Select Board: September 27, 2023

Transcript captured from MHTV’s Vimeo auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:02 Okay, it is seven oh one. I’m gonna call this meeting of the select board to order. It’s Wednesday, September 27th and this meeting is being recorded via Zoom. Member Jim Nye is away on a pre-planned uh, vacation. Our first item on the agenda is a finance presentation, um, from Odyssey Advisors around OPE benefits. So please, I invite, yes, Alicia, our finance, uh, Benjamin, our, um, finance director, which you could come to the please come to the table. Yeah. Thank you. Just wanna thank you and welcome. Yeah, welcome. Just introduce yourself. We do have a copy. We’ve all received a copy of the presentation, but I don’t have it in front of me,

0:48 so that would be great if you have copies there. Lots Of Great. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. This is what We are having the book, right? Okay. Yep. Do you want Yes. Thank you. Okay. Good evening, honorable Select Board and Citizens and Residents viewing. Tonight I’d like to introduce Parker Elmore from Odyssey Advisors. He’s the C e o President actuary. He’s amazing. We’re lucky to have him. He turned around our actuarial report for G SS B 75 in a few months, uh, which is much faster than we’ve ever seen it. That’s great. And, uh, he’s been direct contact in helping the town with advising on different things to help us with our liability. And he’s ready to tonight to give a presentation.

1:36 Well, thank you. I appreciate it. And thanks for all of you for having me out. Um, you know, obviously I’m happy to go through the report, you know, 60 pages of fun actuarial stuff, can’t get any better. But I boil it down to a more of a simplified version of 50,000 foot overview to kind of walk through the key things. So I’ll give you the quick, you know, we’re founded in 1998. We just celebrated our 25th year a couple weeks ago. Um, we about 500 municipalities we work with around the us. We’re in 37 states. I have an office in Nevada as well where I spend time and we’re in Europe, south America, Australia. I spent a lot of time on planes. Um, so anyway, on the next one. So, you know, basically what happened year over year, you know, a lot of stuff happened to basically put you back in the same spot. So you’re gonna see a lot of ins and outs and everything else, and you go, okay, we had $167 million liability, you know,

2:24 back in the day before GS B 75 came out and changed all the terms to what they thought were somehow more helpful. It used to be called actuarial accrued liability seemed to make sense. Now it’s total opep liability. And my favorite is what used to be assets is now fiduciary net position. ‘cause I guess nobody knew what assets meant, so we wanted to clean that up. Um, so we went from 167 million down to 163 million down. Your assets here are slightly understated for 23, we identified a thing working with Alicia and Chris and the gang about about $500,000 that wasn’t properly posted. We’ve kind of worked that out. So things are a little bit better here. We’ll, it’ll be tweaked the next day or so. Um, so we kind of worked with them and thank, thankfully to them they got it all squared away for us. Um, your assets went about 5.7 to really about 6.3 million.

3:11 And then you’re unfunded, you know, basically from 1 62 to 1 57. Sorry, I don’t mean, could you just kind of point us in the presentation to where we’re at right now? I’m, I’m sorry. I’m on the GS B 75 results. I’m sorry. I’m ga Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. So, so you said 5.7 to five point. Well, 5.8, but that’s really about understated by about 500 grand. You’ve identified some money that was not posted, uh, to the Asset account. Okay, so this is really six. Sorry, I just threw me off when you said six. Yeah, Yeah, I’m sorry about that. Yeah, that’s what I said. I’m trying to, so when, when you look at things later after we update, you go, well, I thought he said it was 6.3. Why am I seeing 5.8? Okay. So I just been trying to make sure. Sure, that’s fine. Thanks. Yeah, So that, that’s all. So again, we just identified it was, it was just a matter of, uh, things that weren’t in the right bucket basically. So we’ve identified that now it should all be spurred away. Um, on the next slide,

3:56 this is really the expense side of the equation rather than the liability side of the equation. I mean, really in the municipal context, expense doesn’t mean a heck of a lot. I mean, it’s accountants. They, they’re used to doing P and lss, but p and LSS in the municipal context don’t have quite the same meaning you guys aren’t, you know, doing earnings per share and options and bonuses. And that’s not the way things work here. But, um, one of the big things is your service cost is the benefit being earned during the year by active employees. It’s about $3.4 million. I tell people to think of it this way. It’s about $4,800 per employee. So if you think about, if Joe or Mary work for you and make $50,000 a year, they’re basically getting $4,800 a year of deferred compensation payable in retirement in the form of a medical benefit. So we’re trying to figure out what does that employee cost you? It’s really not just a salary.

4:41 There’s a fringe benefit cost to which this is part of it. Um, financial statement expense, you’re showing income. Again, it doesn’t really mean anything. Admissible context. The employer share of costs, which is really cash out the door cost for retirees went from 4.7 to $6 million. Now there’s an issue here. Your actual cash didn’t go up by this amount. Something we call implicit cost. And it’s way more complicated than it needs to be. But the basic idea here is that you guys have retirees who are over the age of 65 who remain on active health plans as opposed to Medicare supplement plans. The issue is that from an actuarial standpoint and an actuarial standards of practice standpoint, we have to figure out what does an 80 year old cost for healthcare? Not what you’re paying the G I C, but what is their real cost? Well,

5:28 the amount you’re paying them is a premium based on actives and some retirees together. So say like an average of say 42, 43 year old, but an 80 year old is gonna have much higher healthcare expenses than a 42 year old. So you’re paying a premium based on a 42 year old, but your real costs are based about triple to quadruple that amount. And so that’s why that number spiked up because we have to reflect that. So, because, sorry. Yeah. Is it okay to kind of go through this slide by slide? Okay. Yeah, exactly. So because, and please feel free to also ‘cause presentation. So if we, so you’re saying that this cost increase on our side is reflective of the demographic and age trends in our employer. It’s Employee. Yeah.

6:13 It has a lot to do with the demographics of your retiree population. And a big part of that is those over the age of 65 who remain on active health plans. So on active health plans, but maybe retired. They’re retired, yeah. So these, we’re only looking at retiree costs here. Okay. So it’s retirees only. And yes, to your point, ask questions anyway. Don’t feel like you wait till the end. Anytime you see something ask, I mean it’s, you know, Feel free to speak in, speak up. Yeah. Other Members, this is, uh, my version of see something, say something, you got a question ask away. Um, and so, so yeah, I mean that’s really the issue here, um, is that, you know, a lot of this is, you know, people who were teachers were hired before 1986, they were not required to pay in the Medicare. And so therefore they don’t have Medicare credits. And so one of the things you can do is go out and purchase credits on their

7:00 behalf to make them eligible for Medicare. Um, that’s something you have to do with C M s. So it’s not just, you know, check a box, but with a center of Medicare studies, you can work with that and you can, and you can certainly purchase those. It’s about, it varies by age figure. It’s about $650 a month for a person on average. So it’s not free to buy the credits, you mean you have to buy the credits? Uh, so it’s not, it’s not cheap. But on the other hand, if I look at it for a 42 year old, their healthcare costs under your plans would be expected to be up $8,000 a year. Mm-hmm. For an 80 year old, I would expect those costs to be closer to $30,000 a year. So you’re basically taking $22,000 a year of costs off your books and you’re gonna pay c m s somewhere in the neighborhood of, say, with some penalties,

7:48 call it eight to $9,000 a year. So from a purely financial exercise, it makes perfect sense. However, um, and Alicia and I have spoken about this, the issue you guys run into a little bit is because as part of the G I c, are they going to give you credit for the fact that you took all these claims off their plate and therefore reduce your active healthcare premiums? I don’t think they will, um, on plans that say town of exit goes directly to Blue Cross or Harvard or wherever. You’ll be able to do that because you say, Hey guys, I took a million dollars of claims off your books. I want you to reduce my active health premiums by a million dollars. You know, I’m not doing this ‘cause I’m a nice guy. I want to, you know, get some credit for it. That’s the issue that we’re, we have an email into the GI C to see what kind of relief we can get.

8:35 ‘cause to me, I don’t wanna write a check if I don’t get something on the backside. I mean, it would make your numbers look a lot better from a financial statement standpoint, but do I wanna engage in financial engineering or do I wanna do actual real legitimate savings? And so that’s, you know, what we wanna make sure we take care of here. Okay. Now that number seems like it’s, uh, it’s pretty lumpy, right? You, that’s a, that’s a pretty $1.5 million increase, roughly. Yep. And you’ve mentioned a couple of things. You know, the composition of the demographic shifting a little bit as well as kind of the G I C Yep. The expected g i c payout. Right. So what, what constitute what is the primary driver of that big number moving up? The primary, Primary factor is that the, those 21 retirees that they’re over 65 had not been previously reflected, is the fact that they’re not in a Medicare supplement plan. Got it. Got it. Got it. And so you’re talking about 21 ballpark, you know,

9:23 $20,000 a person. Yeah. You know, so it, it adds up pretty quick. Got it. Um, okay. Yeah. Okay. And, um, mm-hmm. You’re, you’re just discount rate, which is really probably the most important, one of the most important assumptions we have that went from 4.09% to 5.2%. Basically, if you think about it, that is the interest rate we use to discount all the future benefit payments back to today. If you think about it, we’re projecting out about a hundred years because you hire an employee today at age 20, I have to follow them all the way through their working career, their retirement. I like to say, when they stop taking coverage, it sounds much nicer than death. They just stop taking coverage. And so we take them out through basically 120 years old. So we get a hundred years to bring all those claims back to today. And so a higher interest rate equals a lower liability and vice versa.

10:11 So the effect you can use a higher interest rate means your liabilities will come down. And we’ll talk about that in the next slide. Quick Question. Yeah, yeah. Yep. Go ahead. Sorry. Um, the 21 retirees over 65. And then you also noted the, you know, that they don’t have the Medicare credits, you know, the option to purchase. So is that applicable to, uh, all of the 21 that you’re referencing? Or is that only a a Well, here’s the thing. You know, we’ve not gone and asked those 21 people, do they have Medicare credits or don’t they, many of them probably have partial Medicare credits because they worked a part-time job somewhere in a summer. They may have done something, but the issue you run into is this, and I’m not picking on the G I C, so please don’t take it that way.

10:57 But the issue is the G I C is gonna send them a letter and say, Hey, you’re over 65. You should be in a Medicare supplement plan. You should go apply for Medicare. If the person doesn’t respond, they’re gonna stay on the ING plan. Nothing’s gonna happen. There’s no, the G I C doesn’t have the incentives to follow up that you do as an employer because your guy’s financial statement is impacted. The G I C goes about their life. They collect their premiums, their life goes on the same either way. So there’s nobody banging on their door going, Hey guys, um, you should be in Medicare. Why aren’t you in Medicare? Um, you know, have you done anything like that? So that is really the issue. Now, under mass general law, you can adopt a policy. And I’m not saying you should. These are decisions you guys have to make. You can adopt a policy that says, Hey, we’re gonna mandate that you be in Medicare and if you don’t qualify for Medicare, we will go buy the credits for you. But if you’re over the age of 65,

11:43 you’re not allowed to be on an active plan anymore. So you can pass that rule. You’re allowed to do that. You have to, you have to pay for the Medicare part A premium if they don’t qualify. And you have to pay for any Medicare Part B penalties for late enrollment because they weren’t enrolled. So you can certainly do that if you wish, but the issue that people run into, and I with another client about this recently, it’s a chore one, because you have to go track down these 21 retirees. B some of them might be much older. So you wanna go talk to some, you know, 83 year old woman in a nursing home and explain to her that she’s gotta switch her healthcare plans. Um, these tend to be a lot of one-on-one discussions and people go, I only have so much time. So those are the kinda issues you deal with. So it’s not, it’s not a simple matter of going, oh, I save money, I should just do this. There’s work involved.

12:29 It’s not just a simple check a box. Um, so that’s why, you know, I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t do those decisions you guys have to make. Um, but that’s, that’s the reason why. Thank you. I’m just gonna pause this for one moment. Yeah. Is it possible to put this presentation, um, on the screen to share with members in the audience or

12:53 on My computer? I don’t have a computer with me. Um, I have it on my phone. I can Yeah. In case, you know, ‘cause I mean, I, I just, I know we’re talking about numbers, we’re Talking about a lot of numbers and there’s, there might Be’s a lot of numbers That would like to follow along and, you know, I’ll take accountability. I should have prepared, I should have maybe confirmed this would Alicia, I’m Blessed Is a special Box. Yeah. It’s an important conversation. Especially if you’re Yeah. Just zoom Online for the town.

13:27 Are we able to do that, Alicia? Yes. Yeah. Thank you so much.

13:33 The magic of technology. We talked to this average active single plan versus average Medicare supplement plan. The pricing there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, basically, so what we do is we take all your plans combined, we wait who’s in what plan. And that for, again, for your guys, this is not your cost, it’s the gross cost. So your cost the G I c Yeah. For the plans that your people are in. So if I look at it, you know, Can we just pause for a moment? I’m sorry. Just Do it take a minute to, so we can include the public. Sure.

14:07 My officer may. I’m not sure. Um

14:24 mm-hmm. You said you travel a lot. Where’s your favorite place you’re from? Uh, let’s see. Well, last week I was in Savannah. Um, next week I’m in two weeks. I’m in Vegas. Um, I was in Boise recently. I was in Denver recently. I was in, I,

14:46 yeah, I’m, I’m pretty much everywhere. So How was the weather in Savannah? It was nice. I mean, I, I, I like warm weather, so to me it was fine. Yeah. It’s beautiful. If you’re, if you’re a, you know, like it’s something we struggle with, with our company off offset. We’re trying to set next year’s offsite and a lot of my team likes colder weather or fall type weather. You know, I have an office in Vegas ‘cause I like 150 in the summer. It’s beautiful. Um, but you know, that’s not for them. So we’re trying to find a place that we can meet these mediums that, uh, that work with everybody. Yeah. Ground. Yeah. That pavement gets hot out there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s, uh, At asphalt. Oh Yeah. Yeah. It’s, uh, Yeah. It’s, it’s definitely not for everybody. It’s melt your Shoes, You know. It’s, uh, but yeah, we’ve, uh, If you’re on the waterfront in Savannah, it’s not so bad.

15:32 Yeah, no, it’s, I was down there. It’s a beautiful place. You know, there’s a presentation.

15:40 Thank you. Beautiful. So You are Kyle, The Magic, both a combination of The magic of technology. Thank you. When it works, right? It works. Okay. So, um, we’re speaking to this slide right here. Yep. Correct. Thank you to our, excuse Me, Madam chair. Am I the one sharing or is Alicia? I have it on my screen too. I think. Alicia, the I somebody move you to Okay. Somebody moves. Okay. Visits Her. So I’m moving the screen. Okay. It’s me. So Kyle, Kyle gets to come back in the room then. Yes. Thank you to our amazing, um, uh, staff here for doing that. Thank you. You’re welcome. Okay. Um, so with this slide Yep. My question, I just,

16:28 I’m obviously there’s this enormous decrease in service cost, like $6.4 million and then at the same time the employer share of costs goes up $1.5 million. Correct. And I know we’re talking about a 21 retirees. Yeah. Could you just, um, kind of, what are we supposed to make of that? Sure. And if you could explain that in the most Yep. Layman’s terms. Exactly. So let’s just back up for what the two items are. So service cost is the value of benefits being earned during the year by active employees. So any current retirees have nothing to do with that. This is just people who are currently actively employed. And so when you think about what that does, we’re looking at what are your future costs going to be. So Mary or Joe,

17:16 or Ted or whomever are gonna be here for another 20, 30, 40 years. They’ll get the 65, let’s say they retire. They select the benefit and the value of that for their life. And they accrue rateably over their working lifetime. So, you know, if they’re gonna work here 20 years, they earn one 20th of their benefit each and every year. So that service cost is now one 20th of that benefit. And so the 21 retirees have nothing to do with the service cost. That’s purely the active employees. Now, in terms of why that goes down, the issue you run into is, we talked about the discount rate going up, which therefore means drives liabilities down. It has the most impact on active employees. ‘cause they have the longest period of future benefit payments on a 70 year old. They’re only going to get, on average another 15 to 17 years of payments.

18:03 A 42 year old isn’t going to start getting payments for 20 to 25 years, and then we’ll get them for 30 years or so. Okay. So you have much longer duration into that. Longer duration means a much wider impact for the same change in liability, the same change in interest rate. So that’s why a change in the discount rate has a much bigger impact on the service cost. If you look at your liability, you’ll notice it impacts the active liability far more than it does the retired liability. So again, they, they have different, different, uh, interest rate has different impacts on different things in different ways. So then is the net oped expense a combination of the employer share of cost and the service cost? No. Well, the net opep,

18:48 What is the difference between net opep expense and service cost? Yeah. So let’s, let’s go kinda go from the top. So your, your fin your financial statement expense is really, Sorry. That’s what, yeah, that’s really is What that is. Your service cost plus your benefit payments, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Your service cost plus your interest cost. Okay. And then the recognition of any deferred inflows and outflows, which are basically experience tickets gets amortized in over time. This is a negative number here. So what do we to make of the negative number that Means is that you have positive experience has not yet been booked through the financial statement. So that gets advertised in over a period of about seven years. So let’s just make the math easy. Let’s just say you had $7 million of good experience this year. Mm-hmm. You would amortize in 1 million a year for seven years. And so in this case,

19:35 you have a fair amount of deferred inflows that have yet to be recognized. Those are coming in and that’s what’s, there’s enough of those to drive this down to a $2 million income, if you will, for financial statement expense. A big part of that, again, goes back to the discount rate. The discount rate by itself knocked about, you know, go to next slide, knocked about almost, you know, $28 million off your liability. And so that gets amortized and over 70, about $4 million a year for amortizing. And then we did some other items too that also we changed the healthcare assumption for the future. Knocked another $18 million off to liability. So those things get amortized in over a short period of time that drives down that expense. The net opep expense is really, really just the end of the day. It’s the financial statement expense and then subtract out the benefit payments.

20:25 So it’s really just net Opep last, If the financial statement plus the benefit payments, we’ll get you into the EP expense. The reason why technically financial statement expense doesn’t exist, um, net oped expense is the only one that really exists. But the problem is you’re trying to run a financial statement. Right. You need to, you need to see what really happened for the year before you make the expense To balance the book. Exactly. Yeah. So we put that in there because when you guys are trying to figure out what happened for the year, you wanna know what happened before you made your payments. Right. So that’s why we really have that there. It’s kind of an intermediate step, if you will. Okay. So just to be clear, we’re not actually, I mean we’re, we’re not actually booking a gain. We would actually spend the money on No. Correct. Just this is, this is non investment like Yeah. White, White noise, white Noise money. Yeah.

21:11 And that’s why, you know, all the reports and all the emails I send to Alicia and everybody else, I try and point out there’s two different kinds of savings. One are assumption driven savings. Those are lovely. They impact your financial statement. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the cost of the plan. And I give people the example. I can assume everybody’s gonna die in 65. Your liabilities will drop dramatically. It’s not real. People are still going to do whatever they’re going to do. Your benefit payments are still gonna be exactly the same as they were the day before. I can assume everybody lives to be 130. Your be your liability skyrocket. It doesn’t mean people are gonna live to 130, they’re still gonna do what they’re going to do. It’s just an assumption. Whereas changes in the benefits themselves in terms of you maybe you change healthcare plans, you change Medicare supplement plans, you change prescription drugs. Those are actual real cash savings, which also reduce the liability or change the liability. But those,

21:59 those accomplish two things. Change liabilities and actually generate actual cash changes. Assumptions are just really impact. Mm-hmm. When do I book the number on my financial statement? I do it now. Do it later. As I tell people, for those who are old enough, remember Fram oil filters, pay me now, pay me later. That’s really what the assumptions do is when are we going to put it on the financial statement. Yeah. That, that’s a really helpful distinction. You know. Thank you. Yeah. Yep. Sorry about that. No, no. I was gonna say you have something to say like, No, no, no. That is a really useful distinction I think that people can get their heads around because there’s a whole bunch of fiduciary assumptions, including the discount rate, which I’m curious in that and how it’s kind of formed. It’s gotta be something to do with the credit rating of the town as well as, you know, the risk free cost of capital. Yeah. I, I’ll give you the discount rate. And so yeah, this is what I tell people. G SS B is,

22:44 I got some grief with this when I said this in a, in this seminar recently when I was speaking and I said, GSS B is a somewhat political organization. And what I mean by that is, in the municipal sector, discount rate’s pretty easy. I take corporate bond yields by duration. Yep. I apply ‘em against your benefit payments and I calculate what equivalent discount rate would be. Right. In your case, maybe about 4.75. It has absolutely nothing to do with how you fund, it’s absolutely nothing to do with just with how much money you have. The discount rate is the discount rate. It’s a long duration. It’s a long duration assumption, but you’re discounting back a hundred a years. Right. So there is kind of a Yeah, it’s, it’s a big assumption. Oh, It’s absolutely. But the difference is your ability to gain the assumption isn’t available like it is on the, on the municipal side. The reason to some extent why G A S B has done it the way they have is if they went with a corporate model. Yeah.

23:30 Every pension plan across America and the municipal sector would look to be woefully underfunded. Right. And that would cause political chaos. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, they’re not gonna say it that way, but the reality is they don’t wanna do that. So, as I told Melissa, there’s really five key factors to go into the discount rate. And people say, well, how do I weight them? To which I would say it depends. They all have different weights depending on where you sit. Right? So it’s what are your annual benefit payments? How much money do you currently have in the trust? How much money are you gonna put in the trust every year? How are you investing the trust? Right? And then what are municipal bond rates? Right? So in your case, municipal bond rates still matter to you because you don’t have a lot of money in the trust. But to the extent that you guys commit to put more money in year by year,

24:16 say you’ll change your funding policy from 250 grand a year to say, I dunno, a million dollars year, 2 million, 3 million, all of a sudden those years in 20 30, 20 40, I get to start applying the long-term rate of return or something. Right? Right. Right. Okay. Rather than bond to something. So they all, they all have different impacts on where you sit. But the problem that I say is the gamesmanship of this is if you followed GSS B’S math of the ultimate logical outcome, which I don’t recommend, so we’re clear, you would invest in the riskiest, most speculative investments known to man, because that would get you the highest discount rate. Mm-hmm. And therefore you the lowest liability in your books. Right. Fiduciary wise, it makes no logical sense. Mm-hmm. But if you’re purely trying to, especially Especially over the timeframe that we’re talking about. Correct. Yeah. But if you’re trying to massage a financial statement, that is what you would do. Right. So, okay. Again, so that,

25:02 that’s kinda how we get to a discovery. Is there any way that we can, uh, enhance that distinction between the kind of the assumptions component of the liability versus the, the actual cash? Yeah. There’s actually, um, there’s actually an assumption. I mean, not, not to belabor it just to Yeah. No, but there’s, there’s actually something we put in the report, which is not tech be an opep thing, but it is, you’ll see it in your pension valuation. There’s this disclosure called an LD Roan, uh, disclosure. And what it says is basically, let’s take all the, all the gobbledy go of funding and how you invest your money and yada yada yada. Let’s just apply the municipal bond rate and said, if we did that, you’re at 4.13% and your liabilities are about 189 million versus 163 million. Right. So the assumptions, the how you choose to invest money into things that, that does,

25:49 reduces your liabilities of about $26 million on your book. Yep. And you’ll see this on your pension system going forward. Okay. Believe me, a lot of people in municipal America do not like this, uh, disclosure that is not required. And there’s a lot of fighting in the electoral community about it. Okay. Um, because people don’t want that out there. Um, but you know, it is what it is. Okay. Um, I’ll go to the next page. We talked about some of this, the good things that happen during the year, and these are assumption driven. Mm-hmm. You know, we increased the discount rate, saved you, I put save quote, saved you $28 million. We changed the future healthcare costs. We have a really complicated model for healthcare costs, which is ridiculous. It’s what actuaries do. The reality is we talk about G D P and resistance levels and all kinds of stuff. Think about four point a quarter percent a year from now until the end of time.

26:35 It’s about what it equates. Do we have a actuary’s gotta complicate life. Um, with that said, now the negative side on the assumptions, we updated your retirement termination and mortality assumptions to reflect basically what Para Act is doing. The reason is it’s, it’s tough for you guys to justify going, well for the pension plan, our teachers retire this way, but for the oped plan, they retire this way. There’s the same teacher. Mm-hmm. Um, they should probably retire in the same way. They should probably die at the same rate, or at least on an assumed rate. Um, if they can stay alive in one plan and not the other good for them, I dunno how they’re pulling it off. Um, we talked about these 21 mil retirees, that’s about an $8 million impact to your liability. And again, not the pure cash standpoint, your previous from the G I C are exactly what they are.

27:20 So your cash cost didn’t go up. But the way the actual standards require that we reflect that cost, we have to put our $8 million in your financial statement. Mm-hmm. So would you, this is like Yep. White money versus green money. Right. Okay. Just, yep. Yeah. It’s not changing your cash out the door by a penny. Yep. Is there, does it make sense to look at the average liability per, uh, retiree, uh, or employee in the pipeline? Yeah, I mean, we, we certainly, um, have those numbers for you. I mean, so I’ll just No, just outta curiosity off the top of your head. Yeah. Oh, I just, we have these exhibits in here. So your average retiree for an active employees, but $99,000 and for a retire is about $119,000. Okay. 199 versus one 19. 1 1 19. Yep. Yep.

28:06 And again, your guys’ liabilities are high because you guys have a very rich benefit package. Not saying that’s good or bad, every community does their own thing. Mm-hmm. You guys have a generous benefit package, which is great. Um, it also means your liabilities are higher than some other people. And as I always explain to people, there’s a, there’s a line around Worcester. If you get west of Worcester, most of the towns you’re gonna find have a 50 50 cost sharing. And I talk to people around here and they think, what kind of a world are we living in out there? And if I talk to people at west of Worcester, I talk about a 75, 25 or 80 20, they go, what are they? You know, have gold plated things over here. What’s going on over there? Yeah. So if there’s a definite bifurcation of expectations, and so in the world you guys live in over here, you’re not terribly out of wine.

28:53 If you were in the Berkshires, they would wonder, what are you guys doing over here? So it’s, it’s a very different mentality as you would split up the state. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Um, I go to the next one. It just talks about this a hundred year cycle. I’m working with, there’s a lot of, you know, assumptions that, think about it as, you know, I don’t wanna make it like we’re Merlin and we wave a magic wand and I’ll come numbers, but there’s, in fairness, I tell people all the time, and I, I don’t mean it as cavalier as it probably sounds, I can guarantee you that our numbers are wrong. And I, what I mean by that is, I don’t know when everyone’s going to live. I don’t know when they’re all going to retire. I don’t know when they’re all going to die. We make our best assumptions as of today and we continue to refine the assumptions. But assuredly, I do not know what the Medicare supplement plan’s going to cost in 2063.

29:41 I’ve made an assumption, but I can assuredly tell you I am, I’ll be as surprised as anybody if we are correct. Um, we’re gonna keep refining that assumption as we get closer. So, discount rate, we spoke about how that gets calculated and we have the termination rates. What’s the probability is somebody who’s employed here today is still here a year from now, two years, three years, five years now. They make it all the way to be retirement age. What’s the problem? They retire at 55, 56, 57. Okay. They elect to retire. What’s the problem? Do they elect to take coverage? What’s the problem? They elect to cover a spouse or a dependent. Okay. And where are healthcare costs gonna be from now until the end of time? So there’s a lot of pieces in that. And they all have different impacts. Again, different different assumptions have different impacts on different parts of the population. So again,

30:26 the most important ones are really the discount rate in healthcare cost inflation. Those are the two biggies. Um, your healthcare costs, the plans you offer your guys’ average plan that your people are in on the active side’s about $908 a month. Now that’s not your guys’ share. That’s the gross cost of the plan. Now, some people are in cheaper plans, some are more expensive plans. Um, about nine, eight bucks a month for an active plan and about 4 23 for a Medicare supplement plan. You guys are probably about 10% higher than what I see on average. Part of that’s demographics. I mean, look at where you are in relation to Boston. Your costs are higher. Um, if you were in Springfield, your costs would be lower. So geography has a little bit to do with why your costs are where they are. Um,

31:13 and again, we spoke about your price plans are more generous than some other people’s plans. Not good or bad, it just is. Every community’s gotta make their own decisions on what makes sense.

31:24 The all important, how do I stack up to everybody else? Um, this is as of last year. I can run one, um, as of six 30, but it wouldn’t change materially. Um, you know, you guys are about three and a half percent funded. So 26% of people are less than 1% funded. They’ve really done nothing. So you’re certainly better than that group. 71% are less than 10% funded. Um, so you’re comfortably with that group. I mean, at three and a half percent funded, you’re around the 50th percentile. Um, I’m not gonna say you’re in good shape. You’re not. Nobody is. Um, I can tell you of, we have two towns that are over a hundred percent. Most of my people that are above a hundred percent are utility districts. They’re light and gas departments. They’re people like that. Mm-hmm.

32:09 Because they can build things in the rate basis. You can’t. Um, so they can say, well, we’ll just, you know, jack up the water priced by, you know, 1 cent a gallon, we can fund opep. Good for you, for you guys to go and ask your taxpayers, Hey, I wanna get another a half million dollars a year to fund ep. Um, I can always say, I don’t have to run for anything. I can always encourage more funding. Um, but I live in the real world and there are many different needs that the town has. This is one of the capital needs. You know, this. And pension are really the twin and dragons of your financial statement, generally, number one. And number two, for the liability of the financial statement. The question is how do we address it? And the reality is, you know, the pension system is mandated to be funded by law. Right? So you’re going to fund that. This is a secondary thing.

32:57 It needs to be funded, but there’s no legal requirement to do so beyond the pay as you go costs. So should you fund? Yes. Um, you know, as I was doing one of these last night, you know, and, and they were, I was asked, you know, how much to fund and I, you know, uh, for those you, or in your eighties rock, I quoted Billy idol’s rebel yell More and more and more is what we’re looking for. But the reality is, what else do you need if you, your kids can’t get to school? ‘cause we don’t have school buses. Maybe funding opep wasn’t the right thing to do. If you, maybe you don’t have a fire engine. Maybe Opep wasn’t the right thing. So this is one of many capital needs of the town. And as I said, said Alicia a couple minutes ago, we wanna a seat at the table, but it doesn’t have to be a throne. We just wanna be considered of all the various things that you’re funding,

33:43 and when pension system is fully funded, and you know, in a period of time in 10, 12, 15 years, what we’ve seen a lot of towns do is have a commitment to redirect those savings over to ep. Now going at the earlier discount rate conversation, what that does is if you have a formal commitment to do so, I can now reflect those payments in 20 37, 20 38, 20 39, in my discount rate calculation, which therefore means you get a higher discount rate and you put a low liability on your books. It does not commit a future board. A future board in 2035 was all of those crazy people in 2023. I don’t know what they were thinking. We’re not doing that. And they could certainly do that. Um, but what this does is, in the interim, for the next 12 to 15 years, you get to book a lower liability.

34:32 And it doesn’t change your behavior one iota because you’re saying in 2037, I’m going to do this thing. Well now until 2037, you have not not done that thing. It’s still a promise to say in 2037, I’m going to do whatever. So that will Be another policy coming forward. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I get that. So again, it’s something we see with a lot of folks. It’s, it’s a layup to do. Um, and as I tell people, when you’re talking to the rating agencies, think about it this way. We have an overall retirement liability, which is pensions and opep. We have two different buckets. We’re filling the pension bucket first because we have to, under the law. It doesn’t mean we’re not filling opep bucket, but it’s second. And so the spillover will happen in a certain year, and then we’ll fill that up. And in 2050 or 2060, whatever it is, that will be full. But that’s really the rationale behind it. Mm-hmm.

35:18 Is to show kind of an overall policy. So you travel around a lot. Yeah. Do you, so are, are there creative things that you’ve seen, um, some municipalities do around like reserve funds or reso revolving funds? Or just prepaying like you’re saying? Is there any, you know, does anything stick out to you that’s like, kind of like new, like kind of a creative way that People are? Yeah. Well, I mean there’s, there’s different things you can do. Like I always, you know, like to joke, you know, like in Foxborough they use meals tax money ‘cause they have a cute little football team that plays there that generates a little bit of money. Yeah. That helps. So you get a team to locate here, good for you. Probably not gonna happen. Mm-hmm. Um, some people have used, um, uh, you know, you can’t necessarily, I don’t think you can directly use marijuana money, but you can basically,

36:06 that frees up money that then you can use other things to redirect things that way. Okay. So people are looking for, um, meals tax is probably the most popular one. Okay. I know Hanover does meal tax as well. Mm-hmm. Um, so there’s, there’s, that is probably probably the easiest way to go about it. And again, it’s, the reality is in Massachusetts, unfortunately, better or worse, we don’t have the same flexibility we have in other states. Good. Better in different, the state takes more of a top down approach to say eligibility for retirement will be X, you’re not allowed to charge beyond y. Um, so a lot of the things we do in other states we can’t do here. Um, in California, for example, I changed, you know, eligibility to become, you had to be 62 and 25 to get benefits with 6, 8 62 and 25 years of service. Uh, we also set up employee contributions to be based on a combination of agent

36:54 service. Those who worked the longest got the most generous benefits. Those who didn’t got less. We can’t do that here in Michigan. We basically paid everybody off a lump sum of money and put them into private exchanges. Um, so there’s different things we can do elsewhere. We can’t do those here. Um, so, you know, we’re kind of bound by that. I mean, the issue ultimately for you folks is gonna be, and we’ll see it in a slide or two, you guys are largely at peak liability. So from, in today’s dollars, I’m not talking about nominal dollars, but in today’s dollars is a percent of your budget, your liability is about as big as it’s ever going to be in terms of payments. Your li your payments are about as big as they’re ever going to be. So it’s not like you have the pig in the python argument going, oh my God, what’s coming down the tracks? You guys have already met the dragon.

37:43 It’s already here. There’s no more dragons coming. This is the one not getting any bigger, not getting any smaller. It just is, um, the reality is funding alone is gonna be very difficult to solve this problem. Um, and so as I tell people, the argument I always give people is like, social security Congress has known about social securities issues since 1995. Done absolutely nothing about it. Right. And Congress, I will be willing to take a bet. They will not do anything about it until at least 2030. So we get to about within two or three years of disaster occurring and then we’ll go, oh my God, who could have seen this possibly coming? That’s the way it’s all gonna play out. Right? We don’t have to behave that way. We can make small incremental changes, which have huge long-term impacts.

38:29 Or we can wait until the train is getting ready to go off the tracks and go, oh my God, what are we gonna do? I don’t recommend that path for Congress. That may be fine. But here in the real world, I think we can do real things and responsible things to solve problems. And so that’s why I encourage people to think we don’t have to, you know, we don’t have to go slash and burn. We can make modest changes, modest adjustments, and that can bring down your liabilities over time. Because again, to come with a hundred and to close $160 million shortfall is just a big old number. And there’s just eventually people are gonna say, there is no more money. And so how do we, how do we meet in the middle somewhere? Mm-hmm. Whether it’s 75, 25 some way. Somehow we gotta find a, a way to meet, again, not my, not my job, you guys have to figure out what works for your community.

39:16 But you know, that’s what I would tell you ultimately will make the most sense. You Know, ultimately it sounds like, you know, if if we want to have a goal to knock down a certain amount of liability right. We should be able to understand what that’s gonna mean in terms of funding. Yep. And anything else that might, you know, come into, come into play. Right. I think that’s something as a board, I think that we can, you know, if we can get a feeling for, uh, you know, that kind of the sensitivities around that. And I know there’s a lot of assumptions that go into it, but, you know, I think, I think we need to know what we’re talking about in terms of, of real commitment. Because, you know, we have a waterfall. Uh, you know, we kind of approach, we were talking about this a little earlier. You know, we need to, you know, we need to take care of our, uh, you know, our, our stabilization fund for our free cash for, for stabilization next, then we can start chipping away at some of the liabilities,

40:02 especially the high cost liabilities. Yeah. Uh, and kind of, we gotta figure out where this sits in the, in the, in the panoply of things. Um, but again, These things matter because at some point in time you’re gonna wanna borrow money. Yeah. And these are the kind of things the rating agencies look at. So we wanna make sure that we could present a good case that we see problem, we solve problem. Yeah. We don’t ignore problem. So that’s really what we’re, you know, we try and, you know, lay these things well. It’s really interesting, isn’t it? Because it’s not required, it’s not statutorily mandated. So it’s, it’s kind of a very, it’s a and just kind of looking forward, it’s some of the comparables out there. I mean, some, some of the smaller communities are kind of fully funded ‘cause they, they, you know, they can, they can take a bigger bite at it, presumably. Yep. But, you know, it’s, it’s still pretty, it’s a mixed bag. I think the town is still good in giving the 250,000 per year better than not

40:48 doing. It’s better than. Yeah. Well I’m just, I’m just curious. It’d be very interesting to know what that 250 is both in terms of, uh, you know, the, the covering of the liability actually, and also kind of the impact it has on the discount rate, as you mentioned earlier, kind of going forward and, and then how does that, how does that bring, how does that, for every dollar that we put in, how much does that materially change our liability, et bu you know, everything being equal. Yeah. Right. And and the problem is, and that’s, I said before about, you know, the GSS b methodology is somewhat circular. And what I mean by that is the more money you put in your discount rate goes up, therefore your liability comes down. That’s right. So I kind, so The more you put in, the less you need to put in. So it’s a, you have to find where that magic point is and that’s the, the crux of the problem. Okay. You know, and that’s, that’s helpful to know though. That’s right. Right. Yeah. And that’s the thing.

41:33 And so it’s like, there’s not a, there’s not an exact right number, but the thing is like once you get to a certain point, you get a lot more credit. If we can get your opep trust to about $12 million or about two times benefit payments, and then if you’re just putting in a reasonable sum of money each year, you’re gonna get to use the long-term rate of return of some, so your discount rate’s going to go up to more like a 6.3 rather than, you know, a 5.2 and that’s gonna knock, you know, 15% off your reliability knocking another, another $20 million off your liability. Right. Okay. Okay. And so that’s, again, it’s the, the financial engineering that I’m not saying I in favor of, but the reality is, you know, we figured this out on Curtis, on my team, myself.

42:19 And the Gaby statement first came out, it took us about 30 seconds to figure out how to, how to game the system. I mean, it’s like, guys, you can just do this. I mean, you guys could technically borrow $10 million, put it in your trust, and all of a sudden now you reduce your liability by $20 million even though you put $10 million over here. Right. But, and it’s like, uh, it doesn’t make any logical sense, but it’s just the games. Okay, thank you. So, so Thatcher and I are working closely with Parker. I’m looking at different scenarios. Yeah. So the next slide we kinda just compare you to, again, some, I don’t know, these are peer groups or not. On the next slide, we just drank up with some towns locationally, size-wise, um, you know, different types of towns. Um, and so you can see kind of where different people fall out. You know,

43:04 your guys service cost per active participants in, you know, 4,800. Our statewide average is at 5,200, but the statewide average discount rate is far less at 4.14 versus your five 20. Mm-hmm. You know, Ipswich is funded a lot more money. They have a very, they have more of a, a four tier model for funding. So in their model, they have a percentage of free cash goes in every year. There’s a percentage of payroll that goes in every year. Interesting. Yeah. There’s a fixed amount that goes in every year and that goes up with, and then there’s also the post pension funding we spoke about. So clients always come to me for sample funding policy to go, this is the, all of the above method. They took everything on the, all the above method, but you might pick just individual pieces that work for you. Okay. So there’s a lot of different ways to go about that. Um, but again,

43:52 you’ll see like a Georgetown hasn’t funded a lot, but you know, if, which is funded a lot, Middleton is funded a fair amount too. Um, your per covered retires about 7,700 compared to the statewide average. It’s high. But if I compare you against, you know, some of the, the towns in your general area, you’re in about the same basic ballpark. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, because again, it’s, it’s a matter of geography. It’s as simple as that. Mm-hmm. And the service cost perve employee, we spoke of this earlier, the 48 55. We just break it out by various categories. So you can see that, you know, the problem is some of these groups don’t really have enough people in them to be meaningful. To say that a harbor, you know, it’s 4,100, well, you got four people that tells me on average they’re younger than the rest of your staff. That’s all that really tells me. Um, it’s not really a meaningful thing. Police and fire,

44:39 you don’t break out specifically. Police and fire will have higher service costs because they retire earlier and have a shorter working career. So they’re gonna accrue their benefits over a shorter period of time and get it for a longer period of time. Um, but that’s, that’s normally the one that would fall outta this. And this, this slide here is, you know, doing a 40 year projection of what we expect will happen. Um, but here’s the thing on the left hand side, these are all in nominal dollars. And I’d tell you about 10 years ago, we started using present value dollars because what would happen is you’d see 163 million, you look 40 years out and see 550 million. You go, why even try this is impossible. And so basically, okay guys, I gotta put this into today’s dollars so we can actually have a little legitimate conversation and you’ll see you at 163 million and go up to like 1 64, come down to one 60, spike up back to 1 74.

45:29 Yeah. So, you know, over the next 40 years, it’s gonna go up by about 5% in real dollars. In real dollars Yeah. Is a percentage of your budget. Mm-hmm. So really not a terribly meaningful difference. And the pay as you go cost, you go from 6 million, you know, up to seven point a half and come back down to, you know, 6.8. So it’s gonna up by about 10% over a 40 year horizon. Right. So again, not a terribly meaningful number over a 40 year period. So when I say about you can make small incremental changes, you guys don’t have, if you guys can handle these numbers today as a percentage of your budget, you’ll be able to handle it in 2040, in 2050, in 2060. Mm-hmm. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try and make changes. It just means that this is not the thing that’s gonna bankrupt the town. Mm-hmm. Um, this is not, you know, the big, the big wave that’s about to crash on shore.

46:14 No, we’ve already, that’s already here. We’ve addressed it, we can handle it. Now it’s a matter of how do we, how do we learn to live with it and how do we try and make it better? Okay. That’s really all I got. I mean, if you have particular questions, I’m more than happy to dive into anything. But I can see Why you added the present value column. Appreciate that. That’s why I say to me it’s without that, it becomes a useless exercise to people just throw up their hands and go, why? I even try. Um, so to me it’s more meaningful that way. But is It, is that, uh, yeah, that’s really, I’m just thinking in terms of, is the dis the discount rate is not necessarily on a real bay, that’s on an a nominal basis as well. Right. Or, or the assumptions that go into it are on an noal Basis. Yeah. Well, your discount, your discount rate is 5.2, but the present value is at 3%. Got it. Bringing that back at 3%, because I think it really meant to be more of a, you know,

46:59 a long-term inflation plus a modest, you know, uh, adjustment after that. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, it’s, because the problem is, I don’t wanna sit here and go, well, interest rates now are 5%. I don’t expect 2%. I wanna go with something that’s more of a consistent, you know, the fed’s long-term inflation assumption right now is 2%. We use two point half for our models, because I think I just, I would love to see the Fed get to two, but I, I think I’m feeling political pressures are gonna prevent them from getting all the way to two. Um, so we’re at two and a half is what our long-term model shows. Okay. Okay. Any questions from the board? Mr. Heer? Very helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Elmer. That was really great. And thank you Ms. Benjamin for bringing this to us, and it was really very, very helpful presentation. This was A great discussion. Thank you. Yeah, You’ll get your please tomorrow and act real topics. I’ll Gavin for you.

47:46 Thank you. Thank you again. I appreciate it. Thank You. Thank you. Okay. Um, next up we have a, um, uh, uh, a vote along, um, a three year contract for with, uh, regarding natural gas. Um, it’s in our packet here, but I’ll throw it over to town administrator, Mr. Keer to, um, kind of give us a, a, a summary. Sure. So we had a three-year agreement in place that expires, uh, one November. Uh, this is for our natural grass. The, the, the gas we use we’re using to heat our buildings and, and, and so forth. Um, so with that expiring, um, we took a look around and, um,

48:33 at some options, um, we were under, uh, direct energy. Uh, that’s the, the current contract holder. And this agreement is to move to Sprague operating resources or Freedom Energy Logistics, um, to, to get a better rate on, on, on, on the, on the cost. So, uh, gas is measured and decatherm, uh, that’s the unit of measure or a thousand therms, um, uh, or is it 10,000? I think the DECA is 10. Right. So it was, it’s going from, uh, $6 and 11 cents per decatherm, uh, down to $6 and 2 cents per decatherm on the rate.

49:20 We, um, I, I looked, I looked in our budget, uh, right now in our budget. Right. Read it right with, uh, the total school and town. But this is a townside agreement. The schools have have their own agreements. We, we have budget like 861,000 in, in gas costs, but that includes our reserve that we have. The schools are like 351,000 and the town is, is budget for 81,925 for all the departments, if I caught ‘em all when I was going through it. But we have a reserve of 428,000. So it’s not a small number of what we purchase. And it fluctuates based on the weather. Um, you know,

50:07 how the winters go. But every opportunity we have for savings, we grab it and we run with it. So this would be a three year agreement. We’ve locked in the price, um, at $6 and two per deck ather pending approval of the board. Thank you. And I’m sure if I could quick follow up. So what is, what, what is kind of the impact of that? Uh, decreased rate on our, you know, based on kind of our current consumption, if you’re roughly, I don’t know. I was try to do that. I’m like, I, I don’t know, because Okay, that’s fine. I just, I just Provided, it’d be great to get an answer As far as I got, was providing a context of how much money we budgeting for fuel. Yeah. And, you know, I I, I guess I could do a percent decrease and apply it and Then apply it. That’s probably right. But the variables that’s probably right will outweigh that because if you have a

50:54 really cold winter or really warm, that’s gonna, well, it’s, it’s sort of like the same conversation. The white, you know, we can make assumptions. That’s your white dollars, White money versus green money. Right. And what we actually pay to let you know next spring, but we know we’re paying less if we we’re Per, we’re paying Yeah. Per get There, per unit. Well, thank you. And, um, our finance director, Ms. Benjamin, for, uh, bringing this savings to us for a vote. Um, if anybody, does anybody have any else to say? ‘cause I’ll just ask for the motion to execute a three year contract between the town of Marblehead and Sprague Energy through the Freedom Energy Logistics Natural Gas Program for the purchase of natural gas and authorize the chair to sign on behalf of the board. So I’ll second. Okay. Um, all in, uh, all in favor. Okay.

51:42 Motion passes unanimously. Okay. And next we have, um, uh, clear gov, uh, uh, contract, um, amendment, uh, yes or addition, um, to our contract with clear gov. And again, I will ask for Mr. Keer to walk us through this. So, um, as you well know, we’ve made the commitment to clear gov, which is, uh, the, the, the, the service online software service that we’re using to, to build budgets. And as we described back then, there are modules. We, we took all of them that, that you could choose to, to, um, add on to, to the, the program. Um, they, uh, clear gov has recently come out with a new module, clear plans,

52:30 which is specifically to help municipalities develop their strategic plans, make it easier to manage that process, make it easier to track your metrics to your goals and your tasks, uh, and allow you to make it transparent to the community, uh, in a live sense. In know, you can set the goals, your metrics, your tasks, and by updating as you, as you accomplish tasks and, and, and do the transactions, um, real time update that information in a very transparent way. So it’s another wonderful module for clear gov. It’s another training, you know, experience. But, um, all the conversations I’ve had,

53:16 and over the year that I’ve been here with all the members of the board, strategic planning is a big issue, a big priority of this board. This is the tool that’s gonna help us actually implement, uh, and, and make it more manageable for us to, to, to build the plan, to track it and, and live time, keep up the date as to how we stand to, to our strategic plan. So

53:44 we we’re prorated for the year. There is, uh, onboarding costs, those two things. The current year cost is 11,850. It’s in the finance. We’re gonna take rate from the finance department budget, uh, going forward for next fiscal year. The commitment will be $11,000 a year. Um, that will just be integrated into the budget as when we develop the next year budget. Perfect. Perfect. And, and, uh, Thatcher, this helps us, uh, it integrates, I’m assuming, into the, into the budgeting, uh, component to it. And I, I’m wondering how tightly that that connection is Very tightly. And I think Alicia will tell you it’ll do a better job than it’s,

54:30 it, this is the module that we’ll probably want to use more. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, there’s seamless integration with the budget with it, and it also has, we could also build our capital plans with it. So even though we have the capital budget module, excellent. That would wait until you guys see it, can see all the different requests. This will allow us to not only show those, link those, but then show the long term what’s going on and link it all together. That’s great. Seems like a really great additional feature to build in at this point. Is there any, um, is it just a year to year, uh, commitment? Is there any commitment to, um, you know, if we decide we don’t use this, you know, feature as much, we could just Yeah, it’s a sub, it’s an annual subscription. It’s An annual commitment. Okay.

55:15 Yeah, it’s interesting though. It does take capital expenditures into OC Accounta. So it’s, it is a planning CapEx. Great. Great. Yeah. Do you want me show you the example? No. Okay. That’s more, we’re trying to do technology on the fly. Thank You. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, um, seeing no other questions from the board members, um, I would ask for a motion to approve the contract between the town and clear gov for Clear Plans Management System and the amount of $11,850 and authorize the chair to sign on behalf of the board. So moved. Second. Okay. All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Okay.

56:00 And, um, next on our agenda, we have, um, a, uh, contract amendment proposed on the, um, grace Oliver’s railing project. Mr. Keer? Yes. So, um, the project’s been, it was funded by a previous year warrant article, but this is, um, for the contract. So there were parts that were on back order, uh, delayed. So it’s taking, uh, there was, um, the, the contract is expiring. Uh, the parts are coming in, so we just need to extend, uh, the contract so that the vendor can, can assemble the railings, uh, when all parts are available. Okay. Great. And No additional costs? Just no additional cost. Just timeframe. Yeah, it’s just, there’s, I think the parts may have already come in, but they,

56:46 there was a period of time where they sat and wait, ‘cause the parts were in back order, so caused a delay. Okay. So, um, looking for a motion to amend the contract for the Grace Oliver’s railing project between the town and Neland Construction of Medford Mass to extend the time for performance until November 15th, 2023. And authorize the chair to sign the amendment on behalf of the board. So Moved. Second. All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Next, we have an application for a one day licorice license. Pretty self-explanatory here. Um, I will just go ahead and ask for the motion to, uh, approve the request from Elizabeth Halbert for a one day liquor license for Friday, November 17th, 2023 from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM at the Old North Church,

57:33 eight Stacey Street, subject to the following conditions, delivery of and receipt by the licensing authority of the required fee of $50 delivery of receipt by the licensing authority of proof that the alcohol will be purchased from an unauthorized source proof the applicant can receive proper delivery, proper, provide proper storage and disposal of all alcohol beverages purchased. All in accordance with requirements of general law. Chapter 1 38. Alcohol will be purchased from CAP’S importing, and this requires a polled vote. So, can I have a motion please? So moved. Second. Uh, Mr. Murray? In favor, Ms. Singer? In favor, Mr. Grader? In favor a Ms. Nunan In favor. Next up, um, we have an application here from an architect and, um, homeowner, I believe. Please, I know you’re in the audience, so Please, you’re welcome to come forward to, um, have a seat at the table.

58:21 This is regarding nine Selmon Streets front steps.

58:27 Welcome. Thank you.

58:31 Yes. So, um, maybe just please just introduce yourself and, um, uh, walk us through just briefly your request. We do have your, we do have, you know, keeping in mind that we do have, um, your, your letter and, uh, you know, application here. Okay. I’m Walter Jacob. I’m an architect in town. My office is at three Pleasant Street. This is Fred Calori. He owns, uh, nine Selmon Street, um, the home at nine Selmon Street. The existing steps, and it’s pretty common in the historic district in particular. This front steps are actually located on Tom Property. Um, I have some props here if you want to see pictures. Is that good to do or should I just explain It? Um, you could just, I mean, it’s up to the members.

59:19 We, we’ve got some pretty good pictures, but if you want To go, go into detail. Sure. I mean, well, I’ll see if I can summarize it. Maybe it’s simple. Sure. But the existing steps are on town property. We went to Olden Historic and they weren’t exactly sure what to do with it because I don’t think they have purview over town property. Correct. Yeah. Um, so they said go to the select board. So we’re here. Um, the reason that we’re here is because the existing steps are, they’re not historically accurate. There were, they were built over some old granite steps. We wanna restore that. So the actual, what, what will end up on town property will be less square footage wise. It won’t encroach anymore, but we are touching it. So we needed to come here to talk to you about that. My understanding is, and I I think this is, um,

1:00:05 how it shook out was it’s town property, but the steps are Fred Cal’s property and for that reason, um, and once we establish that, we go back to old and historic and they can Okay. Then pass judgment on his property. It’s like an extra step procedurally. Well, That was my question, is whether ultimately the appropriateness goes back, gets put back to H t c, To to, yeah. And it makes sense, right? Because rule on everything. And at the one hearing they said, well, I don’t know. We don’t know if we were allowed to say anything about this. And, Um, yeah, I think this makes sense. Yes. Yeah. So it’s just, it’s like a, it’s an extra procedural step because of the nature of the, um, ownership and, um, so we’re authorizing you, we would be authorizing you to submit an application

1:00:55 to A O G H D C. Okay. Does that Yeah, that make sense. So, So he has no, he’s obtaining permission to be on the town property before the golden new circle opine on whether it Yes. Conforms to their requirements. Okay. This Is the permission part? Yeah. Okay. There’s a license if, if it’s ultimately approved, there’s a license that I enter into with The town. Yeah. Yes. Insurance binder. Yeah. Which is standard. That that’s correct. It’s the use of public property, right. For yourself. So there’s a license agreement. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So I have a motion here. Walter, can I see the picture? I just feel like you brought them. Yeah. So I’ll read the motion and then we can have, hopefully have move it and have a second. And if anybody after I read the motion has any further discussion, um,

1:01:44 we can do it at that time. But, um, I’m, the motion that, um, I’m looking for is that the town approved the request from Fred and Amy Klo to submit an application to the O H D C, seeking to rebuild steps that are on town property at three Selmon Street. I have, is that right? Is it nine s? Nine? Okay. Sorry. So,

1:02:06 to rebuild steps that are on town property at nine Selmon Street and upon O H D C approval, provide a license to Fred and Amy Klo, the owners of nine Selmon Street Marblehead, for the area located where they’re existing steps on town property that they’re proposing to replace with new steps and railing as shown on the plans presented. In exchange for the license, the owner shall execute a formal license agreement, which will include indemnification and insurance requirements, and the owner shall be responsible for any and all costs, including attorney’s fees, the town incurs related to the drafting said license, and further to authorize the chair to execute the license agreement on behalf of the board. So moved. Second. Okay. Any, any discussion? Thank you for improving our steps.

1:02:52 Thank you for the opportunity Through the chair. May I see the pictures? Of course. Yes. Sure. I’ll be quick ‘cause I know you have a busy night. Yeah. Just so What We prepared, you know, just to answer any question, here’s the survey. This is the house property line, and this is where the steps encroach on the, um, property. This is nine settleman, and you can see the steps. So there are granite steps, more historic granite steps, but somebody widened the door at one point in history and built these wood steps that are a little awkward looking. We’re actually renovating the house and working with olden historic or making a more appropriate door, probably the door that was originally on this house or something similar to it. We would do granite steps like this. Um,

1:03:37 I think Mike AK is gonna build them. Mm-hmm. He built these steps. So it’s a nice granite and we’re gonna put railings on them, which a lot of the stairs don’t have railings. They’re probably safer, where they’re safer for the occupants and also safer for people walking down the street. So that’s what it’ll look like. Thank you. And I think we did, and we can actually, I’ll, I’ll give Kyle these. Um, there was a diagram here that gave the dimensions of the existing steps and then the dimensions of the proposed steps showing that we’re not making them bigger. They’re actually one square foot smaller. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. That looks great. Thank you. Thank you. Great investment. Thank you very much. Yeah. Are we all set? Is that it? Good to go? Um, we’ll call for a vote. Yeah. You wanna, sorry. Hang out for the vote. I mean, there’re,

1:04:24 Sorry. Came all this way for the steps. Okay. Um, all in favor. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you Mr. Kori. Thank you Mr. Jacobs. Thank You. Thank You, sir. Okay. Thank you. Okay, next we have a motion to, um, or next we have our, uh, on our agenda is the minutes that we need to approve from September 13th, 2023. Um, I think Kyle sent them out yesterday or today. Hopefully had everybody had a chance to review them. Um, I’d like for a motion to approve the minutes of September 13th, 2023. So, moved second. All in favor? Okay. Motion passes unanimously. Um, now I have, we have been going, we have been doing some fall cleaning,

1:05:09 spring cleaning, summer cleaning. Fall cleaning. And we have a, um, request from, um, our, uh, police chief Dennis King to, um, keep up with the, uh, cleaning mission around here. So I will ask for, this is around the lockers. So, um, I would like a motion on request of the police chief to declare the following items as surplus and no longer needed for a municipal purpose, so that it may be disposed of in accordance with the town’s policy on surplus equip equipment. 32 steel lockers. So, moved. Second. All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Um, we Put that towards, uh, ep,

1:05:54 Get some of that money Back. Another request from our police chief, um, around a need for a handicap uh, parking space at the Marblehead Counseling Center. Um, at 66 Clifton Avenue. We did approve designated parking spaces for the counseling center in July, if you remember. And this is requested specifically for a handicap parking space to be designated among those additional parking spaces. Um, I’m not sure if anybody, So this is our effort to be compliant with the a d a. So since we created the designated spaces, um, we needed to also be compliant with a d a to designate one of them as as,

1:06:39 um, accessible. Just a quick, um, point of clarification. Is this in addition or in place? This will take up, I think it was six spots. So this will take up one of those, one of those spots. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Great. Great. Okay. So I, um, would ask for a motion to approve the following handicap parking regulations as follows, handicap parking van accessible only at 66 Clifton Ave as follows. Eight foot wide van accessible handicap parking space with an adjacent eight foot wide adjacent no parking aisle in the following area. Bounded by lines, connecting the following coordinates. Do I need to read these as we, as they appear at our meeting packet that’s presented as they appear in our

1:07:28 meeting packet? Yes. Um, do, can I have a motion? So moved. Second. All in favor? Great. Alexa would be the only one that can verify we got the numbers right. Exactly. I Know I can do this. I’m qualified for that. Not read. 42 latitude. 70 longitude. Eight geographical coordinates. Um, they’re there. They’re in the public record. Yes. Next up we have a request from our Congressman Seth Moulton, to use, um, Abbott Hall for Veterans, uh, town Hall on November 10th, which is coming up the letter. Self-explanatory. Um, I will just start by asking for the motion to approve the request from Seth

1:08:13 Moulin, member of Commerce used Abbott Hall for Veterans Town Hall on November 10th, 2023 at 3:00 PM subject to the usual rules, regulations, fees, and receipt of the required certificate of insurance. So move. Second. Second. And, Uh, this is a very important event. I have to say that in 2015, you know, when Seth originally did this, it was really quite groundbreaking. And I remember, I’ll never forget that there were Vietnam era, you know, folks who, you know, had never, who were anti-war back in the day in Vietnam. And they came to this meeting and it was extremely moving to all of them and, and very healing to all of veterans that were there that were able to really pour out their, uh, you know, and tell their stories. Pretty, pretty amazing stories. So, uh, I think it’s a, it’s a beautiful thing and, uh,

1:09:00 you know, I’m, I’m glad to see this. It’s been going on for so long. Mm-hmm. We’ve been able to been able to host it, so encourage everybody to come. Of course. Yeah. And our dutiful long serving veterans agent, um, yes. Is retiring after this. So this will be especially special because this will be his last, um, veterans, uh, town hall for, I Didn’t say enough about, uh, Dave. Dave, Roger. Hey Roger. So, um, okay. Um, we had a motion. We have a second. All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Okay. And that brings us to financial policies. Ms. Benjamin. I mean, we should have just should just stay here. You should have just, yeah. We could have just made you your seat for the evening. Love approaching Honorable board. Didn’t

1:09:48 So, um, we have had a chance, I had shared these a while back ‘cause they’re extensive to review them. Um, so, you know, I’ve had a couple questions that I’ve had off answered offline. I just, so, um, so we have had a chance to review them. I’m not sure. I’ll just kind of turn it over to you and, um, and how you would like to, you know, just, um, kind of present it to us. Sure. So the financial policies was a task to get done? Yes, it was. I looked and reviewed the, the ones they were working on, which were more summary based. One of the things we don’t have, and one of the issues we’ve had in finance is they don’t have operating procedures. Mm-hmm. So here, this actually gives them the lineup of how to do things. And they like learning.

1:10:36 They like doing the change. I haven’t had any pushback, which is great. Um, most everything in Massachusetts, as Parker stated earlier, is statutory. It’s, it’s just the way it is. So I have to follow the statutes. I can’t just create policies that go against the state law. So some of the things I’ve been asked about was the treasurer and investments. That’s all guided by state law. It’s all statutory. The treasurer’s job is all statutory. They, they control the borrowings, they control the cash. Um, I oversee them, but that’s their purview. Then there’s the town accountant. The town accountant does signs off on different warrants. They are the keeper and custodian of contracts. I make sure that everything they’re doing is proper.

1:11:23 We’re looking at payroll and benefits, making sure everything they do is proper. One thing that was huge, we have upper money. We had no federal guidelines. The only new thing that you have are federal guidelines that I asked the schools. They don’t have any, the town didn’t have any. So I put some together so that we are in compliance. So when we get audited by the federal granting agencies, we are following the correct procedures by the federal government in compliance with the federal laws and state law. The credit card policy was rolled out that I gave you because we’re rolling out a new P card initiative Okay. With the department heads. And that’s a way of protecting the town. They’re gonna sign off that they’re only gonna spend it for lawful purposes. If they did spend it for any unlawful purpose, they would be the one that would have to pay it back.

1:12:08 So it’s a protection to the town. So PCard is, is a credit card. Mm-hmm. That will be issued to certain department heads because there’s a lot of transactions that they have to get involved with, where that’s the only way you can pay it. Yeah. Uh, a lot of your online subscriptions for, for, for apps they may use requires a credit card. But it, it puts in all the accountability and tracking systems along with the issuance of the cards So we can approve and see what they’re spending. It’s a nice little feature. Mm-hmm. And we get a little bit of money from that too. Correct? Like the little 3% or whatever, like credit cards get or not from the People? No, the people would pay the charge. So we don’t, we don’t pay any fee they would pay. No, no, I just meant like points and stuff. ‘cause I remember a lot of times they would have like the fee cards ‘cause they

1:12:56 would get points or credit cards, company issue, credit cards would get Points. No, because we’re you And I usually get from our own personal credit cards. No. ‘cause we’re a government entity, we do not do that. Yeah, Okay. Unfortunately. Right. Makes sense. Because we could to, uh, escape the taxes. So I guess it makes sense. I’ll, uh, if I may, if I may, may, I’m sorry, Alicia. There, this does not go on notice that this is a huge amount of work. It’s something that we’ve been, you know, trying to do and we’re so pleased that you are the person standing up to, to really do it in a comprehensive way. Uh, so it’s an extraordinary effort. Well done. Um, I think it’s also the way guidelines really should be done. You know, coming from the ground up, uh, from, you know, from professionals who can actually use the guidelines on a day-to-day basis.

1:13:42 That’s the best way to it, to ensure that they continually get updated, you know, and, and become useful. So this is a, this is an amazing template and I understand that, you know, that that, that it will evolve, uh, as it’s being used. So it’s a, it’s a wonderful document that way. Thank you. And I, and I think, you know, especially since, you know, we’ve had the Clifton report and it’s saying that this is exactly what we needed. So I think this is perfect. That this was like their big issue that they wanted to see us do. So, you know, thank you for doing this because this will definitely bring us into compliance and, uh, and just, it just helps succession. ‘cause as people come in, come out, they can look to this, and when you see things not there, you can then make the changes. And if we need to authorize it, you come back before us. So we’re all, again compliant. We’re doing things above the board. So thank you. Thank you

1:14:27 Guys. Want, sorry, do you wanna come? No, I’ll leave. Oh, no, I just wanna say, you know, I know this touched on a lot of the things that we had discussed and highlighted with like the free cash policy and then the stabilization fund, the reserve fund, utility reserve. I mean, you know, all of the, all the things that, um, you know, outlined specifically what those guidelines are. So there is, you know, some sort of level of succession and transfer of knowledge. And I, you know, I think as, um, you know, so many municipalities are seeing now the turnover that happens, that this is even more so important that we have that guidance and, you know, relying on that for the institutional knowledge. So like all of those things in there. Thank you. I mean, this is obviously months and months of conversation, so thanks.

1:15:17 Um, yeah, I think that this is, uh, this is really terrific. This we process had been started, I wanna say pre, um, a transition we went through with the town administrator and stalled out. And what I’m, what I’ve seen, um, is beyond like expectations and think, and especially considering all of the other transformational changes and just ongoing operational, um, work you’ve been doing with the budget planning and closing the books and reconciling accounts and all of that. So, um, I, this is really impressive and, you know, I’m sure you will, you know, find ways to create, build upon it as well. But for me,

1:16:02 I really wanted us to have the free cash policy, um, you know, in black and white and our reserves policy here. So I guess, um, you know, I I I’m not sure, like I, I would like us to be able to, to vote to adopt these. I mean, I’m not, I know that there may be other comments, but, um, and then I would also, I I, I would love to see these, um, published on our, on the finance department website, um, when, whenever that’s possible, They will and they’ll be published in clear gov as well. Perfect. And I know with the G F A O process too, this is something that we’ve been waiting for and has been like, um, it’s, it’s a lot to do, to do this. So thank you. Yeah. Does anybody else? I did, did I cut you?

1:16:48 I was gonna just add on, there are more policies under development that’ll be coming forth with trying to do it in bite-size pieces. These were the important ones. Mm-hmm. The G F O A call for ones, but there are, there are more policies that, that are in development that we want to bring forth. And it is highlighted too, you know, that it’s a living document. Yep. Which There’ll be revision. Yeah. Yes. Very exciting. It’s getting integrated on multiple levels, isn’t it? Yes. Really. Pretty good. Can do it without Thatcher been extremely awesome and supportive and reviews and works with me almost every single day. And my team’s amazing. All the folks, they all want change. They all embrace it. I haven’t had any pushback, so it’s been fantastic.

1:17:33 Yeah. Problem. Probably Just, yeah, that we have a stabilization fund policy here that, you know, at a minimum we’re committing by policy to $250,000 per year to fund. We have, um, a, you know, we wanna keep our free cash around nine point, between nine, seven and 9%, um, of our general fund revenues. And that we, it is a total of our combined reserves. Um, you know, our per we are committing by policy of no less than 5% of the general fund to have as, um, on our combined reserves with an, um, optimistic and ideal target of 7%. Yes. Those A good, those would be the high. Those are my highlights. Good, good guardrails. Yes.

1:18:21 Okay. Um, let’s see.

1:18:26 So I guess I would just ask for, um,

1:18:33 are you comfortable with us adopting them as they are? Yes. Yes. Okay. So I’ll ask for a motion, um, to adopt the financial policies and as well as the credit card policy as presented by our finance director and, um, And the federal grant policy. And the federal grant policies and procedures. Thank you. Um, to adopt these as, uh, select board policies and for publication, um, on the website. So moved. Second. All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you so very much. Can’t thank you enough. The work. You did all the work.

1:19:18 Okay. That brings us to oh, coffin school.

1:19:25 So I just wanted to, I put, I asked, um, I just put this on the agenda because there’s some, uh, we’re coming to a time where there’s some active discussions around the property, uh,

1:19:40 relative to kind of a runway for town meeting. And, um, I had reached out to chair of the school committee around the property, uh, regarding, you know, their, Their Future intent for use and if, um, we could receive some kind of indication around that. This is on behalf of our board’s commitment to the housing production plan implementation committee, our need in the town to create diverse, uh, spectrum of housing for our aging senior population. And also, you know, um, in addition to creating a diversity of housing choices for our aging sen rapidly aging senior population. Um, also address the affordable housing crisis.

1:20:29 I don’t know if folks are aware, but we just passed the, um, median household median, um, median, um, home, uh, value in this town is $1.1 million. And, um, this has been the coffin property, just to remind the board through the housing production, uh, plan is, uh, identified as one of, um, you know, less than a dozen properties that the town owns that we could leverage for our affordable housing goals. And since that property was decommissioned as a school back in, um, you know, af we had to vote in 2019 to build a new elementary school.

1:21:14 We had decommissioned and brought that, um, elementary school offline through the M Ss b a process of building a new school at the Brown site. So in working with the town planner and, um, the building is in deteriorating conditions, uh, as, as is obvious. Um, we wanted to, I just wanted to carry on some conversations that had started and intentions that we had set, um, through the housing production plan a year ago. And through the spring, talked about the ideal process for, um, should, should the school committee deem it of no use, um, on an educational front. Ideally, we would, um, be able to put out sub requests for information around it

1:22:01 at the same time so that there was some type of a, um, plan, uh, should we receive it at town, voted over to transfer it over to return it to the town at town meeting. So, um,

1:22:18 so we are just engaged with the school committee around it. So, um, it’s come up, it’s been in the newspaper, so I just kind of wanted to update our board around it. And, um, it was an opportunity to talk about, um, you know, the housing product, our, our, um, volunteer board, the housing production plan, implementation committee, um, interest in the property as, um, you know, the, our current housing stock is obviously expensive. $1.1 million is the average or median. Um, home value we do in Marblehead have an exceptionally, um, large, uh, percentage of single family homes,

1:23:05 even compared to those in Essex County. 77% of our, um, housing inventory is single family owned. We do have, um, 30% low income households, which includes half of all single person senior households. And, um, this is an interesting statistic that I take the opportunity to share publicly when I can, because it, it really is, um, one of those ones that kind of gives you pause. The number of households led by 55 or older in Marblehead grew by around 21% between 2010

1:23:51 and 2017. And the number of residents between the age of 25 to 44 years old shrunk by 63% in the same time period. So, um,

1:24:11 this was something identified in the housing production plan that select board caress deeply about, uh, preparing for this, trying to address this need among, um, uh, just in terms of diff providing different housing units in our town for those that wanna downsize for young professionals that would like to, you know, move in or return to town. Uh, so, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of two tracks and sometimes they overlap, but just even creating diversity of housing options in and of itself is a value just allowing people to seniors as they age and just to, to, to downsize, um, and offer that option with, and not leave, have to leave the community as well as acknowledging and trying to address our

1:24:59 state mandate for 10% of affordable units in town. I see. Um, so it just has to go through a process. And the process right now where we are at is just awaiting the school committee’s determination around, um, future use of the property. So, um, once they make that decision, assume, you know, for school department purposes this for Yeah. For educational purposes. And once we would receive that, should we receive in, should we receive formal, you know, indication of, of that is no longer used, that would allow us the town to go out and request for informa, put out a request for information based on a coffin visioning study,

1:25:47 which, um, emphasized some priorities around, um, the neighbor’s desire to neighborhood’s desire to see, you know, a large part of that remain public open space for public use, potentially walking paths, footpaths, raised garden beds, and provide some, like I said, uh, options for, um, diverse housing units in town. Yep. That’s kind of my update, Madam Chair. Of course. Yep. I just say, yeah. Look, I ap I applaud, um, your addressing this with the school committee. You know, there are a variety of needs ultimately that the town could decide

1:26:32 on, on the use of this, of this, of this, uh, property. And I’m kind of surprised that the school committee hasn’t, at least at this point, given us an indication of, you know, what, you know, if they’re going to use it in what capacity and if not, you know, whether they’d be willing to, uh, to hand it over to us, because we certainly have a lot of ideas and needs to, uh, you know, to, you know, for the use of this property. So Yeah. And tha thanks For doing that. Yeah. To be, we should, we should stay on it. Yeah. And, um, to be fair, uh, the former superintendent was, has as, as, as a seat on our, on our committee, and it was something that we had, um, uh, we were working on, and the conversation was around the, uh, a potential retreat this summer, early fall. So we’re still on the same timeline. Uh, and it’s just,

1:27:20 I think with the transition, um, over there, just want I, I reached out just wanting to make sure that it didn’t get forgotten, like lost in the shuffle. So, um, so yeah, it’s, they’re aware of it, we’re, it’s, um,

1:27:36 it’s in motion.

1:27:39 Good. Okay. Um, we have some letters of interest

1:27:48 that we’ve received just for the record. Jessica Norton for the Conservation Commission, which is, um, a vacant one, vacancy for three year term. Um, and I know that, um, the chair, the longtime chair of the Con Conservation Commission, we all know, um, Brian Le Clare has, um, noticed that he is, uh, stepping down, retiring, resigning, um, after much, many, many, many years dedicated to this position. We have one letter of interest. This is, um, an active board. I’m proposing that we set a deadline for the applications of October 6th and an interview date of October 11th. Okay.

1:28:35 In the hopes that, um, at work That works for me. Yeah. You know, we can kind of inspire others to apply and, um, push this, um, volunteer, uh, opening out. How do you feel others feel about that? Okay. I mean, we can always extend the deadline as well if we don’t receive a sufficient amount of, um, interest. So, okay. So let, why don’t we do that? We will set the deadline to apply for the Conservation Commission. Um, please send your letters in October 6th. So we will be conducting interviews on October 11th. Um, okay. And next we have Jeannie Stahl from the Cultural Council. There’s four vacancies for this. Um,

1:29:20 so we just have, um, this letter in. How do we feel about setting a deadline to apply of October 20th with an interview on our second meeting on October of the 25th?

1:29:36 Uh, I am going to be away. Okay. That timeframe, but that doesn’t obviously mean that you could go forward, that, that literally we could also, I’m traveling out of state. Push it out. Would you, like, we could push it out to the November 8th. I think we just discussed a meeting date on the would November 8th would work, write an off cycle meeting date November 8th would work, uh, for Me. Okay. So we could move the, Sorry. So we do have some other interviews lined up on these meetings coming up. So we need to, I think, factor in Factor those week travel. Okay. Yeah. That, that’s just the one week where I’m a what Else do we have for interviews on the 25th? The Measurable letter two applicants and they couldn’t call on. So Measure of Leather 25th and then potentially Cultural Counsel.

1:30:21 Right. And then Traffic and Safe, uh, is next, but That’s the next, you’re here for that? Yes, the 11th. Okay. The 11th, yes. Okay. Um,

1:30:36 well, I mean, I think that Cultural Counsel has so many openings. Right. And would you be okay if we went ahead with Complete? No, please. That’s of course. Just because I know that there’s an, an, you know, no, we, we need limit almost. Absolutely. We have quite a number of seats for that as Long as we have a quorum. Right. Pretty much. So. Okay. That’s fine. So let’s, um, just kind of carry on and, and press forward with that and apply, um, a deadline of October 20th with an interview date of the 25th. Okay. And then the updates regarding, um, some, just some other updates on our boards. Uh, traffic Safety Advisory Committee interviews will be October 11th. We have had an outpouring of interest in this committee, and it’s really great, a wide variety of backgrounds and, um, you know,

1:31:24 just a, just a variety of people interested in this. So, 12 applicants, um, on October 11th for interviews that will, um, that will take place measure of leathers. We will, uh, we, I think we believe we moved that to the 25th based on the number of interviews from the 11th and then the historical commission. Uh, we don’t have, um, any interview dates set, but, uh, there’s two applicants in right now for the historical commission. So, um, how do we feel about setting a deadline to apply for October 6th?

1:32:04 Madam Chair, I believe we did set the deadline for October 6th. Oh, it’s already set. We didn’t set A date yet because we were kind of getting a, a little Oh, okay. So we are looking, so, so we could inter, we could do a deadline of October 6th in interviews on the 25th with the measure of leather

1:32:25 And the Cultural. I just wouldn’t wanna put too much on the 11th. Correct. Right. Okay. So, um, how about we, for the historical commission? The deadline has previously been set to October 6th. Um, could we, you know, I, I’d suggest we have the interviews on the 25th.

1:32:50 Okay. Okay. Sure. Go for it. All right. I might be able to make the 25th. Oh, that’s right. I’m sorry. No, that’s okay. I think I, I’m sorry. Listen, I might be leaving, I might be leaving Thursday morning, like, I’m sorry, 7:00 AM No, you just said that and I, I could probably, I probably, We, I mean, we could push to November meeting, we could, we could move it to the November meeting. No problem. No, that’s okay. No, let me let, No, because I think, how many vacancies are there? There’s one, but we just started actively kind of, yeah. So we, so we’re just starting to get it out there. So maybe it, it helps to push it off a little bit. Yeah. You know, we could space it out because we’re gonna have a num Yeah. It’ll be a lot of interviews in October. Mm-hmm. So, um, just so make sure that you can participate. We can have that. Let’s set that for our first meeting in November. Okay. We can Do the cultural council on the 25th

1:33:35 And then Right. Because, um, November. So Moses can do. Yep. I appreciate it. Thanks. Okay. So, Oh, Good. Okay. That brings us to town Administrator updates. I’ll turn it over to Mr. Keer Public comment. I think, Oh, sorry. Did I skip? Oh, you’re right. I would not wanna preemt. Okay. It was just way down here. Yes. Um, we have, uh, public comment on the agenda. So if you are online and you’d like to make public comment, please feel free to raise your hand. And, um, Ms. Wiley will let me know that you’re online. If you’re in the audience, if you please step forward to the microphone and state your name and address and make your comment. We do. Um, we’ll try to limit to a couple of minutes We have.

1:34:23 There’s nobody online. Okay. Anybody? Yes, Mr. Jordan.

1:34:29 Hi, Albert. Jordan, uh, Roosevelt to have, um, you may wanna send a letter. Honor Alexander. He was a selectman in the seventies. Um, I met him when he was running the first time. Uh, he was a real dedicated, uh, selectman over the years. Uh, did a lot of wonderful things for the town and a lot of people in the town. Um, he, he moved to Swampscott after he moved outta Marblehead, not far Salem Street, um, by the Tedesco Country Club in the back there, and wintered in, uh, Palm Beach, Florida. But, um, he really did a lot of things for the town and was really, really a dedicated selectman. I know, I don’t think he served with anyone that’s on this board now, but you might not remember him, but used to be able to smoke a cigar in this room, so in the seventies. So,

1:35:16 um, like I say, he was a really, really super person. He was an attorney. Um, he did a lot of things pro bono over the years for a lot of people. Um, and, uh, he may wanna send a letter to his family, just thanking him for his service to the town. Thank you. Thank You, Mr. Jordan. That’s really nice. Um, acknowledgement of Mr. Alexander’s service. And, um, I, I think it’s, that is well received, your comment. I would, um, you know, if, if I would like to make a motion that we send a letter of condolences to, And I’ll second that second that. I think it’s a wonderful idea. You know, my uncle served with him and I think he was the longest ser Yeah. B he was the longest serving, uh, you know, select board member. I think he’s a real good character. A really good character.

1:36:01 And there’s a little memorial for him. And, you know, I got to meet his son and, and, and stuff. So he’s, yeah. His son had a house book time with Marvel. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. So I would, I would second that wholeheartedly. Okay. Um, uh, all in favor of the motion to send a letter of condolences. Okay. Thank you. Um, motion passes unanimously. Now that brings us to Mr. Keyser’s update. Okay. Thank you. Um, I’m gonna, uh, give you three items. I always like to do it in threes. The first item, uh, an update, uh, Mary Alley floor project, if you call, we had the break in, uh, and the damage, uh, that was ensued as part of that. Uh,

1:36:47 so we’re receiving, uh, insurance proceeds for that to repair the damage. Um, which covers, I don’t, I don’t know about 60% of replacement of the floors, uh, throughout the building. There’s some other damage that’ll be repaired, but mostly the floors. So, um, it was a town article that we put on where we supplemented those funds, uh, to continue, bless, bless you, excuse me, sorry. Um, to, um, uh, do the rest of the remaining, remaining floors, uh, throughout that level of the building. So, um, we’ve talked about that. Uh, it is coming soon. We don’t have a specific date, but we are working with a vendor to, uh, pick out the, the rugs. I am not have anything to do with picking the colors. Um,

1:37:36 so if there’s any concerns, I, I didn’t pick the colors, but, uh, the gist of the project, because It would just be blue, right? Uh, from your Exactly. If I had to guess. Yeah. Air force blue and potatoes. Exactly. You can’t have blue and marble heads. I know it. That’s why it’s not gonna happen. It’s gotta pass a pizza Test. You know, the pizza test. You, you, when you pick out a carpet, you gotta take a pizza and throw it down and pick it up. And if you see a stain, you don’t get that carpet. I learned that from my VP of real estate While ago. So I guess, I guess it’s gonna be read that’s directly, I guess it’s gonna be read. Yeah. That’s the only option. So, um, so anyways, that’s not much new information. So that’s, that, that project’s coming very soon. Here’s what you need to know about it is, uh, when that schedule is set, what will happen is the vendor’s gonna come in,

1:38:22 we’re putting down rug tiles that are gonna overlay the existing floors. Um, that’s interesting. And that it’s the best approach where my understanding under the rugs that are there and such is beautiful tile, asbestos encapsulated not going anywhere. Um, so it’s gonna be disturbed do not disturb. Right. So that’s gonna be covered. Um, the hallways and the offices are gonna be done as part of that process. We’re gonna have to empty out all the office space so that they can put the rugs in. Um, so we expect that there will be a disruption of service, uh, in the Mary Alley building. We are gonna try to manage it where keeping some of the, the critical office, like the treasurer’s office to receive payments as such in some form or

1:39:11 fashion to keep that function opening. But just to let the board know, kind of the public that when we get the dates to actually start, uh, replacing the floors and all of that, that there will be, I don’t know how many days in total. It depends on the vendor in which, um, we are gonna, uh, not be able to have service in the building. Uh, different departments will still be functioned, they’ll still be working, but they may be remote, they may have to be relocated. So folks coming in to for service, uh, you may have to call in email, make other arrangements during that time. So this is sort of just the, the, the good news. We’re moving forward on the project. However, there is an impact, uh, to, to make the board and the public aware that, um, there will be a disruption of services during the time that all these,

1:39:59 all these equipment and everything’s moving and the new floors are being put down. What was the date again that you anticipate though? We, uh, soon we don’t have a, a specific date. Okay. But it’s, it’s getting close enough. And did you say, what was the length of time that they anticipated taking? I think I, I mean the information I’ve been getting, it’s days that, uh, you know, I don’t know if two days, three days, four days, but it, it, it’s a number of days, you know, we’ll try to orchestrate, uh, three. Okay. Yeah. So two to four. Okay. Same case someone’s asking And we’ll update the website. Yes. So we’ll pump out information. I mean, we have to do a lot of coordination with our, with the employees. Yeah. We’ve already, you know, issued start getting rid of stuff that’s not coming back. Yeah.

1:40:48 Let’s start purging out, clearing out. So we, we, we minimize what gets moved out and what gets put back in. Um, I think what you’re gonna see is when it’s done, it’s gonna be a significant improvement to the building itself. I mean, for everybody, for the employees, for the residents coming in. It’s just gonna be a, a nicer look and feel overdue. Both floor. What’s that? Both floors? No, just this is the upper level. Upper level. Okay. Only. Yep. Yep. Great. So, um, so anyways, that’s the heads up that, that’s coming. I put it on ‘cause I’m, I’m a bit excited about it happening. I think it’s gonna be a big improve. It’s really great. Yeah. We’ve model. Yep. Uh, next item, um, item we, uh, coming to the board, um, hopefully next or one of the meetings in October. Uh,

1:41:37 new IT agreement that’s pending. So we, we have, um, it’s um, uh, service desk and managed services contracts. So currently we have E plus, which we did a little over a year ago. And e plus contract covers a number of IT services. Um, so the service desk and managed services there is the North Shore IT collaborative, it’s hosted out of Danvers. It is a municipal collaborative for IT services. So we’ve been, Alicia and I have been working with ‘em, kind of learning more about it, finding out its existence, finding out what the services, engaging with them. They are voting at their October meeting to have Marble Head as a fellow member of the collaborative. So municipalities have to be, so,

1:42:25 so I can’t say definitively ‘cause we, we have to have the board meeting, but the, uh, the particular, uh, e plus contracts for these services, uh, is expiring at the end of the month. So we’ve given notice that we’re, we’re not gonna renew that. Okay. Those, those contracts, uh, the North Shore IT collaborative has said they are gonna cover those services in the interim to the board votes on an interim basis. When the board votes, then it would be a permanent basis, uh, providing those services. So we think it’s gonna be very helpful because the folks that are providing the services specifically provide for municipal municipalities, uh, everything they do as a collaborative for IT services, it’s all volunteers.

1:43:14 So we’re not locked in to do everything they do. It’s a, it’s, what they do is collaboratively do purchasing, um, offer out the services and then the municipalities decide each individually. Yeah. We’ll take on the services of the collaborative that, that, that they’re offered. We’re not mandated in that sense. So it, it, it sounds like a really good collaborative for us to get into, um, to help us with our IT services. So E plus is still gonna be involved in, in, in migration of services there, there’s still gonna be ongoing in, in other aspects of, of IT support. Okay. Meantime, are we gonna have a, like a presentation on that? Yeah, we can, They’ll do an assessment and they also get grant opportunities because they’re a

1:44:02 collaborative municipality, so they’re more likely to get grant awards than municipality on their own. Okay. So we could actually benefit from that as well. Okay. Yeah. So, um, there, there sounds good. There’s a lot of good things, but yeah, we can, we can arrange, um, at the time of the vote to Right more in depth information for that. Thank you. Yep. And generally, uh, Thatcher, what’s, what’s the, what’s the cost impact or the, you know, the expected change? It sounds like there’s gonna be a qualitative di uh, benefit in the delivery of services, but Could be savings Monetarily. There will be savings, Be savings they have, yeah. What I say, they have tiers of service, so depending on what tier you take, the, the cost per seat. That’s Awesome. Okay, good. I’m glad that there’s a Yep. Savings element to it. We’ve talked to other communities that have been using it for a while and,

1:44:49 and received positive feedback is what I’m assuming, because I’m always big on trying to make sure I see the other Yeah, we Okay. Other communities that in the, including the Dan it who’s handling all of us. Yeah. So wait, so Danvers, Middleton, toss, Topsfield, Winham, Hamilton, Essex, and Manchester by the Sea. They originated, there may be others who have joined in. So, and finally, um, we’re working with Lisa Mead and we’ll be setting a date soon to provide open meeting law workshop. And this will be, um, in person and it would be hybrid. Uh, it’s geared towards the employees and all our members of our boards and committees who, who run meetings,

1:45:38 who participate in who public meetings, um, a workshop on following the open meeting law and what you’re supposed to do and what you shouldn’t be doing. Uh, so we’ve asked Lisa meet, so we’re, we’re working on nailing down a date. Again, it’ll be hybrid. So, so, uh, we’ll have folks be able to participate in person, but even better people can, um, zoom in and, and participate in the workshop. And I, and I guess we’ll try to record it and make it available. Great. Also, for folks who are not available in that particular time, really important because, um, making sure, especially when there’s turnover of new members and boards and committees, new chairs of these committees that they, they, they don’t get urban legend of what the rules are. They get, you know,

1:46:25 straight legal, this is the way you should be doing it, and this is the things you should not be doing. So we wanna provide that to get everybody, uh, on board to the open meeting law requirements. And that is my update pending. Any questions? Any questions? Okay. We have, um, select board announcements. Nothing From me, Madam Chair. Okay. I just wanted to, um, plug the Council on Aging is having a body and soul health fair and panel discussion tomorrow. It’s at the J C C from 10 to two. It, and it’s an introduction to integrative, complementary and alternative health, according to Council on Aging. Um, and they’re gonna have, uh,

1:47:14 they have a panel of, uh, different, different doctors from different areas of medicine, different homeopathic osteopathic, not naturopathic doctors, a talk about their treatment modalities, what illnesses or conditions might be relevant in their day-to-day practice that cause concern. And, um, Jenny, uh, our state representative Jenny Armini, will also be there to talk about, um, her, the bills that she is sponsoring to create, to help get caregivers, um, created that were helped, were created, created to get help to caregivers and their loved ones. So, um, check it out tomorrow, 10 to two at the J C C. Thank you. Okay. Um, looks like we’re ready for our motion to adjourn. So moved.

1:48:00 Second. All in favor, e adjourned.