Select Board: March 4, 2026

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.

0:03 I recall the meeting of the select boards to order on Wednesday, March 4th at 7:05 PM This meeting is being recorded and just let you know that we do have two board members, Moses Greater and Aaron Newan petitioning remotely. I’ll quote will be through roll call. We will have public comment. I just wanna let you know that if you do have comments or questions on the budget review or our budget review, we’ll allow some, some comments and questions there as well. Um, if anybody has public comment outside of the budget, lemme know now. Okay. Budget, you’re saying no. Okay. Outside. Outside, please stand off and Yep, let’s do it now. Absolutely. Let’s give us your name and address and no,

0:52 we’re gonna run off this it be

0:57 Gardner seven Glover Square. So a few years ago at town meeting, we agreed as a town that climate change is not a hope. And as sensible people, we better get on board with the sensible plan to become a part of the solution rather than just going along as usual. And that’s being part of the climate change problem. So we voted to set a goal of net zero in harmful carbon emissions by 2040. We did that at our meeting. To that end, the select board created and hired to fill the huge job of sustainability coordinator. That’s Logan Casey, who has done a lot of work with the help

1:42 of our municipal lifeboard to research and come up with a sensible roadmap called the Energy Reduction Plan. I’m here to thank you in advance, the select board and the town administrator, and the planning board and the like board and whoever else for supporting a measured sensible way forward in this energy reduction plan that you will be voting on. Since I make bold to assume that you will support it, Logan has done excellent work in this proposal. If we adopt this and also the new version of three A, it will open the door to millions of dollars and grant money and for Mar pen to continue to be in the community

2:31 of creative forward thinking towns in this commonwealth to all of us, the citizens read the details, attend the public information meetings. You’ll see that the energy reduction plan is a measured, carefully thought through, through interesting and the plan. So that’s all I got on board with that. Thank you Mimi.

3:00 Yes, I’ll just also thank you, um, six Blue Court and I’m going to make a comment that the Marble Head resident and one is a chair of the light board. Um, we all know that we have great current budget problems and you are working hard on that. And today’s meeting I understand have attracted a lot of folks to, um, discuss these issues. We must focus on reducing our expenses where we can, uh, residents know all too well how expensive their utility bills are. Now, the electricity rates have not risen for several years, but the gas bill, since Sky Rocket

3:44 Marble had a ton of marble head spends millions on utility bills every year. That can be reduced.

3:52 So it is important, like residents are doing that. Marble had despairing where it can and focus on energy efficiency and that we reduce our town utility bills. So that’s the command of the resident. We all need to tighten our bills. That’s not one that hurts.

4:16 Now Cheryl and I board, I would like to point out that the town and the individual buildings and town departments, you are the largest customer of the night department. Thank you very much. Your actions have a large impact on the electricity load. More importantly on the timing of the load. So I’m going to make a a slightly technical point here, but it is very important financially, more than half of our bill, 60% of our energy bill is based on the amount of electricity the town uses at the one single hour of peak demand.

5:04 Poorly insulated buildings will need more cooling in that one hour muggy August afternoon, they will use more electricity exactly at the greatest impact time for MMLD for our bills. And that carries throughout the year, uh, because peak loads are driven by maximum thermal losses. So solar gain, heat leakage, improving the building envelopes of our town buildings makes a disproportionate large impact during that one peak hour recurrent every year. And we’re not going to miss the p So you are adopting this energy reduction efficiency

5:50 or energy reduction from this ERP will help lower MMLD costs in purchasing energy, which means keeping the rates low for all the residents.

6:05 So we have not increased. I repeat we have not increased the rates for several years and we’re trying hard not to. You will help us do that.

6:16 So please help us to continue to keep the rates affordable and vote to end on the ERP. Thank You. Thank you, John. Anybody else? Anyone? Line Paul comment. Oh, Amy, Amy, Q 30 H brand. Um, I just wanna talk to the board about my disappointment that there was a vote for the warrant to dissolve the Public Works committee. Uh, we actually had put in a revised the Public Works committee and the structure, so that would fit in the times that we have today. The meetings that we’ve had to date have been very productive and all the department heads have felt that it’s a worthwhile committee. It gives transparency. We can discuss efficiency, we can talk about warrants.

7:01 And we are only an advisory committee. Um, there was a question, I believe about the legality of that and meeting in different sessions, but we do that with Traffic safety advisory committee. So that is something that legal council should get both those committees then, um, and see what we should do. But I just wanted to let people know that we do really like the, the people that work on the committee feel it’s worthwhile committee. And we wanna go, you know, we’ll go forward and have this discussion of town meeting. But thank You. Thank you Amy. Appreciate. Yeah. With that, we will close public comment. Wait a minute. Oops. I’m, I’m, I’m somehow missing this look. I apologize. I apologize, Mr. Jordan. No, no, no. Please, please. I would never shut you off. Okay.

7:48 Uh, Juan voting for this. We’re not complying with the three A yet. I know what, I don’t know what the big rush is on this. I think it is up to the electric bike. If they think it’s a good idea, these are the people that should, they’re the ones that have to approve it. Um, I don’t even know what, it’s in front of this board for more Haley lately and changed some of the things that we’re gonna comply by 2040. The state, um, the federal government’s down the way with some of these programs. I’m just very, very concerned if three A doesn’t pass, um, everyone’s electric bill’s gonna up. I know it’s ps uh, but we’re gonna go into another state program and we might not even get money out of it. So I hope that you’re gonna support this

8:35 and not implement it until we know what’s gonna happen to three A. Because if we don’t comply with three A, my understanding of this is we’re not gonna get a red set, then everyone’s gonna be paid an assessment on their life of. So to me, it doesn’t make much sense, uh, to go into this until, unless you made a deal with three A and the state says we’re compliant with it now. And you know, what the people are gonna do in town meeting. ‘cause I don’t know what they’re gonna do in town meeting. I think we should have been working on, uh, the three a thing. We should had a special town meeting, uh, a long time ago about this and had this thing dissolved. So, so we can know if we’re going to get grants or not. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Jordan. Final call. Okay, we are gonna, uh, move time administrator update

9:23 to later and the agenda, since my guess is that most people are here to here to budget review. So with that, we’ll move on to agenda item number three that sits for year 27, budget review. But, uh, time told by Alicia Benjamin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am gonna share my screen presentation. It’s coming up, but let me start with, um, uh, there’s a lot of work getting us, there was always a lot of work going through a whole budget process, but, um, dealing with the challenges that we have, there are a lot of people, um, engaged in this. A lot of hard work. Um, Alicia Benjamin is really our,

10:12 our financial lead on this. Alec Gbe is our chair of the Fincons very much. And the other members of the FinCon very much involved, as well as all the members of the board and other boards, uh, and the department heads who, uh, obviously play a big role in this. So, um, there’s a lot of work, uh, a lot of people, um, going into it. And hopefully we come out on the other end with a, um, very viable budget for this community. So, I’m gonna run through again. I gave the state of the town, uh, update, uh, two months ago now. Um, which one of the main tasks of the state of the town is to do the initial projections of

10:57 how much revenues do we have available in which to build upon, uh, a budget for, for this community. Um, and most significantly setting, uh, the bottom lines for, uh, the school side and the town side. Um, um, so that, uh, all the department heads and financial people can, and make decisions to build the budget upon. Um, so at that time, went through, went through the revenues, and based on all the projections that we have, um, available at that time.

11:35 Um, so once again, I’m gonna ground all of our comments to our mission statement. Basically why we exist, uh, to provide excellent services at the level desired by citizens, taxpayers, and rate payers that ensures the health, safety, education, welfare, and quality of life of the community. Basically, the financial decisions we’re making are to, to the best, uh, with our resources to meet that mission statement.

12:08 So I’m gonna give a quick update as to what’s changed on our projected revenues and, um, not much. Um, the only changes my screen’s covered,

12:27 let be, pull up the right presentation.

12:39 That was date of the time, I guess. Um,

12:47 Well, our time administrators pulling that up on the only changes really that we’ve done have been the state has released our state aid number, the preliminary, they’re still subject to change, but that’s the, uh, only numbers that have changed for revenue, more money a little more, but also they raised the assessment so normal. So my, yeah, my laptop’s not updating from my desktop, so let me get it the same. You want me to send It? What’s that? Do you want it back? Yeah, email it back to me. So what’s happened is all I, I built the whole thing on, on my other computer and this one’s, um,

13:33 not synchronizing

13:41 Now we’re doing that. The o decided tomorrow our GST rates are supposed to be devoted. So then we do see what our real impact is on health insurance. I initially had estimated the 15% estimation on the raising rates. I had gone to several seminars from different communities. The communities were going roughly around 15% as high as up to 18%. Um, we had a finance committee meeting, um, where I’ve had some company present finance committee, which great, um, outlook because the GLP one drug will be able, we’re no longer being covered, which is actually going to decrease the rates. So I gave you the PowerPoint. I’m hoping to see those savings, which

14:27 are the way things are right now. The original scenario when we presented it was at that 15%. Um, right now I down killed 11%, but I’m hoping to bring it much further. But for tomorrow, Alicia, clarify and these numbers we have in here, and 11% Increase, but you’re gonna see both the 15% in the original, the 53 million, and the new Scenarios are at the 11%. Thank you. All right, I’m gonna work from the PDF version.

15:07 How many people actually have insurance? Let’s, let’s, let’s hold, let focus,

15:13 We got, um, per health insurance. Let’s, let’s constrain this. We’ll make questions after.

15:22 Okay. We’re gonna work on the PDF,

15:28 So the screen may not be as big. Um, and again, we have, we have the printouts. So, um, as far as updated projected revenues, the only changes since the state of the town, um, on the free cash in, in the presentation state of town, we, I broke up between free cash use for budget and capital or stabilization. We’re simply just rolling it up, uh, 5 million into budget. So no change in dollars, just it’s gonna apply all to the budget. And then based on the governor’s updated local aid numbers, um, slight adjustments, um, in regard to the amount of revenue. So in effect, um, the revenue is nearly the same

16:16 as what was presented at, uh, state of the town.

16:24 Next. Um, what I’m gonna present is two scenarios, um,

16:35 um, Uh, for tonight. So as we’ve developed the budget based on, on our revenue projections, um, what we call scenario A, and that’s a straightforward, um, based on the, the, the revenues available, taking the inputs from all the department heads, um, and as well as the schools. Um, and then having to go through the budgets and cutting the budgets, bringing them down, um, so that they fit within the revenues that we have available. Straightforward approach that we’ve traditionally done. Um, so scenario A assumes no significant changes in our current revenue trends. Um, it reflects the projected expenditures, um,

17:23 based on existing obligations and, and cost growth. So we factor in the, for example, the contract, um, uh, coal increases and such. And then based on the, the gap between, uh, the revenues and the, the projected expenditures, we had to make decisions as to cutting, um, uh, the request down in order to generate a balanced budget Scenario. B, the second scenario is to look at making some, uh, significant proposals, uh, to change, um, uh, basically change the, the outcome of the impact of a, a balanced budget.

18:09 So it includes a proposal to do a shift, uh, cost, as well as, uh, additional reductions, uh, and certain line items, and I’ll get into more detail on both. Um, and by looking between comparing to the two scenarios, scenario A versus scenario B, um, having to make some decisions, uh, it will lay out the stark choices that we have between, between the two options. Um, and hopefully this both informs, it helps the select board, uh, as far as, uh, when the time comes to vote on a proposed budget, uh, as well as inform the community as as to the choices that we have.

18:56 Scenario A I’m gonna try to blow this up, if that helps. So, um, it’s a bit of an eye chart. One, um, first column is fiscal 25 actuals for reference. Second column is the fiscal 26 budget. That’s the fiscal year we’re operating in now. So that is the approved budget, fiscal 27 requested. This is the totals, um, as submitted by the department heads, uh, um, working with the schools and all the departments as to what their requested needs are. And again, these, these budgets were built based on some parameters of, of basically level funding plus

19:45 adding in the increased obligations such as the cola, uh, and, and, and cost increases. Um, the next column is fiscal 27. Budget scenario A. And based on what we’ve developed to this date, um, uh, represents, uh, the, the, the current numbers for expenditures. Now, to make this, uh, a little, a little bit easier to read, we’re grouping, instead of showing the all the individual departments, um, we’re following the state, um, DOR methodology of grouping them under general government, public safety, school, public works, human services culture, other general government to group them together.

20:31 The point of this is not necessarily get into the detail of each individual department, but to, to get an understanding of the magnitude of the numbers of what we’re dealing with. So in the far right column is the change from, um, what the department heads and the schools have requested to, um, what we need to cut out of the budgets in order to get to, uh, a balanced budget. So on the, the, uh, bottom right column, uh, the total budget, you’ll see that we needed to cut $7.7 million, um, in order to, um, get to a balanced budget.

21:20 The additional very bottom line right, is the town’s portion of the cut. So on the town side, uh, $5.7 million in cuts from what was requested. And if you go up to the school line, you’ll see that their initial was 1.9 over 1.9 million in cuts. So totaling $7.7 million in cuts in order to get to a, a balanced budget. So what is the impact?

21:59 In summary, in order to balance our budget, um, on the town side, uh, we had to prioritize, um, uh, those functions such as those functions that protect life and property, um, and so forth. Um, and funding. Um, and the end result is we had to defund six departments. Um, so under the scenario, a, if that were to become the approved budget, uh, we would have to shut the doors on our community development planning cemetery Health department, except for the health agent, which is required by law, the Council on Aging

22:48 Library, recreation and Parks that would result in 56 positions being unfunded.

22:59 And this is in addition to, there are other cuts for the departments that are remaining still have, uh, cuts to their, to their budgets. So when I gave the state of the town address, and at the time we said that we estimate over 50 positions, um, we’ve gone through, uh, and analyzed and have identified 56 positions, um, out of, on the town side, uh, 185 to 190 positions, um, that we have

23:40 The, um, positions that we’re looking at, uh, chief procurement officer, one, police officer, one, vacant firefighter position, uh, two positions in public works, six in cemetery, three health, six positions on consul and aging, 23 positions in the library, eight positions with recreation parks, and five positions in community development and planning.

24:15 So given the magnitude of that

24:22 scenario B and what scenario B proposes, and again, these are proposals that will be reviewed and deliberated on at a later time, um, what we tried to do is come up, um, with some proposals that help us to reduce the structural deficit and maintain municipal services. So, in other words, um, identify, um, moving, uh, costs off of the, the tax base to make those funds available to fund, uh, the functions that, that are not funded in scenario A, um,

25:08 and shift some of those, those costs over. So the key, the two key actions that I’ll get into is one, uh, proposal to implement trash fees. Um, what this would do is, uh, generate revenues by moving, uh, a certain amount of the cost of, of the trash recycling functions to a fee-based system making, uh, uh, those dollars available, um, and, um, using other departments. And then the second one is to, uh, apply additional budget reductions to the schools, uh, primarily to account for, um, the, the,

25:54 the rise in employee benefits as we’ve talked about often here. Um, employee benefits are all on the town side of the budget, but it’s about a 62, 38 split of employees on the townside versus, uh, on the school side versus the townside as far as where those costs are. So we’ve done some analysis to, to allocate that and then ask the schools to make an additional adjustment, uh, to balance that out. And I’ll have some more detail following. So let’s talk about implementation of a trash feed.

26:39 What we’re proposing is to shift an estimate, uh, of about little over $2 million, which, uh, includes the cost of curbside trash collection, trash disposal and recycling services, um, to, to move those to a fee basis. And the mechanism that that would happen is that in the budget that we would propose, and if the select board were to approve, we would defund the $2 million out of the budget, um, from the general fund side, which would then in fact force or require the Board of health to respond,

27:27 to implement a fee structure in order to make up those revenues. ‘cause all these services are based on a contract. In order to have a contract signed, it has to have a revenue source. So that is the, the mechanism that is being proposed. Um, and we’ve been having conversations in all this. Um, the amount that we’re proposing does not include the cost of the town’s cost and the school’s costs for those services. Uh, nor would it, uh, cover the cost, employee benefits or other operating expenses. So we would, uh, limit the fee based system to the contractual, uh, items in there. There may be some other additional costs

28:13 that would be generated. For example, if we’re having to start billing, create a billing system. So there’ll be some other, um, um, incidental impacts to that. Also on the math, based on approximately 8,000 households, if we took that 2,037,000, 180 4 and divided by 8,000 households, and these are estimated numbers, um, the cost would be about $254 or just under $255 a year per household, which depending on how, how the billing it, it would be done. It would either be, uh, little over $21 per month, or 60, just under $64 per quote.

29:02 And again, I caveat that there would be other fee adjustments. Um, we would ask and, and have the board consider discounts for residents who currently qualify for tax exemptions through the assessor’s office to have to have a, a, a discount built in to the, to the system and to provide residents an opt-out option. In other words, in lieu of paying this fee, um, they would handle their own trash through the sticker program, as I know, um, some residents do currently. So again, what this would do is would make available, uh, just over $2 million in the general fund to allow us

29:49 to, to use those funds to go back and fund those departments that are defunded in scenario A.

30:01 As just a, a, um, a comparison, if we were attempting to ask the waste department that the entirety of the function be be sent to a fee ba fee base system, it would be $464 a year, or 38, just under $39 a month, or $116 and change per quarter. Um, but again, we’re, we’re not asking for that one. We’re asking for the limited, uh, scope of the services be, be moved to a fee-based system.

30:38 The next significant request is, uh, asking, uh, an additional reduction of 1.5 million from the schools. Um, based on their, uh, budgeting, um, their requests and, and working with them, they have, um, their, their, their share of the, the, the deficit is 3.5 million. The schools have already implemented 1.9 million in cuts to their budget. Uh, so we would ask for an, an additional 1.5. Um, and what that would do is, um, the approach we’ve been taking, at least since I’ve been here,

31:26 is when, when we go into the budget cycle, and like I said at state of the town, estimating what revenues we have available to fund, uh, our budgets, and we’ve looked at the ratio of cost between the school side and the town side. Again, factoring in that there are school costs on the townside that it comes to about a 50 50 ratio of, of costs between the schools and the town. And, and there’s some historical data that’s been put together that shows over, over, uh, an extent of time that the town school budgets have traditionally been hovering around that 50% split. Sometimes it’s 49 to 51, it goes back and forth,

32:13 but generally that has been the operational split between the two. So the calculations that have been done, there’s a bunch of spreadsheets that back up these numbers is the 1.5 brings that ratio back that this year, instead of having an additional funds that we’re splitting, it’s splitting the deficit, uh, that we’re faced with in equalizing it between the, the two sides. Um, so the bottom line as far as this additional request is that the benefit costs appear entirely on the town’s budget, but those cost support both workforces, schools in town.

32:58 So we’re asking that, that, that impact, uh, be shared proportionally between the town and schools.

33:08 And to illustrate some of the math. As far as the calculations, this is just a list of the different benefit programs, um, that are, uh, funded through the budget. Um, a lot of these programs, it’s a split between the employee and the employer. So as far as the employer share, um, in some cases, like the cost of life insurance that we offer, uh, it’s 71% of the cost is on the town side, 20 schools. But when you look at, um, the Medicare Part B, um, and the, well, the GIC active employees is the biggest. So 66% of the active employees in the group insurance commission,

33:54 that’s the municipal health insurance, is on the school side, 34% on the town. And then the GIC retirees, it’s 70% of the cost is on the school side, 30%. So, um, this chart is to illustrate some of the calculations that we’re using in order to to, to generate these numbers,

34:23 given those scenarios and, and, and those options.

34:29 We have scenario B, um, expenditures. So again, I start with the fiscal 25 actual column, the fiscal 26 budget, which is the current fiscal year. We’re operating in the fiscal 27 requests. So those numbers are all the same from, from the earlier scenario A, and in this time, building back a scenario B budget, uh, which allows us to refund the departments that are eliminated in scenario A and just change the cost. So you’ll see on the far right column, um, the total,

35:16 uh, reduction on the school side would be 3.4 million. Um, and at the very, very bottom, the town only reduction would be 4.4 million, um, to bring us to a total of $7.9 million cut, uh, in order to balance the budget. And that’s that the, the, the, the changes as compared to what was requested, um, by all the departments.

35:52 What’s the impact? Uh, scenario B, all the departments that were in the earlier lists would actually be funded. Um, there would be, um, uh, impact still on, on positions, but we would, um, um,

36:18 still have, um, position changes, but it is much small list, uh, numbers comes to 20.5 FTE positions that would be impacted by cuts versus the 56 positions in the scenario. A. So there’s still pain, but it, uh, allows us to function to the extent possible of all the services that we’ve offered.

36:49 And then a question I get asked when it comes up is, as far as the number of employees that we’re carrying, so we, we did a little historical number crunching. Um, I, I have to say, based on the data, I think there’s some validating that needs to be done. It is the best data that we could get over time. Um, and I try to highlight, I don’t know how well it comes out on the screen, but, uh, the COVID years where there was a lot of anomalies as far as staffing, um, in effect from looking at from 2018 to 2026, uh, it’s ranged from 199

37:36 currently showing 190 positions in the town. Um, it has not changed much the COVID years. Again, uh, there were cuts, looks like back in 2019 of eight positions, but we have not changed the number of total employees by any extent, um, over the last several years. Um, but what this chart does illustrate that if we implement 2027 scenario A, it would be a reduction of 56 positions, which blows the number off the chart compared to the trend. Or if we do, uh, 2027, scenario B rounded off number 20 physicians.

38:24 I note that, um, again, this is the data, the FTE data, uh, I’d like to spend some more time, um, making sure that historical data is accurate. One of the challenges, um, IIII would say the historical totals are correct, what we’re talking about, we’d say the detail between departmental shift. Yeah, because those between departments, I was gonna say, so we, we had it broken up by department, but just because of the merger departments moving positions from one department to another, um, the, the data was, uh, needed to clean up. But I think, uh, this chart illustrates the point that I know I’d get asked by board members and residents as to, uh, the number of positions. So our bud, I guess the takeaway in this one,

39:11 that our budget challenges that we’re facing are not a result of huge increases in the number of employees. It is driven by, uh, what we’ve talked about, help costs, inflationary costs, trying to keep our, uh, employee salaries at the market rate. Uh, those are the drivers that have driven this. Um, finally, it’s a bit of an eye chart, but, uh, what is left out of the budget

39:43 and the takeaway, uh, on this one. So it lists all the positions, uh, that are still not making it into the budget as well as some of the other cuts, um, that it leaves out $1.4 million, um, out of the budget, even in scenario B in order to have a balanced budget. And I would say that that would probably be the starting point of conversation of what we want to consider for an override strategy, um, starting looking at that. And that’s just, that’s the town side.

40:28 So, um, the, the schools will, will also add to that.

40:35 So final caveats. There is a vote tomorrow, the group insurance commission. We hope they vote tomorrow. They’ve already delayed as far as setting the rates for all of our insurance points. Um, once we know what those rates are, we will then be able to plug those factors in and, um, determine what our health insurance costs are truly gonna be. Um, again, those are big numbers. Um, and all of us municipalities have been sort of the tail and the end of the dog of the GIC. So as the GIC runs their scenarios and,

41:21 and announced that they’re looking at 15 to 18% increases on their rates, we have to project within that range. We’ve been carrying 15% quite a while on that. They then make some design changes, uh, that makes adjustments and they’ll pair down their projections of the blended rate. I think the last one was down to 7.5. So in our calculations, we moved our health insurance projections down to 11. So that freed up some dollars as we’re building the budget. And, and that’s why a lot of times these numbers change as we go through this process, because some of these factors change and depending on what the GIC does tomorrow,

42:09 and if we’re optimistic and they vote a 7.58 something less than the 11 we’re carrying, that’s good news for us. What that does is be it scenario A or scenario B, if it’s favorable to us, it’ll decrease that gap, uh, and make it small. We will wait to see what they do. And then the, the last caveat on the health as we, uh, talk about this, what the GIC puts out and what we have to do in our projections is a blended rate. The reality is we carry about eight different plans that employees have choices to go into,

42:57 and then they have individual plans and family plans, and they all have different, um, premiums. And each plan will have its own inflation rate when the GIC makes its decision. So what matters is the specific inflation rate of a plan, how many of our employees are in that specific plan. So working from blended rates may give us some false hope or false, uh, uh, whatever. Um, we will calculate the numbers exactly, um, based on what they do Once those calculations are done. April 1st is open season

43:43 and all the employees get to change plans. Mm-hmm. And we get to do the calculations over again. So the, the, the point on this is, um, on this as well as many others, the numbers will change as we roll forward because all these factors are continuously changing on us, but we, we zero in and get closer and closer to the, to the actual numbers. So that Great. Thank you. Thatcher. It’s my presentation. I think what we’ll do is we’ll do select board questions just before we get to questions. Can we just, I think there might be an error here or maybe, maybe I’m just looking at it wrong. Okay. So in scenario A and B, if I’m just doing high level numbers mm-hmm. The difference in our expenditures that we have copied conce approximately 3.5 million, 2 million from fresh million from schools,

44:29 that doesn’t jive on the bottom right hand line. I think what I’m seeing here is public works, we added a couple zeros. So in scenario BI just wanna make sure we’re all talking the same numbers. It might just be a typo, but in scenario B, under public works under expense, you have just over 2 million college 2.1 million, which is an increase of $2 million. So I think it’s just a zero. Like I think it’s just a Yeah. And what it does is it, it is, is it carries down to the bottom and adds what, $2,002 million to that bottom line. So I think we just need to get clarification here. So, and scenario A expenditures, which is the should be worse, where, call it 5.7 million and scenario B, bottom right count only budget, we’re at 4.7 million, which is a million dollar difference

45:17 and it should be closer to 3.5. So I think that we, I think that the place, I’m seeing it and maybe I think on the slide, this 1.93 is only shown the two’s not showing the 3.5. You factoring the 1.9 from the school plus the one Point. Nope. I’m looking at the public Look at public works. Yeah. And scenario B, fiscal year 27 change. Mm-hmm. Under expense you have 2 million 99, 6 84 and scenario A, which should be the worst scenario. The worst of the two is 267. I, I have a feeling that we just put a few zeros in there. Trash fee. It is the trash fee. Yeah. Michael, so you’re call, so you, so you’re carrying the trash fee. Is it in public works? In public works, correct. Cemetery is in public works, DPW is in public works.

46:04 Waste collection is in public works. Is that a That’s the DOR. When I say Follow DR. Okay. If, but if we’re looking at, okay, so if we’re trying to look at though scenario A Yeah. Should have it in it. Am I missing this? A, we’d only took out 940,000.

46:28 Scenario B when we took out the trash, we took out 2.1 million. So it is correct, we didn’t touch trash in scenario A. Okay. Again, maybe I’m just really thinking backwards there. It’s been a long week in three days, but in scenario A where we have not touched it, right? Where 267,000

46:50 2 6 7

46:55 on just expense. Yeah. That’s not including salary but isn’t, so scenario a 3.6. Yeah. So 6 million is public works in scenario A, that’s the budget. 6,000,049, You’re taking out nine 40 and here you’re taking out 2 million. Correct. Why does the town, oh, so you’re saying the town only, why does the town only budget from the bottom? Right. And that’s just my big clarification. I’m not saying it’s wrong. Yeah. I’m just not maybe thinking about our town only budget mm-hmm. Is only going down where we should aren’t, aren’t we subtract? I see. You’re so, you’re sub you, but you’re only subtracting out. The difference is $1.3 million between the two scenarios. Yeah. What Thatcher just talks about was taking two. I just think it’s being presented incorrect. Well, no, it’s because it’s, it’s the way ‘cause you’re not seeing departments and scenario A waste,

47:43 which is in public works was gone. The scenario B Waste is back adding back. So you’ve got it gone completely. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So that’s great. I just, I, I’m gonna argue this a little bit of a misrepresentation and what we’re looking at, what we’re reducing in our, okay. Yeah. Okay. It’s, we can look, it’s Because it’s the casual, I would say that scenario B, our expenses should look like on the townside that they’re down 350. But I, I see you’re saying it’s scenario A. You’re completely cutting it. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So I was wrong. Perfect. You weren’t Wrong. You were just very good at analyzing. Totally. But it does, it is a little bit of a misrepresentation because it looks like we are cutting, we Can just go by department. It was just too much to show in. I guess what I, in my mind, that what we’re doing here,

48:30 starting from scratch, is that we should be able to take approximately $3.5 million out of our expenses by doing the two things that Thatcher talked about, implementing the $1.5 million deduction from the town and the $2 million in the trash. So the way This’s presented here is that you’ve taken, you’ve overtaken in this first one, so it looks like it, it, it’s, I it’s not what we need to do is, is we need to be a little more clear about where those are, because then it feels like some of the expense are going somewhere else in this presentation. I’m not suggesting that you’re hiding ‘em, but it does feel like the, the expenses are going somewhere else, by the way we’re doing it. Make sense? Okay. It’s, again, it’s not an accusation. It’s me trying to put my head, wrap my head around where that 3.5 is being carried.

49:16 And I know that you have the numbers. I think if we just need to present a little better. Yeah. That’s where I would actually, All The accountants that I, I, I have been. So, um, why don’t we open it up to the Slack board for, for questions, comments. And what I’m gonna recommend is that maybe we each do one or two. My guess is we’re gonna have a lot and we can just sort of, so that everyone can speak and, and get their points in. Um, if anybody here present wants to starve, I, I’ll Just a couple quick things. Yep. Uh, relative to what Dan said, it might be good to have a comment line just to explain that. ‘cause it is a lot, it’s, it, it’s a, a lot to understand bubbles or comments. And then, um, the other thing I just wanted to mention, I don’t, I’m not sure if you mentioned or not, is the enterprise funds are not covered here.

50:03 They have their own budgets, uh, uh, electric plate, water and Soar and Harbor. So they’re not covered here. So when you see 180 employees, that’s police fire, um, COA, et cetera. The, the things we talked about. So General fund Expenses. General fund expenses, so, and we Took out the debt Exclusions too. And, and the other thing, Alicia, the enterprise funds, they take care of their own healthcare and pension. Correct. And so forth correcting. Okay. So that’s just something to keep, keep in mind. So if you wanna No, that, that’s for now. I just wanna listen, uh, have to say, jump On. Just, um, you, uh, so just a quick question. I don’t know if we have this or not,

50:49 but just obviously one of the things we keep talking about, obviously volatility with the health. Do you, do we have any data on statistically, you know, in April when people shift plans, like I know this is common throughout, you know, obviously state employees and towns and stuff like that, but do you guys, historically, and obviously you can pick a different tier, whether it’s tough, whether it’s Harvard Pilgrim or in Blend or whatever you’re picking, but, um, that also is under open enrollment, meaning if someone is, you know, adding a child or at, you know, increasing cost in those types of phase. Do you guys, So there are three with that. Yes. So there’s three main plans that our populace falls into for house insurance. And I’ve seen a couple of movements into some other plans, but nothing dramatic. Okay. No dramatic shifts as of now. Okay.

51:35 Um, it’s kind of more difficult with the schools ‘cause the schools have a lot of turnover. Right. So that changes. But I’ve seen concentration between three plans really for this town and not too much of a, We have a little bit of it just, yeah, I just wanna see how volatile Yeah. That is in April, right. Because that’s obviously the back end. And then, um, in, in, in both scenarios, we, I can’t see anything in regards to the stabilization fund. So it’s pulled from both names. Correct. Okay. And then, so my follow up to that is just in regards to future planning for, you know, if we were doing debt exclusion projects and those types of things, what is the potential impact? Does that with bond ratings, like just our overall assessment of like how does that impact our big picture future bargaining

52:22 options or things like that? I think how, how big of a hit is that? I think we need to build it. I think we started with a really good foundation last year by moving some of the free cash into where it needs to be. But I think there needs to be more money put into it. Um, I would love for the board to put it in as part of the override to get that funding up. Especially because of Rain Day situations like this where your expenses are so high. Thankfully they did a plan redesign change, which hopefully will bring some of this down. But the way it’s growing, it’s, it’s really not, um, control. We have really no control between the 8.6 on the pension and then the double digit increases on the health insurance. It’s good to have that little bit. So if we did have to do a project versus asking for a debt exclusion or having to asked

53:08 for an override if we had some reserves to help make this a little more palatable. Whereas right now we have very, very minimal reserves and I think we should continue to build that forward. Okay. Um, Jane, you can go ahead other things, but when you can open up and I’ll, Why don’t we, I’ll, I’m happy to. Why don’t we let you guys speak out there. Aaron, do you have any comments you’d like to start with?

53:35 No, I don’t have any questions. I just, um, for as far as comments go, I guess, you know, my, um, my vote would be for, uh, the US to proceed with option B. Um, I think, you know, minimizing the, the Dan minimizing the drastic, um, change and disruption of service levels, that, that, um, the option A would, uh, would, would, would, wouldn’t dictate, would be, um, devastating to, uh, town services. And I think that most, I, you know, in the trash fee situation, I think given, given the landscape financially of where we’re at, I, I believe that it’s a reasonable ask.

54:22 Uh, and that is an option for residents in town who, um, where we have a transfer station to opt out of that fee. But it is, you know, having done research and looked at other towns, um, and Molly, uh, teat Center fin income has done, uh, some diligence into this. And it is pretty, pretty commonplace for municipalities as particularly those with transfer stations to, uh, move to a or to have a fee-based, uh, revenue type system for their curbside trash and recycling. So I would encourage, uh, that we move forward with option B.

55:10 Hello? Can you hear me okay? Yes. Okay, perfect. Yeah, look, I, I think this, uh, I, I like the way this is laid out in a scenario A and a scenario B, I think scenario B is, uh, you know, with the shift of some of the funding of town government onto a, uh, you know, onto a fee-based, uh, approach for trash is, you know, is something that I think the town should understand is, is, is what we’re proposing in in, in scenario B. Um, I look other towns as, uh, Aaron correctly pointed out, use a fee-based approach. I don’t think it’s controversial, but I think the town of Marblehead should understand

55:57 that this is a, you know, this is a, a kind of shift off of a, an approach that the town has formally voted to, you know, to appear in, you know, to, to appear in the tax space. So I just wanna kind of highlight that a little bit. I like it. I think it’s, I think it’s creative, but I think it’s something that, you know, that that may be, uh, an element of debate as we go to, you know, forward on our, uh, you know, on our override strategy. Uh, I think one of the other things that, you know, maybe mar marble headers are probably asking themselves is, wow, you know, that is a really big impact on the town side budget. You know, when you’re talking, you know, between 50 and 56, you know, layoffs in a scenario where we don’t change to a fee structure, you know,

56:43 what is really driving that? And, you know, I think it’s been referred to, you know, most of the, you know, we’re really at a, you know, perfect storm situation where we have dramatic increases in our healthcare costs. We’ve got a big reduction in free cash, which means that we don’t have any, we don’t have positive net revenues to be able to cover some of our expenses. And, you know, I think most Marvel headers are not fully aware because we’re, we’re so used to quoting a, you know, a 47, you know, uh, last year, fiscal year 26, you know, a $47.8 million townside budget. And that is indeed what the town, you know,

57:28 presents every year. But of that amount, about 27 million of it is in, uh, uh, no, I’m sorry. Uh, about 21 million of it is in benefits alone for both the town and the schools. Okay. So, you know, after you get done paying for your, you know, for our benefits on the town side, which includes the, the school side benefits, you know, we’re left with, you know, basically 27 million in discretionary budget. Now, this is after, this is off of, uh, fiscal, fiscal year 26 numbers. Okay. Just, just as a basis for comparison. And, you know, and when there are big shifts and, and big cost impacts like we have this year, it really

58:14 affect, there’s not a lot of discretionary budget for the town to absorb those costs. So I think that’s what I’d like to try to, you know, we, we really need to try to explain to the town and also that the schools have really taken up their fair share of cuts this year. This is something that we’ve, you know, we’ve thought about pretty deeply. And, and I think that Thatcher has alluded to it in his presentation where we do have an adjustment for the, for the schools having to assume, you know, some of the burden of their, uh, benefits, expenses that the town typically, you know, takes up. So we do have an adjustment there, and I know a lot of folks and founders saying, well, they’re draconian cuts on the, on the, on the, uh, you know, on the municipal side.

59:01 What about on the district side? What do those cuts look like and are they fair? And I think the answer is, you know, we’re, we’re, uh, very convinced that the school has actually, you know, they, they’ve done a really good job this year, uh, with the current superintendent and administration in, in recognizing that we are in a, you know, in a, a financial, uh, squeeze this year. And an unusual one. Um, you know, it happens, I think a lot of it happens to coincide with the, you know, really dramatic increase, you know, $2 million plus increases in, in healthcare costs. And, you know, I, along with the, the rest of the board really, you know, hope and pray that, uh, you know, tomorrow we’re gonna see the healthcare percentage number drop. And, you know, maybe, maybe when we, you know,

59:46 when we finalize free cash, we’ll we’ll get a little bit of relief there as well. So anyway, I just, uh, you know, this is a, a a a a great presentation, uh, in terms of kind of a, uh, you know, again, to Thatcher’s point, we’re constantly refining the numbers and, and making sure that we can, uh, you know, that we can, we can make, put a finer point to it. Uh, we will, we will. Uh, I think, you know, I’m really, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m feeling very confident that we’re gonna be able to provide in our override enough optionality for the, you know, for the town as the appropriating body. We’ll have enough optionality to kind of choose, you know, what we, what we want, what we need restored, uh, or what they would like to have restored and what they might not like to have restored.

1:00:34 But, you know, uh, it’s very important for the town to have that input. So that, that’s basically yeah. Uh, my, my summation. Thank you. Yes, I will follow up. Um, I mean, clearly the decisions between A and B are, are Q we’re talking about reducing around 10% of the, the town workforce and, and scenario B and, and an A, you know, 25%, which I think that we’re pretty tight to begin with. I’ve actually have no us looking at details coming down more on the employees. Um, none of these decisions are easy. Even 10% is, is huge. And a lot of departments are being affected hugely. Sorry, safety huge. I can’t believe I say that out loud. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, these have been some tough conversations for all

1:01:20 of us this week, and I, I know that nobody is happy with it. And hopefully this does get better. I would like to stay on the, the re the reduction on the school, when I call it a methodology or a guideline or policy that, you know, for me to support this, if we are gonna do this, I think it is a good place to start. And like we’re starting up the base of 26 and looking at increases. And that, if we’re gonna do that, like clearly on any increased revenue, I don’t think we talked about, has to go back to the school in the future as well. So as we move forward with this, if on these percentage basis is that, that we’re gonna be sharing an increased amount of revenue with the schools Yeah. Because they’re taking the expenses, just wanna make sure that people understand that. And if we do see a break in health insurance this year, then that needs to be that number 1.5 be reduced,

1:02:06 in my opinion, needs to be reduced. Yeah. So it has to be, it has to be equal. And I also feel very strongly that if we’re going to ask the schools, ask for them to, to come along for this ride, that we do need to support them as well, um, and, and working together for an override that it would be my opinion to go together, uh, separate. Um, I don’t feel comfortable asking to take a, a hit here and then to ask ‘em to go on their own. That’s just how I would feel on the trash side, which is obviously another big impact. It’s hard. I mean, I’ve, I’ve done a lot of look for a lot of stuff there. Thank you. Molly. I know you’ve done a lot of studies, talked to other towns. We have talked to the town of Damers who just put this into place. I know that many people have. Um, and by the, when we say we, it’s not me, I’ve just heard these stories, but I, I’d like to thank,

1:02:51 you know, Andrew Petty and the Board of Health for helping us be creative. I know this puts you guys in a tough position as well. Um, and so I, I, one, one really positive thing that I’ve taken from this process is the collaboration that’s happening across this town, across boards, across committees, across departments. And I, and that’s, that gives me hope on moving forward through this, um, and, and hopefully creating a, a solid talent going forward. Have more comments, questions before we open up to the public. No, I, I do hear what, um, Mr. Yeah, Mr. Go. Go ahead, Aaron. Oh, sorry. Did you, do you wanna go first, Moses? Yeah, no, I just want to underscore, uh, you know, Dan’s point about setting up guidelines, uh, for this particular year and for future years around how, uh,

1:03:39 increases are split, uh, between the municipal side and the district side. And, you know, I think that’s something that I think is, that a lot of marble headers talk about and think about. And I think there is a way to do that so that it is, uh, you know, so that we can set up an expectation, uh, year after year on what that split looks like. Okay. So, uh, we have been working on, on kind of guidelines slash policy for doing that. And I, I think that that’s something we will, uh, approach, uh, more formally with the schools, I hope. Uh, and, and I, and it’s, it, it’s absolutely crucial that the, the way in which we split revenue increases or deficits

1:04:29 and, and the way we handle them between the municipality and the schools, you know, has to be viewed as fair by both sides, you know? So I think traditionally what we’ve done, we’ve done a lot of horse trading every year, you know, between what you know, what the school number is. And I think if we can put it down to a more predictable guideline slash policy approach, that that would be very helpful to, to financial stability and managing expectations, you know, year in, year out, uh, when it comes to these, you know, to these two key discretionary, you know, what we would call p and l in the business world, or these two discretionary budgets that, that have completely different decision makers, you know, driving, uh, cost decisions in, in each of the budgets.

1:05:14 So,

1:05:18 Um, I was just gonna add that, you know, um, with the schools will be needing, or they’ll be looking to ask for additional funding for the, when the teacher contracts, uh, for the following, um, fiscal for, for FY 28. Uh, so, you know, I just, again, I think that things have been working really well and collaboratively, uh, between the school committee and, and, and school department administrators as well as the select board and town side. I think it behooves us to collaborate with them on a general override, and it would be unfair to the school department and, and voters to ask them to vote two separate types

1:06:04 of overrides back to back years, not knowing what that would look like the following year. And, um, so I would just, uh, I would, I, I would like to see, you know, as our chair work, um, with the school committee and continue with our superintendent and town administrator and good communication. And, and I’d like to see that continue and, um, you know, present, present some to maybe three types of options for voters, uh, in, in override scenarios. And I would also just like to add that, you know, to Dan, as, as Dan mentioned as, as well, this has been a really difficult my hardest, um, budget season to date on, on, on the board. And, you know, it’s really hard

1:06:49 because our town employees are more than, than line items in a budget. Really. They’re, they’re dedicated public servants. They’re our neighbors, they’re our friends. They co show up to work every day to keep our community safe, functioning, and welcoming. And, you know, this, I just wanna acknowledge that this, this budget be, takes a personal and professional toll, um, for the, for certain members of our, of our staff. And, um, it’s, I just, I deeply regret that we’re in this fiscal reality. And it’s not for a lack of appreciation for the people who are serving the town or the community that we all care about, but it’s really just, um, you know, about where we are, uh, financially as a town.

1:07:36 Great. Thank you. Why don’t we, uh, if everyone’s good here, we’ll open it up to public comment questions. If, uh, if to raise your hand and Do you need me to stand up there or can I, I think it’s okay. It’ll take as close the mic. It’ll pick it up here. That was just a formality to make people feel like they were a microphone. But, Uh, Marlon Current and eight Web, Courtney, so just to hit the, the big numbers, we, Dr. Has not certified free cash. No. Okay. But whatever it is, it’s all going into the budget. Um, not going into stabilization. Did I understand that correctly or no? Yeah, no stabilization. No stabilization. But just to clarify that. So we will carry some free cash forward, correct. Free cash, Yes. But nothing to stabilization, Right. Just so you understand

1:08:22 the difference. Right. We’re not gonna put a hundred percent of free cash into the budget. We will carry. Do you know what the splits gonna be? Not until It’s until served. Okay. All right. Um,

1:08:33 how many, it sounds like you guys did the research on trash. How many communities say on the North Shore have trash fees? What, like, would we be in half one, like half or a quarter or, It’s a pretty extensive list and then there are sort of different flavors of how they structure things, right? So Might be a good question for tomorrow night at for health. Well, I guess you do. Yeah. Okay. We can get you that data too. I mean, I have, I could get it to you, Lee, the list of towns that were surveyed. You have some all No, I, I, I can do the, Hey, um, the, I can’t remember which, uh, group in, in the state department that they had a whole survey after the, that, um, and there’s a return for municipalities

1:09:19 that responded to it. So I have all the data and it breaks down all the services, all of the funding sources. And so, you know, the majority of towns in Massachusetts actually don’t have a transfer station. Right. So we’re kind of one of the lucky ones that that does. And so, um, I can get you sort of the breakdown Okay. Of all of those. But I would say it’s a, there’s a wide variety of, Of, You know, different combinations of funding sources. And so our department in this scenario, we would still be funded partly by property taxes and partly by an annual fee. Okay. And so it would be, you know, certainly the minority of towns in Massachusetts that have, um, curbside service that is funded primarily by property taxes. But I can, I can get you that.

1:10:05 That’s helpful. Thanks. So can you just, I know at the, the state of the town, the, the big headline was the $8.6 million deficit. What are, can you just confirm for me right now what the deficit is? I know it’s gonna change tomorrow with, uh, with the health costs. The timing is, is problematic, but is it, you said something, I just wanna make sure I’m using the right numbers. What is, how short are we for what we, for what? Um, what Scenario A or scenario BI think that would be scenario A, right? Yeah.

1:10:42 7.7. 7.7 7.7 million $736,211. Say it again, sorry. Patrick. 7 7 3 6 2 1. 1 2, 1 12. That says, so this minute, Uh, this minute. And that’s based on 11% in health insurance increase? Yes. Yeah, that’s a blend. Right? Right. Okay. Cool. Blend Rate. Yeah. Um, and so it’ll be a combination of, if we go with scenario B, it’ll be a combination of the schools paying more the trash fees and cuts. And that will make up the 7.7. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? So you hand go first?

1:11:30 Yep. Uh, John, 32 feet. Um, I work in the marine industry. I’m not an accountant. I have no idea I’d, um, at the risk of a gear and cynical, and you had mentioned fairness before, I feel like this sense of responsibility to, uh, you know, wherever the, the, the offices or whatever in the select board, I, I, I’d like there to be a sense of fairness on behalf of the taxpayer. Once again, it cynical, but when you sort of have scenario A is the Hiroshima option, it’s really kind of there just to sell scenario, be let’s all honest.

1:12:17 Okay. The the trash thing. All I can think of is now we have a system in place that’s just gonna get Id, you know, or whatever, you know, we, we’ve opened the door, another massive program that is gonna affect people. So at $250 a piece, you could have people swallow that. But I would also say that in terms of the positions that you considered, and I’m sure a lot of times spent with this, I, I don’t know what else is there. I do know there are some things, and when it was just coincidental, we started off the meeting with this completely superfluous position that I can’t believe that his name considered.

1:13:02 I mean, it is, it, it is political and, and foolish. And I mean, that doesn’t help for Tommy Mon. So I don’t know what else is there. Once again, I’m a cynical guy. Another thing, once again, I work with the, the waterfront. You know, I look at the Harbor Master’s office and we have 10, 15 part-time harbor masters during the season. I’ve worked on the water here for over 40 years. You don’t need 10, 15 people there. Just an example. So, I don’t know, it’s a lot of work trying to find the places to cut or whatever.

1:13:39 I dunno what to say. Thanks. Yeah, no, thank you. I think we’re all frustrated. Appreciate that. I think I saw Sarah first. Fabulous. Okay. Thank you Sir Jordan? Um, on the trash Collection, I’m opposed to it. Okay. They tried to pull this at town meeting 15, 20 years ago. I was like, yeah, people got up. I know some people have made comments that they think people like this pe people didn’t like it. Then. We tried to do this a long time ago. I’m, I’m wondering about, um, I saw an article of maybe I, maybe I misread this. I think I saw an article in the paper about longevity. They were thinking of increasing that benefit. Is that true? Did I see that in the paper? Basically There is, there is a warrant article to make some, uh,

1:14:28 adjustments to the non-union, uh, uh, longevity. Yeah. Okay. I’m, I’m just wondering. We’re adding money when we don’t have money. And the other thing is on the school teachers, the school teachers negotiated and held the town hostage when out on strike 11 days. And we appropriated money that we didn’t have to have a balanced budget. And you think, I’m gonna give the school department more money. I will not vote for this unless there’s two separate articles. I’m not rewarding you doing away with the little people. Like when we did away with the trash collectors years ago, we had people that picked up this trash in town. Four or five trucks and 10 employees were laid off. And, uh, I negotiated on that

1:15:16 with the Barbie unit years ago. Okay. Um, so the little trust, I’m wondering, when Ed Creighton was the fire chief and we were gonna have lay off, we closed this Franklin Street fire station several times when we didn’t have money. Who picked this plan? That public safety has no layoffs. Swamps get went to one fire station 15, 20 years ago. The one on Phillips seats. It’s a beautiful house. I’ve been in it. Um, if we don’t have the money we’re doing away, we’re we’re threatening the senior citizens, again, that are living older. Um, that pe the place is finally being utilized for than, since we had it down on School Street years ago in the old park and rec building. Um, we got a facility that the parking lot’s overflowing half the time it’s,

1:16:02 and I’m concerned it’s not big enough for the, that are going up there. Who, who came up with this plan on cutting the little defensive people? Custodians and the people at the summit? So, so who’s gonna put the people in the ground? Who’s gonna, when I bought a lot up there, it said I have for, uh, here that the town’s gonna do. So you’re, you think you’re just gonna get rid of all those employees? I signed a contract for the town saying you’re taking care of the place. And the other thing I’m wondering about the cemetery is that, um, for the last five years, we haven’t given the cemetery any money. And I read in the paper that the lady making $115,000 a year and there’s no money, it should be a part-time position.

1:16:49 Okay. You have department heads there and you got poor Amy Chu that’s got 20 or 30 employees to worry about. And someone up the cemetery that’s got five or six with no money collecting $115,000, utilize that person doing something else instead of creating No, I know you didn’t increase town employees, but we’ve been cry. We just took the health department and I think it was 92,000 another assistant up the transfer station. I’m not going, I’m gonna be bringing my trash up the transfer station. Don’t come back and tell me now I gotta go up on that rate. ‘cause I think you’ll find out a lot of real marble headers. They don’t like spending money. They like spending money that they feel that they have to spend money.

1:17:36 And that is, um, spent wisely. This is, this isn’t a wise, a wise plan. We, we should have more options that the taxpayers should decide what they wanna pick to dissolve you. You should give them a menu like, I’m going to the Chinese restaurant and I order things. I should be able to pick off the menu on what I want to eliminate. No, I think we’re still working. There’s a lot to, to, to, to, I’m not Happy Your proposal. That was very clear and I appreciate your comments. Thank you. Um, I think that we are still working. We’ll get you next for sure. We’re still working on, on the O’Brien and that will be, we’ll discuss next week and everything. A lot of things are on the table. Um, Just make it fair for all the time,

1:18:22 just single out the little Feedback. I don’t, I I’m, yeah, we can talk about that further. Don’t feel like that’s what we’re doing. Matt Hooks, I know we’re not talking about the override specifically today, but it sounds like this is a conversation you’re gonna be had ongoing in the week before next. Um, I would like to advocate that we are already living under, sort of in an environment of financial austerity today. And I think there are a lot of people, I put myself in this, who actually don’t wanna just figure out how we can sort of provide the funds to scrape by and return some of these positions, but cut some, like what do we have to do to fix this structural deficit for the long term to provide the services? You know, how does Amy have the money

1:19:07 to run the EPW in a way that provides infrastructure that we want and can be proud of? Like, I would like an option here that says, not just can we get back to a level services, but like, how can we expand and improve on the services that we have today? What is that gonna cost? And I think, you know, if we’re gonna have sort of this menu of options, I would like to see an option where we get back to where we were five or six years ago and like, what is that gonna cost? And let’s give people that option as well. Appreciate it. Thanks Matthew. Eric? Hi, uh, dear Um, chair, uh, LY Washington. So Alicia and Thatcher sent us an email late in the day

1:19:52 and ing, but just a correction on the scenario B option. Um, you could correct this going forward. The the staff type model that we had proposed and discussed, the person especially realized that it’s not, not really sustainable in the long term. One person is out sick, shut the down, people earning half and making half their money, half their salary will likely leave. So that’s if it’s not sustain. So we propose even operations through let’s say December 1st, 2026. And then we proposed closing library and then scenario B. Yeah, we got, we got the message. IIII had to hit a point like freeze what we’re doing. I gotta put a presentation together, but you know, we get the message.

1:20:38 Yeah. And, and we know this work going forward. Yeah. So I can I follow up on that? So you’re saying even of the scenario B would, doesn’t have a library. We would close this For good until, okay. So only an override library. Hold on. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. If you come through me, sorry. And, and so yeah, so you can ask my question next. Yeah, sorry. It’s okay. Um, so I would agree with kind of what Dan started to dip. If I went to before, I think you realize what, that this was intentional, how we’ve represented these numbers. There is an intentional misrepresentation of the split of what is going on here. Um, which is very, if you are going to be asking this town,

1:21:26 anybody, whether they’re ProRide and anti override, historically, no matter where you stand to fund more money, you have to be crystal clear and transparent at every step. And that is not what’s been happening at all, and which is a shame. Um, and so just for clarification in the public works area, because there’s a, again, a little more inside baseball going on here where we show a cut that’s then carried down from Townside, that is not a cut, it’s a reassignment of a revenue stream. We are taking it outta the general fund and you’re making it a pay to play, essentially. Um, so you changed the revenue stream to make it ta an additional tax on citizens, which by the way, my understanding is you, you should reach out to the town

1:22:11 of badminton because they’re going through this right now, I believe recently. I don’t know where they’re, they’re vote landed. It, it re is required to go through town meeting barring and town hitting the town charter, which we do not, you are required new fees to go through town meetings. You can fact check that. I know Monday when I said we were, we were not adhering to the bylaw. Turned out I was Right. Um, so the bottom line is you have to clear town meetings with that. It’s a new fee and we don’t have a town charter, but you can reach out to Abington, they’re dealing with it. Right. Can I, could I respond to Sarah? Um, I’d like to finish first. Thank you. Um, so furthermore by, we just got the library in place about a year, year and a half ago. We, we rely on that exclusions in this town. We always have our, our concrete come out and support it.

1:22:58 That exclusion from given, you know, enough information around it, you’re putting that at risk moving move forward because we have a building that worked during a bond in that or however many years ago. It’s a 10, 15, 20 year bond that, that will show up in people’s tax rates. Yet we’re gonna be taking that service away from people effective December 1st, regardless of what option we have here. Maybe if you went with option a’s right away, I’d like to also point out, even during the Great Depression, our library didn’t close in Marblehead in 1931, in the middle of the Great Depression, we had such a reliance on libraries that we actually opened a second branch. And that again, so here we are in a work financial situation in the town of Marblehead, and we’ve based around the Great Depression, at least in the side of public access to, to newspapers, to

1:23:45 internet, to other things like that. So that’s, that’s concerning. When we talk about a 50 50 foot split, this is not a 50 50 split the school. And now I’m not advocating for where the cut should be. I just wanna be clear before that’s put in any and thing moving forward. We, we show a three point, roughly $3.5 million school cut when we take out that trash fee, which is not a cut, it’s a reassigned it to the fee structure. We’re down to a $2.4 million cut in the townside. That means the schools are at being asked to cut 44% more this fiscal year than the town is being asked to cut. I’m not saying we weighing in on whether that’s right or not. That’s not what we continue to do. I’m saying it is, it is misrepresenting, misrepresented here. Um, nowhere in any of these packets, we’re being told

1:24:34 that the big cost drive, the big volatile market right now is health insurance, which I do believe that obviously to be true. Um, however, in all these pages, nowhere is there a line item for that. We’re we’re saying the schools are gonna cut another 1.5 million to cover their portion of the health insurance deficit. But we have to remember the reason why the schools never were given the health insurance is because the schools by national law have line item autonomy, something no other department in municipal T has. So what you’re saying here is we’re gonna give you the hit after the hit, but if there happens to be a surplus through GBA through the year, which there isn’t every line item we know essentially that’s how budgets work as they should. That they don’t get the line item autonomy.

1:25:21 Part of that, again, we have a stabilization fund. A the stabilization fund was to stabilize our budget. I would argue that you might wanna look at what’s the new stabilization fund and then if there’s ever a time to start having those talks about what could that stabilization fund fund bear, this might be it. Because the idea that, and by the way, when we talk about the possibility of overriding 1.4, I think that’s another disingenuous sign item. We have Aaron on defined talking about we probably need something to carry us two, two years. You’re Dan, you’re saying, you know, you wanna partake with the schools. Schools. I can tell you the school would request for an override next year is,

1:26:06 is gonna make this year look like a drop in the bucket. You’re looking at a number post of 14 million, 13, 14 million back in that. Look, if you, if you’re gonna cover yourselves for the school override next year, the deficit for the town side and the school side here in any deficit we have on practical obligations for next year. That’s a big number set. So, uh, on the back of a $250 fee, that again has gas pound meeting and I would fight that, um, which is essentially another tax just to remind you, in 2023, we came within 400 votes of getting an override across the finish line. And that was for two, the average household of about $200. So you’re already taxing people and you’re not even, you’re expecting, I mean,

1:26:52 these are not reasonable expectations. I’m not saying whether you should be able to get it passed. I’m saying looking at the historical data, it is unrealistic for you to think that this plan is going anywhere. Thank you. So I’m gonna correct a few things from, from what you said. One, we have gotten a legal opinion. I’m not gonna rely on advocate. I’m gonna rely, I think that, and again, that I’m, the health department has got a legal opinion from legal on, on, on how we pass these fees and it is gonna be up to them. This is not a select board decision. At the end of the day, they’re an elected board and they stand alone. Also, we are going to share surpluses. Okay. You, you imply that we’re not going to, I’ve made that very clear when I spoke before that any share of surpluses and these line items, which we will break down and we have to get to these things, which is, uh, pension,

1:27:40 um, health insurance, GA bunch of GIC. Anything that comes over on those will go back to the schools. So I don’t want to get that misinformation out there. That is what I said very clearly. We, ‘cause once the budget Fixed, it’ll go in. They will get their section free cash the next year is what I’m saying. Okay. So I wanna clarify those two things because I don’t wanna get that information out there that we’re taking money. And I think I was very clear about that. And when, and I talked up front that I’m not gonna ask to take money from the schools and not give it back to ‘em. So I wanna clarify the trash pad there. That would be a decision made here. Ours would be a reactionary. Okay. We’re not exactly collaborating with this. It, it’s your decision to cut it, your decision only. Okay. But Tom, Not the board of health. Y Yes. The board of Health will react to it.

1:28:26 Define scenarios to help the town. That’s fair. I just wanna be Crystal. I Did not, I did not say that you guys were gonna decide. You guys could decide. That’s Gonna be crystal Clear. Hold on, please. You guys will decide on the fees and the structure if you decide to do that. ‘cause that is your board very clearly. It is our decision on the lineups. Yeah, no question. No one’s disagreeing on that. Okay. And if you guys decide, not decide to not do that, then obviously we all want to work together. Mm-hmm. We want to provide curbside pick up and we, we very clearly have thought about this and know that this is not gonna be, not everyone’s gonna be jumping off down this. Mm-hmm. Yep. Nope. We, we understand for sure. Um, Jordan, if you don’t mind, I’m just gonna let other people speak before we get back and then I’ll let you speak again. Okay. So if you don’t mind just sitting down, was there anybody else who wanted to speak before we go back to repeats? Or Kyle, do we have anyone on line? Okay.

1:29:13 Is anybody else who would like to make a comment or question? Mr. Jordan? I shouldn’t have told you today. Yeah. Oh, I’m sorry. Okay. After Yep. Else. No, go ahead bud. Okay. What I wanna know, I listened to the school department. We got rid of the Gary School, we got rid of the KIN school and I voted to build the, the Bell Brown School and put four or 500 kids in it. And they told me I was gonna save money. That just opened two, two years ago, I think two, three years ago. And now we have less schools. Um, and I’d like to know what it’s costing for the em endless school to sit there. Um, that, you know, you’re trying to save money back.

1:30:00 That’s one thing that should be looking into seriously. Like the Parin school, which been sitting there three, four years. Um, you know, with not a plan. I know you’re working on a plan, but it’s still sitting there. Um, but the other thing I’m wondering about the health insurance. Um, why can’t we negotiate? Um, I believe years ago the electric light only they paid had, uh, 50% that they paid towards the health insurance and the town paid. I know different cities and towns pay different amounts. Maybe we need to tell the town employees instead of, uh, giving them more benefits and increasing the longevity and stuff. Maybe we gotta look at this health insurance and say it’s going out of control and we gotta reno that I negotiated before.

1:30:46 No one wants to do that. But if these costs are going up substantially, the people have to understand that they, they can’t have the town pay 75% of health insurance and then on top of it get a bigger raise that the town can’t afford. Sure. So we need is anyone looking at, we’re just comparing what other cities and towns are doing. I think it work for Mass port, some of the state agencies and they pay a hundred percent of our health insurance. Peabody used to pay more than marveled. I don’t know if that the case Anymore. Hold on one second. Yeah. We have to negotiate those contributions. Yeah. But we need to do, yeah. Let, let answer, push. They have to be negotiated with the unions. We can’t just impose it on. Okay. But like I said, we should not be adding any more benefits when, I mean, it is nice

1:31:33 that you’re doing it and you’re doing it to retain, um, what I saw on the paper on what some of these people are getting paid, uh, from 20 years ago, these department heads and stuff. Um, I really was appalled by it. I I really was appalled by I didn’t realize they got that much money. Every job’s, every job’s important. And you’re not talking about eliminating one department head. It’s all the little people. And that’s all all I’m Looking, thank you again. Um, question a comment, um, question is, if 20% of the people took their crash to the dump, would it, would the fees raised 20% of the rest of the people?

1:32:14 So you’re saying if 20, I think that that’s the, if if 20% opted out. I think it’s a little more complicated than that. I haven’t been involved, but that’s, that’s I Changed With I think that that is a fair general assumption. So two agreement. I think that if you look at other towns such as Danvers who just, who just did this, and I’m not gonna quote, but that I think that they have about a 3% off out. And so that, that is part of the a a work that is gonna have to happen when the, when the fees are set, you’ll have to make some kind of assumption, is my guess. Yeah. Again, this isn’t, there’s some, there’s some trends there. This Yeah. You’re gonna have to make some kind of assumption. I think, and I know I’m always spent some time looking at different optout numbers, but again, damage is at 3%.

1:33:00 Actually you start, they have The transportation. Yeah. Transportation. Um, And elect into the Yeah. There Several companies that have a transfer, Which is concerning for what, Which is concerning for people that Sure. That might not be able to sit for dump and mm-hmm. And increase some and not obviously. Um, and my comment is, you know, with an affinity for and compassion for the blue collar town that I grew up in, and the people that are on a fixed income can’t afford increases. Um, I think we also have to be, you know, for lack of a better analogy, keep an eye on, uh, you know, the short term pennies for the long term dollars.

1:33:47 One example is, um, for the majority of my life, we had a highway department that had enough people to, um, fill in our bottles every fall and maintain our loads probably for the last 20 years. We haven’t had the, the manpower to do that. And now we have a significant capital problem in the town of Ireland. That, that’s just one example on, on capital oversight that can happen when we’re worried about cutting for, you know, with blinders on. Um, it, this is, this is not a surprise, but shocking what we’re, what we’re facing right now. And it’s, and it’s, and it’s far beyond being able to say an easy yes

1:34:32 and an easy no or easy cuts or easy keeps. Um, when you’re talking about $112 million budget, I hope that the select board and all the other elected boards work together come up with, with, uh, with talking points, with, with public, um, public sessions so that people can share ideas, um, go out and talk to as many people as we can in town. Mm-hmm. So that not only are people educated when they get to town meeting a clear sense as to what they’re voting on, because town meetings the legislative body of the town and they’re the ultimate people who vote on the budgets. Thank People. Thank you Jeff. Everybody else,

1:35:21 why don’t we Close this up and maybe take a five minute, 10 minute break, Dan? Yep. Sir. Um, would I be able to ask the moderator a clarifying question, but Sure. Let’s try and see what happens. Okay. I don’t want put you on the spot, but just add, but it it, as long as it, if as long, if you’re not gonna answer it, that’s as long as it’s one that scope of our agenda. Yeah, it is. It is. It, it came up earlier. Just right now, the potential override budgets are two separate articles on the warrant. Can those actually be combined at town meeting? And I’m, I’m thinking in reference to Mr. Villes advisory on number 50 last year where it was

1:36:06 a vote has to be the same as presented at town meeting. And, uh, if, if you’re not ready to answer, that’s fine. That’s, you need to think about I have the ability to split an article. Okay. I don’t believe I have the ability to Combine them. Okay. Okay. So just see. But Mr. Villes, it’s advised, but that doesn’t No, no. I don’t care about advisor. I think we should follow it. I’m not It was, it was, it was, but I think his is the other way. I think that whatever we vote on town meeting, he wanted at the same on the ballot. Correct. Right. Okay. Just wanna make sure we, but but his intent was, and, and I voted for it. I thought it was a good thing. His intent was don’t combine stuff into one ballot question once it’s voted town meeting. Yeah. He wants to be whatever’s voted town meeting to be the same way. The ballot. Yeah. So if Okay. That’s meeting. Yep.

1:36:52 It is, it is your responsibility to Yeah. Break it up or not break it up. Exactly. Yep. All right. Why don’t we, Mr. Chairman? Yes, sir. Oh, Just point of information before we move on, on from the topic. I just, I mean, I think it, I think I understand it, but I just wanted to make sure we have clear consensus on which balanced budget for our staff, um, going forward. I mean, I think I spoke to it and Moses spoke to it, but I just, just for clarification and, and the public, like, I mean d are we, is is there consensus on the board around? I Think we’re both, which way to proceed There at our public hearing? Um, on March’s, Kyle, what’s the date? It March’s? April 6th I think. Is it April 6th? The public hearing?

1:37:37 Public hearing? Well, there’s a public, there’s a, You’ll be voting March 19th. Yeah, thank you. March 19th. I, I mean, I think that, uh, they’re two different ones, so I think that we have consensus on BI can tell you that my, I am on the same page with B at this point. So I think that we should move forward without a formal vote. Um, that the consensus is here until I, I don’t think we’re ready to vote on this until we have exact numbers. No. Yeah. I wasn’t suggesting we need, we didn’t need to vote on it, but I just wanted to make sure that it, we, I i that we actually had a consensus. So, um, the other thing is, you know, um, thinking about override options, which is the next step, I think we should probably provide some direction.

1:38:22 I know that we have done that individually, so, um, you know, and maybe it’s a little bit redundant, but just for this sake of the audience, you know, what are, what are we thinking? Um, you know, ‘cause that’s what’s coming. What will be the next thing presented, presumably, is that right? So I think, you know, we’ve talked about like three different options. Um, or you, uh, Thatcher has, you know, looked at that. We’ve seen it in other communities where you can have, allow for more choice for voters with overrides. And I would just like to express my support for that. And what I would like to see when staff comes back with some override options, you know, is in like the lower, let’s say probably the least expensive of the options would,

1:39:09 would be like a restore override. Not that we would restore every position, but that we would ma bring our service levels back to what we are familiar with. Um, and, and I would also look to move beyond just this fiscal year. ‘cause we have made substantial reductions as we’ve level funded the town for the past, you know, so many years. There’s, that’s, that means we’ve had attrition in staffing and cuts. So I would like a restore type of override budget that, you know, kind of returns our service levels to like where they are, like basic service levels. And then a mid-tier option, which would be some type of a stabilized option I would like

1:39:56 to see us provide in that option. Funding for maintenance, maintenance on all of our town assets. I feel like that is an absolutely thing that we haven’t been funding that we need to fund. Um, and of course, uh, refunding our stabilization fund, which is, um, building, I mean, well we’ve had years where we haven’t funded it, so it’s not really an option. Uh, there’s not that, if there’s not, you know, there’s a quarter million dollars at this point in there. It’s not something that really, we also wanna maintain it to keep our bond rating, but I do, uh, wanna, want to see us reinvesting in the stabilization fund and that mid-tier option as well

1:40:41 as some other recommendations, whatever the staff has recommended. And then for a more top tier option, I would like to see capital planning, annual capital planning funded in that, um, as well. And, you know, um, some other suggestions around what it would look like to improve services around here, improve, um, experiences for, for residents. Yeah. If I could jump in as well, uh, Mr. Chair. Um, I agree, you know, completely with what Aaron is saying here in terms of providing a menu of options, I think that makes sense. And I think the, you know, marble headers really wanna understand what that restorative override looks like because it’s so tied to the proposed cuts that we have,

1:41:30 you know, that we have in our, you know, that, that we’re looking at right now. Uh, that’s point number one. Point number two, uh, you know, I’m not really on board yet with railroading on a scenario B uh, strategy. Um, I’m just, uh, wondering if we can also have kind of that option at town meeting. Now I understand there’s some mechanical issues, you know, kind of around, you know, making that, uh, part of a choice that the town has between scenario A and scenario B. Um, because I, you know, I I I’m just concerned that, you know, that the fee-based trash may, uh, you know, may impact people, uh, in terms of their willingness to show up and, and,

1:42:16 and support overrides that we may propose on a, uh, may propose on a menu basis. So, but just, you know, for further discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, clearly we’ve got more and, and I think that that will come up, uh, during different override proposals that you bring up next week as well. Week of the week after. Uh, I think we’ve got next week because we were supposed to, we postponed our last week to this week, so we’re gonna go back to back here. Um, we’ll give a few more questions. Jack, I had your hand first. So, um, fi just to let everybody know that the finance committee usually meets three Mondays in a row to review departmental budgets on Monday. They voted to, um, have a Saturday meeting on March 28th mm-hmm.

1:43:02 Which is, um, the opportunity for the departments to, to present their budgets that they already know about, but for the finance committee, for their, um, for their vote on recommendation or not. Um, and it’s probably a good sidebar to note that the finance committee is, uh, is independent of each department. Mm-hmm. Um, they really act as the auditors for town meeting. Um, and we couldn’t ask for a better finance committee to who is neutral and who are all neutral and, um, and play pivotal role in this process. Thank you. One more question. Uh, two part. So scenario A is still a possibility. Uh,

1:43:51 It sounded like, from what I heard, that, uh, most people on the select board support scenario B and that, uh, we, one person wants to keep it open for discussion. Okay. And the second half is for the Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we still need one. Yeah, we want more information. But it sounds like you have heavy leaning or it’s b if you wanna, And then that, so after next week, you will unveil three override scenarios? I guess so, yeah. Okay. Next Wednesday Night. Next Wednesday night, 7:00 PM Yep. I forgot, we skipped a week. Oh, you’ll be here. We’ll, yeah, have to zoom in. Yeah. Okay. We’ll figure that out. I think captain one’s gonna be sworn in. Yep. Okay. So let’s, uh, we’re gonna, let’s take a 10 minute break

1:44:37 so people do not wanna stay are welcome to leave. So we will meet back at eight o’clock.

1:55:12 Aaron, I see you’re still there. It looks like maybe Moses went to the pool, but we still have an I would like back. Oh, Moses is back from the pool. Perfect. Welcome back. Looks like you just went for a little swim. Okay. So I’m gonna, are you ready, Patrick? Yeah. Cool. We’re good. So I’m gonna, this is a continuation of public hearing on the revocation of the liquor license at one Atlantic Ave. Mr. Lewis, if you come up to the table, good evening. I, this is Luis. What, what’s that piece of paper you got with the Signatures on it? Oh, so the signatures are almost everybody. I need to have their liquor license released to me. Okay. Um, everybody is good from what I understand. Um, I was trying to get the last two signatures today.

1:55:58 I just couldn’t crack down the people. So it looks like we need fire prevention and water and sewer. You have, But everything else is, everything is all set as far as they’re concerned. Finals on water, plumbing, building, and health. Is that confirmed? Okay. So these two, fire prevention and water and sewer. Um, great progress. So good, good to, good to see you back here with these. Um, and good for, is it DD construction for getting it’s done in these times? Um, my guess is that fire prevention will be pretty cooperative and getting in there when you want to. And Andy as well. So what I would recommend is that we continue, um, these seem like, unless you guys disagree,

1:56:43 these seem like clerical at this point that the major threshold has happened. I would recommend that we continue the public hearing to the, our first meeting in April. Yeah. And come back here and we can, if I plan to be open before then, But then you come back and we high five you. Okay? Yep. I mean, you can open, I mean, you can open without it, even if we, well talk me, am I missing something on the procedure? Well, option could be to close it and board pending final signatures, But then we’d have to reopen if we wanted to and post all the public notices. Correct. I mean, A public hearing,

1:57:23 We can release the license. It’s okay. So once you have sign off, you’re gonna release the license, we’d have you back and close the public hearing. Is that correct? Is that what you would recommend?

1:57:34 But we have water and so we still get two sign offs. Yeah. I mean, here’s the deal. I feel you, I think what I’m hearing from you is you feel pretty confident that at this point we passed the thresholds and unless anyone disagrees, um, you can’t open, but we can, I I don’t think that we would’ve held off a liquor license or provoked it without having fire. We just wouldn’t have reissued A Sign on. Okay.

1:58:02 Clerically the next meeting. Yes, sir. He’ll have met all of the requirements. Um, he just would have to close. Yeah, I plan on turning this in tomorrow morning as soon as I get the signatures. Just clarify for me. It’s, so you’re saying that we should not con you, you would recommend not continuing it? I mean, it’s fine. I wanna make sure we’re doing this procedurally correctly. I, there, there’s a couple tiny, tiny mind punch that finish line. Okay. Um, it is, I don’t know. I can’t see how, So I’m gonna say this. We’ve seen you so much, Mr. Lewis, who might miss you. Have you come back. Thank you. Why don’t we, why don’t we put it off, if you don’t mind coming in. Let’s get it finally signed off.

1:58:47 I just hate to close this public hearing, and if we wanted to do it, we’re starting all over. Let’s, let’s, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t, it doesn’t prevent him from opening. Right. So you understand once you get these signed off on I get you’re going, going, then you’re good. Yeah. Because this hearing is about revoking. This is about revoking. So what, what I’m gonna recommend is that you get your sign-offs. What’s that? Okay. So you will get your signoffs, you can open Yeah, you can open before. You would then come back to our first meeting in, in April. And we will close this public hearing and hopefully the only time we see is to come by wine and cheese. Yeah. Okay. So if I could have a motion to continue the public hearing to what’s our first one in April to, it looks like April tax day April 15th.

1:59:33 Is that right? Correct. Or second notice. Sorry. April 8th. Sorry. April 8th. Okay. So if I could have a motion to continue the public hearing to April 8th at 7:00 PM So moved you a second. Second cast. Be poll, uh, Ms. Noonan in favor? Sure. In favor, listen. In favor? In favor. I’m in Ms, I’m in favor as well. Thank you. Congratulations on the good work. Thank you. Hopefully congratulations. You come buy something to meet for. Yep. Absolutely. Cool. Special level. All right. Thank you. Not over $50.

2:00:12 All right, let’s move on to number four. Municipal energy reduction plan. Mr. Casey. Come on.

2:00:22 Well, how Are you? Thank you for waiting. Yeah,

2:00:26 I’m sorry. Put that button. Yeah. Uh, my name is Logan. I’m the sustainability coordinator for the town. Coming back to the select board tonight, um, to discuss the municipal energy plan, uh, which I believe I came to you all in November to initially discuss and kind of give an overview of, um, I have in front of you tonight. I, I believe I sent a memo and the, the final plan as well, too. Two, bring another executive summary of the plan. Um, the plan is a, includes a comprehensive energy baseline of 25 energy intensive.

2:01:07 Those are 28, uh, water and all 100.

2:01:15 Um, taking that inventory. It then creates a set of, uh, recommendations for energy reduction strategies and ways we can kind of implement those projects, um, with the goal of saving energy, um, that we’re spending to heat and cool our buildings. Um, and in the long term, this will reduce our cost for utilities. It’s a mix of one to three year solutions, as well as longer term, five to 10 year solutions. Um, this, uh, project kind of came about because of the program, um, through the Department of Energy Resources, uh, one te to become a green community, um, which becoming a green community was also a listed goal

2:02:00 as part of Marble Head’s net zero by 2040 action plan. Um, so we worked with Power Options, got this plan developed, um, to, uh, the, the minimum, uh, goal we had to produce with this plan was a proposed energy reduction by 20% over a five year period. Um, but, uh, the consultants with us were able to produce a plan that went above and beyond and, uh, gave us projects that if we fully implemented, we could reduce our total energy use by about 45% a year throughout our municipal. Um, so that is pretty much the overview. The, uh, in the final, um, they don’t really defer. There were, um, some minor grammatical and mathematical kind of correction data,

2:02:46 but it’s relatively unchanged since you kind of last saw it. Um, and the requested action that I have adopt this plan, um, this would be the, the final kind of criteria on step that the select board, um, would individually need to take, uh, to get us ready to apply to become community. Um, as was kind of mentioned in some earlier public comments as well too, uh, there is one final step because we do have a municipal light plant, um, department here. Uh, they would also have to adopt a renewable energy charge, which is kind of a separate boat from tonight. But I just wanted, so, um, yeah. But, uh, if there,

2:03:33 Can we mute whoever’s on there? I don’t know if it’s Moses or somebody. Um, my first, let’s make a quick comment. I think great work on this. I know it’s, it’s impressive. I think whether or not municipal life proves the fee increase, I think this is a great document to have mm-hmm. And a great policy to move forward with. I think we’ve had discussions that we also, um, would not, you know, it’s up to them, but I would not recommend adopting that employee do become compliant, and then they can be a discussion with three A. Um, I I’m talking about municipal light, you looking at for municipal light, putting voting on them, doing through their fee change. I think that this is a, a great thing to move forward with. I know it’s most of our recommendations, but there are, um, orders around them as well.

2:04:21 Um, and so I would be in favor. Yeah. Yeah. So what I saw in here, they, you know, the changes would have to be economically feasible mm-hmm.

2:04:32 Solution, um, uh, programmable firm stats and stuff like that. And it’s, you might do as a, a homeowners, that was number one. And as far as the fee and electric flight is, I just want to insulate myself. So that’s, in my opinions, their business. It’s not a select board decision. It’s one thing I learned on the charter committee is, um, people don’t want the select board telling other electricians what to do or not to do. So, um, but yeah, when I read through it, it was, um, you know, you can come up with common sense ways to sit, really save money. Mm-hmm. Uh, so yeah. So that’s what I saw. Mark, do you have any comments or, Yeah, no, I mean, not, Or Moses, any comments?

2:05:18 Yeah, I, I, look, I really just, you know, I, I agree with, uh, my colleague, uh, Mr. Zis on this. I think as long as there’s, uh, if there’s ways to find, uh, energy efficiencies and cost cuts and, you know, making sure that they’re economically, uh, feasible and justifiable, then this is really, you know, uh, really a good thing. So, uh, yeah. I’m, I’m, I’m in support of what you’re doing and, uh, and good job, Logan. Thank you. A any other comments? I second. Okay. Um, Did I get a, a motion to approve the missile energy reduction plan as presented? So moved. I a second. Second. Uh, this will be polled. Uh, Ms. Noonan in favor, Mr. Grade.

2:06:08 Mr. Grader might have lost him. We excuse May. No. Sorry about that. I was, I muted myself again. In favor, Ms. Singer? In favor, Mr. In favor. And Mr. Fox is in favor. Thank you. Logan P Thank you very much. Appreciate it. How do you feel both, since we’re meeting next week, doing your 10 administrator update? That way it can be even more. I think I be even more. Yeah. Excellent. Um, so moving to donation of town number six, the Mariner as, um, you wanna, the Mariner supports Marwood COA and submitted checks the Marwood COA on aging as a donation for $5,000. This donation amount is specifically discussed,

2:06:53 the open public meeting presentation. The Mariner Marble public likes to sponsor, donate to the Marblehead COY Pargo section of the bocce court. Please feel free to contact, contact us. It is very, you wanna come on up? Oh, thank you.

2:07:09 Come on up. Appreciate. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for waiting. Oh, You’re welcome. Do you wanna, I took a little bit of your, I, I, yeah. That, that wasn’t you. I took a little bit, but if you wanna give us a little more. Sure. So, um, the architect, um, his company who designed VI Park, which I think most of you have seen, it’s absolutely beautiful. Um, had a presentation about, um, naming rights. Um, and it was an open meeting. And, um, Andrew Gillis is on our board. He attended the meeting and he loved the idea we could use the money in a special account for maintenance for the most part. And, um, that’s about it. So. Great.

2:07:57 We’re hoping we can cash it. Great. I this from you. I promise. So. Well, I can’t promise that I, I’m, I’m not gonna vote against it. Motion to, could I get a motion to accept the a gift to the town? A donation amount of 5,000 of the Mariner Mar to be used for the council. Eight. Second. Second. Second. Okay. Uh, Mr. Grader in favor? Ms. Newan In favor? Position in favor? Ms. Singer? Mr. Fox? In favor. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry to me two weeks. No, that’s okay. Would’ve been hearing. Yeah. Uh, next we have a proclamation. Oh, sorry. We have connections program. Sorry, I’m moving too.

2:08:42 So get to the right one. This is a that you wanna tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, So we might, um, we may, and, and yeah. And, and Mr. Grayer was present. Um, their program, the, uh, support affordable housing, uh, the Connections Program Inc. Um, basically they’ve uh, been an organization for 25 years. They’re sort of closing it down and residual funds. And so they split their remaining bound, um, uh, between, uh, for the town to donate to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund for a thousand dollars. Great. Well thank you to Lou and his, his group.

2:09:29 That’s great. It’s a connections program. Um, if I could have a motion to accept as a gift to the town donation amount of $1,000 from Connections Program Inc. To be deposited in affordable housing account. So moved. I, Uh, Mr. In Favor? Mr. Uh, Mr. Zis? In favor. Ms. Noonan In favor. Favor? In favor. Favor as well. We have, um, under the Make A Wish Foundation, um, to support for J’S Wish. Um, I don’t know much of this we should read. Happy to talk a little bit about this. Um, jj, um, Jackson, jj,

2:10:16 he wishes to be a superhero. And, um, he is a loving 4-year-old who’s obsessed with superheroes, specifically Spider-Man. Me too. And when JJ is going through treatments at the hospital, he always wears his superhero shirt, which helps give him strength to fight against his critical illness. Just like a superhero idols, his wish is to be a superhero himself. So the community ask here is for JJs, which day is to give him the opportunity to start on his own superhero Rescue Mission. Mission complete with his own superhero, alter ego and costume. Super. Jj, we want to get his local marble and community involved. The vision includes a scavenger hunt around town. We can solve crimes at different local businesses. Uh, thinking about stopping robberies. Super JJ will do that,

2:11:01 helping kidnap victims escape capture and more. And they are looking for businesses in Marvel to host to be key locations in his crime solving superhero day. And that is being planned for the 29th, um, with a few training days for super jj. So that seems like a great day. Um, and we do have the, a letter from the Make-A-Wish Coordinator for make, um, Maddie asking that they have asking us to declare, uh, March 29th. So if we could have a motion to declare March 29th, 2026, superhero Day in the town of Marmite, in honor of super JJ in partnership with local businesses and Make-A-Wish Foundation

2:11:46 Second. Um, singer. Singer In favor, Mr. Zis. And in favor, Mr. Greater In favor. Love it. That was very superhero of you, Ms. Nunan In favor. Favor as well. Thank you. To Make A Wish Foundation. And j next up we have a reserve fund transfer voucher, if you wanna give a description. Yeah. So anticipation of the time meeting. Um, we want to improve both the audio and visual or the, the large room. Uh, I thought we did a really great job last year on the fly this year. We’re planning ahead now that we’re using the Fieldhouse. So, um, and it is not an anticipated fence last year when we were building the budget,

2:12:32 so we’re gonna ask, uh, uh, transfer from the Reserve Fund through the Fin Comm. So, So this is coming through the Fin comm reserve fund? Yeah. Okay. Not the, okay. Um, and is this is just for the screen or for the, for both. For both. Okay. It’s gonna be, yeah, audio equipment to make the sound much better. Okay. And a much better, uh, Screen. And will that be used for other events? And so, Um, well this is specific to town meeting. This is the same systems the schools use for graduation. Okay. So that’s we with the schools.

2:13:08 Questions, comments? I did. Are there any other open issues with, um, town meeting coming up in the, uh, use of the field house or No, we’ve coordinated with the schools, um, a lot more time to plan ahead, you think? Yeah. So yeah. Great. I could have a motion to authorize the town clerk to appear before the finance made to request the transfer of sum of $53,460 and Reserve fund in accordance with chapter 40, section six of the Massachusetts General Laws. So moved. Second. Beautiful. Uh, let’s go with Mr. Resist and Mr. Greater In favor. Tune in In favor? Sure. In favor. And I’m in favor as well.

2:13:55 We have some consent agenda items. Um, we get to a motion to approve the following consent agenda items, the minutes of January 8th, 2026, February 9th, 2026, and February 11th, 2026. Also, the Lynch van loo, YMCA hill to Harbor 5K and 10 K Road roadway race, Sunday, May 17th, 2026, 9:00 AM 9:00 AM subject to the usual rules, regulations, and fees, approval from fire employees. Receipt of requires certific of liability and police details as needed. No permanent markings are allowed in the public way, and all temporary markings must be removed at the conclusion of event Avid Hall Marble Art Festival of Arts Friday, may, May 29th, 2026, subject to the usual rules, regulation fees, and receipt of Certificate of insurance, and declare the following items as surplus

2:14:42 and no longer needed municipal purpose so that it may be disposed of in accordance to the town’s policy on surplus equipment as one desk chair at Abbott Hall, do I have a motion? So moved. Second. All right. Mr. In Favor? Mr. Newan? In favor, Mr. Greater in Favor, Mr. Sen in favor, and I’m in favor as well. We have a request from Theresa Collins at 2 9 2 Pleasant Street. I think we did this last year as well to request that they want, they want once again, make a proclamation for the 2026 motorcycle safety awareness period, which runs from March 22nd to April 30th.

2:15:30 Um, the year has only three. This, the 2026 year has only 310 registered motorcycles mar down from three 15 last year. And the proclamation would be for the benefit of those resident bikers, riders and owners, uh, if we get, have a motion to prepare a proclamation in honor of that. All right, you right on it. Second, uh, Ms. Singer in favor, Mr. Greater In favor,

2:16:00 Ms. Newan? Oh, in favor? Uh, Mr. Is this in, in favor? And I’m in favor as well? Uh, we have some contracts to discuss as well that you wanna walk us through. Yeah. Um, first one is, uh, software for the fire department. The, um, uh, fire and lake safety compliance software. Uh, the cost actually is born by the folks being invested businesses, you said. Okay. But it’s a contract for the use of that side. Okay. And it looks like we also have for Riverhead Beach recreational activities. Yes. Oh yeah. Just go through all of ‘em. Yeah. So River Beach, it’s a license. Yeah. Um, for the use,

2:16:45 um, the, um,

2:16:50 What Stand up. Stand Up. Okay. And it looks like the vendor will pay the town. Yeah. And it looks, I’m missing in mind a Village Street contract Bridge. Okay. I don’t have that in here. So let’s do these two and then you’re gonna come up and, and talk about Go Street. I don’t have that in my folder, so if I could have a motion. Let’s do these two and then we’ll move on to the Village Street Bridge. Good. Thank number three. I don’t have it. Does anyone else have it? Okay. I just don’t have it. So if I could have a motion to approve contract 26 dash five two for compliance software between the town and Brier LP and authorized chair to sign the contract on behalf of the board. Second, second. Second. While you, Mr. Greater. In favor?

2:17:40 In favor? You flexa In favor, Jim? In favor. And I’m in favor. We could also have a motion to approve the license agreement 26 s five free for the operation of water based activities between the town and Sub East,

2:17:58 the board motion. Please shall move. All right. Happy. All right. Last you for a minute. All right, Ms. Sanger, I’m back. All you back. Are you in favor? Mr. Sison? In favor. All right, Mr. Grader, in favor, tune in In favor? Favor. We are just, Maggie, you want come up and talk to us and then we can just go We’ll, we’ll let you, we’ll, and you can do it all. You can even make a motion. You can do it all while you’re in. Oh, okay. Hi Maggie. Happy Whatever day, week it is. Wednesday. Yeah, I’m here about the Village Street Bridge. So this is change order three for our Village Street Bridge contract. Um, that has already been submitted to the state for 25% design. So this change, um, is, is due

2:18:45 to some additional alignments that we had to, to evaluate for the pedestrian access trail ramp. We go back and forth what we call it, but from Village Street down to the trail itself. Yeah. Um, we have a couple, um, site constraints there. Um, there’s some utility services. There’s an adjacent yard that’s, um, managed by the Water and Sewer Commission. Um, there are a lot of really exciting, um, students that leave and go pretty quickly down it. So when we were starting to look at this, um, it was, there was, you have to have a certain slope. So it’s about eight. It’s 8%, and you have to have level landings every, I think it’s 50 feet, 50 or a hundred feet. Um, so instead of having a zigzag trail, we felt it was really important to have more

2:19:31 of a smooth alignment to get down from Village Street itself down to the trail. And so we had to do a little bit more iterations. And so this change order is accommodating those design iterations. Is there a cost associated with it? It’s $55,000 and we, um, have already gotten the funding approved through chapter 90. So we have the letter from state. Okay, great. We’re just sending contracts and the funding comes. Yep. Sorry. Contract. I’m associated with that. Um, This is an old one. So Chad, do we contracts number or you okay with just doing a change order? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Between Greenman. Okay. Perfect. Yeah. All right. So if I can have a motion for change order number three, between the town of Marblehead and Greenman Peterson, Inc. For the Bridge replacement Village Street, uh,

2:20:17 by increasing the dollar amount by $55,000. And extend the date for the contract. Perform number 31st. 2026. So, vote Yes. Uh, Mr. Vincent. In favor, Mr. Nun? In favor? In favor. And I’m in favor as well. Thank you, max. Thank you. Thanks for sticking around. Appreciate it. We have liquor license. If I’ve got a motion to approve the following, one day liquor licenses from Torian presents Abbott Hall. November 14th, 2026, 6:00 PM to 10:30 PM Beer wine only. Temple Emanuel. April 30th, 2026. 6:30 PM to nine 30 Marblehead Festival of Arts.

2:21:03 ALS is gonna be at Abbott Hall, May 29th, five to 7:00 PM beer, wine only, subject to the following conditions. Delivery of and receipt by the licensing authority of required fee, $50 each delivery of and receipt by the ING authority of proof that the alcohol will be purchased from an authorized source. Proof that the applicant can receive proper delivery, provide proper storage and dispose of all alcohol beverages purchased all accordance with requirements of GL. Chapter 1 38. Liquor liability insurance required for Abbot Hall. No alcohol is allowed to be stored on premises overnight. Also at Abbott Hall and alcohol, be purchased from craft seaboard Merrimack Valley cap’s importing and distributing dis distributing company, our Netti and bent water brewing.

2:21:49 Do I have a motion for that? So moved. Second ca Does this in favor, Ms. Sand? In favor, Ms. Newman? In favor? In favor? In favor. Uh, any select board announcements? Yes. At all? Doesn’t sound like it. If I could have a motion to adjourn. I moved. Second, uh, Mr. Zis And in favor, Mr. Grayer? In favor?

2:22:20 In favor? In favor. And I’m in favor. Thank you all for in. Have a good night. Good night everybody.