one more thing. The fact that we have this salary. Survey in the compensation classification study that we. That we. That we conducted. When if and when that is implemented and approved by town meeting. It will make it will make this change less. Important because we’ll actually have competitive salary schedules. However, it really did create a problem in this one instance in the building department. And I think it is an unintended consequence. I don’t think it. I don’t think the bylaw was written to. Discourage.

1:45:45 Rewarding an internal candidate for some of these positions. I just think it was. It’s an unintended consequence that I think. Deserves. You know, deserves to be fixed. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Were there any other questions from the committee? If not Amy, I see your hand is raised. You have a question or comment. Emily, I have a comment actually. So this has been one of the more difficult bylaws that I’ve had to deal with. With water and sewer with many of the departments, the more history your employees have in the more knowledge they have of that system. The better off the town is. And so I think that’s the way it is. And I think that’s the way it is. More than one time someone turned down the position because it was only such a small increase in their salary. You lose your overtime. You know, so to make that transition from union to nonunion to admin, you lose quite a bit. Even upon the retirement. So. And that’s the way they deal with the sick time. But. And it does take. A multiple. And I think that’s the way it is. And I think that’s the way it is. When you promote someone, whether if you brought somebody in, they could start it a step forward. And I also believe, and Jason can correct me if I’m wrong, but this is not something that, you know, a commissioner of the town administrator can just do.

1:47:15 You have to still go to the compensation committee. There’s still a lot of discussion and a lot of. Rules put in place to stop. You know, somebody hiring someone. Whatever rate they help. That’s correct. Yeah. Thank you. And I think that’s a good question. I think that’s a good question. I mean, the, they might have institutional knowledge and that you would. We lose. Promoting or losing an employee that wouldn’t be promoted. In that way is significant. There are no other questions. Then I’d like to make a motion to approve article 44. Compensation. Yes. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I’m going to approve as well. That takes us to. I’ll take the ball back. That’s all right. Emily. No, that takes us to the IP portion of the evening. We skipped a couple and we’ll go back to them now, but we actually have formally vote. everything left that is indefinite postponement. So working back to article four for a moment, I’d like to make an emotion to indefinitely postpone article four, accept trust property. Second. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Pat. Approve. And I’m approved. Article 11, walls and fences. I should have done that one as well. We

1:48:49 need to formally indefinitely postpone walls and fences. I’d like to make a motion to indefinitely postpone article 11 walls and fences. Second. Kevin. Second. Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Pat. Approve. And I’m approved as well. Article 19, the stabilization account, again, the 250 carried from last year will still be there. So I’d like to make a motion to indefinitely postpone article 19 transfer funds to the special ed stabilization account. Second. Alec. Yep. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Approve. Pat. Approve. And I’m gonna approve as well. Article 48. Article 48, as there is no supplemental appropriation for the schools that has been posed to us, I’d like to make a motion to indefinitely postpone article 48 supplemental appropriation for the schools. Second. Seconded by Pat. Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Pat. Approve. And I’m gonna approve article 49 as well as there is no, some people would call this the override, the general override, there is no supplemental expenses of the several departments either. I’d like to make a motion to approve, I’m sorry, to definitely postpone article 49

1:50:21 supplemental expenses of the several departments. Seconded by Emily. Alec. Yes. Emily. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Pat. Approve. And I’m gonna approve as well. 858, Moses Rader. Is he still here? He’s still here. He’s still here. I just would like to, well, first let me turn it over to Jackie Belfecker. I think you have to take care of some business and then I will wrap it up. Sorry. Thank you. Just in case anybody needs to leave quickly. I need a motion to adjourn, please. So moved. Second. In favor. Mr. Grader. In favor. Ms. Belfecker. In favor, thank you. Great job. Thank you. Great work, everyone. Yeah, great work. Thank you so much. And I would just hope- Good job, FinCom. Because everybody’s departing, I just want to again thank the five of you blares not with us, but the five of you tonight for another horrific budget season and all your help and all your hard work and all your volunteering. It’s really meaningful and helps the town do what it needs to do and I’m grateful for all. All that you do to make me look better.