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Planning Board Meeting 08 19 2026

Video

I'm hoping Tammy will be back.
You guys are good. All right. So, we're
going to do a work session first thing
tonight and then we're going to go into
our regular meeting. So, we'll do the
pledge and updates and everything.
[clears throat] I want to try and get as
much out of uh the hour that we have
with the joint meeting group as we can.
So, we're doing a joint meeting this
evening um with the planning board,
members of the trustees of the trust
fund, and members of the finance and
audit committee. And we have uh just an
open meeting. So, um
we might as well do who's here. So,
Diane Nisley
>> here,
>> Aaron Bertram
>> here.
>> Tammy Rory
>> here. Daily present. Josh Mahon
>> Bruce Rutsa
>> Stephanie Stubach finance advisory
committee.
>> Thanks, Alan. You want to weigh in?
>> Okay. And will you introduce yourself?
>> Oh, hi. I'm Janette Bach is just
resident of the town. Perfect.
>> Jeff Carter, one of the trustees,
trustee.
>> Yeah. Lovely to have everybody um for
the dialogue on the capital improvement
program. So, I did um a short PowerPoint
just to keep us kind of on track and and
do an overview of the whole process as a
whole. So, I'm going to let me share a
screen.
How we doing? Excellent. Okay.
So, the First thing I wanted to start
off is is kind of how does um how does
the cap where does the capital
improvement plan fit in the in the
overall organization of the town. So it
it actually deres from the master plan.
So the first thing you do is set um the
master plan which is should be updated
every 10 years and we actually uh did
the sign off on that in January of this
year. So now the thing would be to flow
down into the capital improvement plan
which is one of the big things that we
need to do. Did you put that in
presentation mode?
>> Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I'm sorry.
>> You're testing the prescription.
>> No, I didn't mean to.
>> Not my intention. Let me get just move
the teams out of the way.
[clears throat]
>> All right, there we go.
>> Thank you very much.
>> No problem. Um, [clears throat]
so the capital improvement plan takes
the elements of the master plan and
says, "What do we have on our list, our
hot list of things to do?" Um, so it
lays out capital projects or things that
are exceeding approximately $10,000 and
says, "How are we going to finance these
things? Do we finance them at once? How
do we prioritize, etc., etc." So it the
master plan sets kind of a direction
that we want to head. And then the
capital improvement plan is more
strategic about how are we going to get
there. Uh it looks at future
requirements rather than trying to to
deal with things as they come. Now we
can't we can't avoid occasionally things
like the septic system failing for the
town. We need to replace that and we we
do that as best we can, but there are
things that we do know that we're going
to need to do.
It allows us to try to level out some of
the tax uh the tax implications and try
to um stagger things so that we have a
steady tax rate instead of having things
go up and down. Some of this is going to
be based on the culture of the town. Uh
the town of Sutton, they pay for
everything as they do it. So they built
a new town uh safety complex and it cost
them $2 million. They paid for it over
two years, literally everything during
that two-year period. That's the culture
of that town. They don't want to finance
anything. The town of Nashville, on the
other hand, if they built a new fire
station, they would probably bond it.
So, what is what is how does our town
want to approach things? So that's we're
going to end with some of that
discussion because I think these three
groups um together really can get a read
on what's going on in town and maybe
different scenarios that we want to
explore.
All right. So what does it take to run a
town?
Um,
one of the things that's interesting is
we don't have a ton of things on our
capital improvement plan or program that
are um that are new and exciting. A lot
of them are things that it just takes to
run the town. Um, you're okay, Tammy.
>> I was going to shut this light off
because there's
>> I think you have to get them all. You
It's fine. You can just turn them off
there.
>> Oh, here. I'll do this one.
>> Yeah, that one needs There we go.
>> All right.
>> So, we have not built
>> a a ton of uh warm and fuzzies into
this. A lot of it is what does it take
to run a town? So, at a fundamental
level, I thought I would start off with
kind of saying what what does it take to
run a town? So, from an equipment
perspective, not necessarily people and
services, that's part of the operating
budget, but what um what do we need? And
so for this town, we have four fire
vehicles that are big trucks. So your
your tankers, your uh firefighter type
of things, your uh engines, and then
there's a rescue vehicle. There are also
three vehicles that are uh three
vehicles and a brush truck that are for
the chief, code enforcement officer,
towing some of the trailers, and then a
brush truck if they have to go into the
woods if you would. Um, fire also has an
equipment b uh a line that looks at the
cost of air packs and air bottles, fire
suits, their fire chemical suppression
equipment and their hydraulic tools for
things like getting people out of
crashes and things like that.
For the police, the big four things we
have that are in capital are for
cruisers.
All the EMS services, fire, police, um
DPW, and EMS all have radios.
>> How does the um antenna upgrade that got
voted down last year impact any of this?
Because is that going to or you know, if
you're looking to replace radios, are
they all going to be compatible? I'm
surprised that why wouldn't you roll
that antenna upgrade into this list if
it was critical for remote sections of
the town to communicate effectively
within the services?
>> Yeah, I'm I'm interested in that topic
because it you would think even though
people may have different bands, we
might want to just have one set of
radios that could go to anybody and then
they could just use a different
frequency or something. I don't have the
details on that yet, but I do know that
um there is a some restrictions on where
people can get signals and that tower
new tower would help. The emergency
management director has proposed that
that go to warrant again next year. So,
for good or bad, that that is kind of
what's already on this the list of stuff
I sent to you guys.
>> Okay. So, I'm just is it are there any
assumptions on whether that gets
upgraded or not? whether there's going
to be any compatibility issues or
>> um
not yet,
but hold that thought because we're
going to need some we're going to need
some additional understanding and I
think there's some places that the
finance and audit and the planning board
at a minimum for this group are going to
want some of the answers to that. Um, it
never seems to be as easy as it seems
and and that's part of the good the good
thing about doing this is that you get
to learn so much about the town and how
it works by getting under the hood of
the dollars and cents. So, um, and the
the emergency management director has
some ideas. I don't know how far he's
gotten I don't think he's gotten out of
the conceptual stage yet, but it is
certainly something that we can bring
forward.
>> Thank you.
>> Yep.
>> Just so everyone knows from
capital reserve fund perspective.
We do there is a there are nine funds
and each one has a specific purpose
that's approved by Warren. Fire
department does have one for radios. The
police department has one for cruisers
including
equipping the cruiser which would be
radios include radios but there's
nothing currently for EMS or any other
departments to cover.
it may make sense to
create a warrant article that covers
radios across the town
>> uh rather than each department.
>> And the emergency management director is
that's part of his proposal. And the
good news is there are incar radios, but
then there's also the radios that people
carry. Um and some of those were um
helped at through ARPA. So some of the
things that were really going out of
spec to be compatible with any system uh
were updated during the RP years. So all
right um one of the things I want to let
you know is when the life cycle is up
here on the right hand side of this
table um we ran the um the a chat GPT
query and asked what are this the life
cycle standards for each of the
following equipment. So trucks or fire
trucks or dump trucks or whatever
um through New Hampshire in towns that
are 5 to 7,000 people and then we put a
list of towns in and it gave us more
than that but it gave us a long list and
these were pretty consistent across the
board. I was surprised that there was
very little variation across the board.
It doesn't mean that um that those are
hard and fast. We may get more years out
of some of this which you'll for the
police it's a fiveyear life cycle. We
have taken some of our vehicles to six
years and during during the pandemic we
we took them to seven. Um you're
starting to lose some of your
functionality beyond that because those
when they come out of the five-year
rotation they become either a duty car
or the chief's car or something like
that. Similar to the radios, I would
love to understand more how we could
make vehicles more cross compatible
across departments within the town. A a
discussion for sometime over a bottle of
beer if we had a bar in town and I don't
drink. So, um or at least not beer. Um
>> we actually have a boat. I didn't think
we had a boat.
>> We do have a boat. The boat was um the
fund for the boat I believe was through
the fire association. I think they
donated the boat, but don't hold me to
that. If Cody was here, he would know.
>> Okay, so um that's fire. Um
Huh. I'm missing a page here.
Sorry. Um we also do
fire. Um, we also do have I'm missing
the dump truck um sheet, but there's a
whole sheet on uh it takes like four
dump trucks, one grader, one loader, um
one roadside mowing device, one sidewalk
plow, one forklift. That's what it takes
to run the town. And I'll add that in
when we post this um when we post this,
I'll add that slide in.
Um where we don't have a ton of
information yet is on all the town
buildings and what work they're going to
need when. Uh that that building
committee is still pending. Um and so
we're we're going to have to kind of
wait, but we do have at least what the
priorities are for the next three years
as far as where um Peter sees the most
need in the town.
Recreation wise, we do have the town
does have uh tennis and pickleball
courts, a pool, a basketball court,
softball baseball fields, playground
equipment, playground pool and pool
fencing and soccer fields. Um in the
future, the recreation department and
this is where up until now everything
has kind of been what does it take to
maintain our standard of living? What
does it take to just kind of keep the
town not even grow it, just keep it
where it is? This would be something
that would be the future that people
have had on their wish list for a number
of years. The land for the soccer fields
was donated. It has not been developed.
Um the pavilion has been conceptual for
a while. Um and walking paths is part of
that master plan. People want more spots
they can actually go to walk without
being on a major road. So any questions
on what does it take to run a town?
All right. So, that's kind of where we
started. Uh, the tool that we use is
called clear gov um to put all of these
project plans into. And once we have
everything in there and we're solid,
we'll be able to do different scenarios.
And I'll talk through maybe an example
or two of what the scenarios are once we
get into actually developing for formal
recommendations.
Currently,
um, it's only myself that's been putting
stuff in there. a few of the department
heads are not intimidated by um
technology so they are willing to put
stuff in and I'm looking to expand the
people we can let all the department
heads input their own data and then we
can as editors look at it at a holistic
level okay
so let's put up the um the sheets that
we mocked up just for this meeting as a
starting point
um and I'm just going to put up the
10ear sheet sheet. Um, so
there's a a sheet that has 2025 and 2026
so that we can look at kind of where we
had been spending money. And then this
one just looks at uh what are the
expenses over uh the next short term.
And I'm going to try and get this all on
one page. We'll see if we can do it or
not. We're pretty close.
Okay.
So what we did here is this is just an
indication of where things are for each
group. So DPW is first and I'm not going
to go through every line, but I tried to
keep the wording consistent so that you
can see it's DPW greater DPW dump truck
dump truck loader dump truck dump truck.
Okay, so I tried to keep the wording
consistent and then to prioritize it by
cost, the costs that were going to be
incurred, the highest ones at the top
and then going down.
so and then the years where the the
department head was anticipating that
these would go is also on here.
So, you can see if we look at the DPW,
um, there's some pretty big costs in
here.
the costs for 2026, I believe, is that
2026?
2027 is about 121,000.
And Peter's double checking these
numbers.
>> I saw that communication power equipment
on the list.
>> Yeah. Under under the next next group.
Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> So, one of the things that's interesting
is these numbers are are pretty high.
So, we're going to talk about how do you
try to get this leveled out and this is
one department. When you start stacking
them all, what does our bottom line look
like across all departments over years?
The numbers get pretty big. So, that's
uh DPW.
And the next one is EMS. So, this is
where we can see that the cost for that
tower has gone from 180 to about
$200,000.
Um and then you can see that there is a
conceptual line line 29 I'm sorry line
28
that
sorry no it is line 29 line 29 that is
the first kind of broad conceptual that
Eric Maxwell has proposed for this radio
and equipment fund of $95,000 a year.
Now, he, to my knowledge, has not yet
met with fire and police and DPW to form
a plan, but I I've been being fairly um
it's not mine to tell these guys what to
do, but I do think we're probably going
to have to at some point say if you want
this on the budget for whatever year,
then you have to get the mockup to us by
X date. Okay? Okay, I think we can start
working with some of these things, but
we will need people to actually have a
plan of what they're going to do before
January 1st, right? If we're going to if
we're going to work to allocate this,
we're going to need to know that people
actually have a plan.
Uh the next one is fire.
So outside of the $200,000 tower, which
is not a small ask, um the biggest line
item for for emergency is the that radio
line item. That's still conceptual. So
it's not a firm ask.
>> It's a lot of money.
>> It's a lot of money. But again, what
what's interesting is we're going to go
down to fire here, right? So if we go
down to fire radios, we don't need
radios till 2038
based on the life cycle of of U. And so
I don't even have the dollars in there,
right? But now you can start to see if
the if that part of that $95,000 is
going to all of these different groups,
how does that work? And again, we would
go back and look at the retrospective
data on what was spent for radios and
start looking at how does this all add
up? Interestingly enough, fire has a
separate communications budget that they
get money for every year, but police
doesn't, DPW doesn't, and EMD doesn't.
So, there's something interesting here.
And there there's a kernel of something
that could be potentially good. We just
have to tease through what we're going
to recommend and say what does this
really look like and when do we have to
start? Maybe we don't have to start if
we don't need radios till 2038. Maybe we
don't have to start this plan until
seven or eight years from now. Saving
money, right? Maybe we don't have to
save money right this second.
All right. So the big things that come
in here are in uh are in 2026 uh 789
2029 we have 1.8 million in firet
trucks. That's a big number.
So one of the things that I I think we
probably want to look at is do we want
to look at instead of buying things do
we need to consider leasing? So if we
buy fire trucks over a 25 year period,
it means we want to get staggered so
they're every six plus years and and and
extend that as much as we can. We can't
do that right now. We have two two
vehicles that are both need we've
delayed so many times funding this that
now we have two vehicles coming within
four years of each other. We shouldn't
be there and and yet that's kind of
where we are. So, how do we get back
into a cycle? One of the options may be
to lease. A seven-year lease could get
us out of this crunch of having two
things back to back and literally put us
where we need to be.
>> So, it's just something again to think
about when we start talking about how do
we do this? How do we fund it? That type
of thing.
>> Um, on that note, yeah,
>> we should check what Ring did.
>> They did some kind of almost kind of
lease to own type thing.
>> I don't know if they paid it off over
four years. They did that with I believe
they're on their second or third truck
so far.
>> Yeah, I understand it's not uncommon. I
think it goes back to the what is what
are the what is what does the town have
atones for? What do they want us to do?
And what do they want to do?
>> Right.
>> It almost sounds like you should just
continue to lease. You get new equipment
after. Why would you want to own if you
can continue to lease?
>> So if you think about a car lease,
right? you pay a little more and then
you have to pay and now you have to have
the the maintenance plan and you
probably have some interest that you're
paying as well, right? So the cost per
month to rent lease a car versus owning
a car in the long run is probably going
to be a little bit higher. That would be
my perception. But you also would need
to consider how long have our has our
equipment been lasting us? What has the
maintenance needs been? and what's the
tolerance and appetite in town? You
know, are we on the Sutton side or the
Nasha side? You know, that that type of
thing. And then how do we get ourselves
out of a pickle? I don't think that this
is going to be a clear case of lease
everything or own everything. I have a
feeling we're going to be on a continuum
somewhere in between because I don't see
us I think um Jeff was saying that it
it's like something like $300,000 a year
to get enough money into the account for
fire to rebalance itself and and I'm not
sure that really there's an appetite for
that. So, how do we how do how do we get
>> how do we get into a better routine
knowing that we can't just you can't
just say no after 25 years this
equipment can't be used. So, we can't
just say no without a plan of how are we
going to go forward, right? Maybe the
lease is the way we we we put one of the
trucks on lease and we get ourselves
[clears throat] back to where we're in
the right order and then we go from
there. I I don't know.
That's part of where we're going to go
next.
>> And we've taken a look at the capital
improvement plan.
Overall, the contributions to the nine
funds would be over a million dollars to
fund everything that's on there every
year,
>> right?
>> Um
>> that doesn't sound reasonable or it
doesn't sound like it's going to
>> hence hence why we're here.
>> we have to figure out
>> what to do.
>> What to do. will do our part from
managing the capital reserve funds and
the investments but then you have to
look at the operating budget and do we
want to lease do you want to issue bonds
I mean there's other things eventually
we'll need to have a discussion with a
selectman because I think it comes up to
them we're paying for past sins but we
really can't ignore them anymore
>> well and I think we also So, we have not
accept we we got we got police balance.
Police was the only one that was over
that they had money extra because
they've been trying to stretch out the
life of the cars and we had to reset
them. We had two um we had two cruisers
totaled within a year of purchase like
in their first year one to year two
totally totaled and the account plunged.
To get it back up, we had to make a
correction. So somewhere between 2008
and 2010 or 2018 maybe Lum would
remember if he wasn't just if he wasn't
coming in on the tail end of the
question. Um that we had to reset those
accounts and now they're f they finally
caught up to where we weren't behind on
that and we've actually gotten ahead. So
it's time to you have to reset these
every three to five years. Even though
it's a 10-year plan, we reset three to
five.
Um, so this is GGB. That's government
and something buildings.
>> General government buildings.
>> There we go. Um, so the priorities that
have been laid out are things like
paving for the town office. Uh, we heard
today the pool filter house really has
to be improved. It was originally
estimated 150,000. It sounds like today
something came in saying about 80. Now
that we're getting a little bit firmer
and potentially doing some of the work
in house, I'm not sure of the the whole
thing. I I haven't yet heard the whole
story. So, um, that would be nice if
that wasn't so high. Uh, portable
building maintenance at the fire
station, they've split that over two
years, uh, trying to make things more
palatable. And then eventually we're
going to need to replace the, uh, front
part of the town office roof, town
building roof, and then, um, looking at
doing some painting for some of the
buildings next year.
Um there's uh $10,000 in there to figure
out what we're going to do with building
two. Building two um is a resource that
folks are looking at to say, "Hey, it's
it's part of our town inventory. Is it
going to are we losing value by letting
by doing no maintenance on it? And is
there potential that we could lose value
in that building when we're looking for
space for multiple things?" So, there's
multiple departments in town that have
their eyes on building two. So, uh, Joe
Samro is leading that, um,
investigation. So, hopefully we'll hear
more from him, uh, as that evolves.
In the capital, the building capital
reserve, the pool house requirements and
other projects that have already been
approved, the pool house will probably
zero out this account from a capital
reserve perspective.
>> Yeah, it's sad. I mean, that started out
as a $8,000 to $16,000 repair, and this
is an example where things just got
pushed back, pushed back. They weren't a
priority, and now we're looking at four
times that amount from eight years ago.
So, you know, it's a 50% increase every
year from the original price.
>> All right. Um, and lastly, or not
lastly, second to last, we have the
police cruisers. The four biggest items
are the top four, the cruisers. Um, and
there's some records management stuff in
here that really doesn't go under here.
It's just something that's going to be
in the budget because it's an ongoing
service, I believe. So, it won't I'll
actually probably take this line item
out now that I'm thinking about it. Um,
but you can see here where there's some
mobile radios and portable radios that
are coming going to be coming due. So,
you can see that the cost is $13,000 a
year for a couple of years going over a
fouryear cycle.
And the rest of this stuff generally
winds up in the operating budget. It's
just a way that we try to keep track of
things here. So I may talk with the
chief about pulling some of this stuff
out and just putting it into the
operational budget. So there may be some
things in here that we can resolve. The
last category is the recreation area.
And so again, looking at things like
repairing some of the resources that we
have, we have um pushed back on the
tennis court and basketball court
repairs over five or six years now. Um
and so those are those are becoming a
little bit more urgent. Um some of the
work that's been done like on the
softball dugouts has been volunteer
work. people have donated equip uh some
of the materials and then the town's
people have really pitched in or there's
been donations like for the playground
equipment and stuff like that.
So when we get to the bottom line we're
looking at 600,000
to$ 1.2 million per year. Right? So the
goal would be to level this out a bit
and try to stagger the projects so that
they would be um a palatable and b
fairly consistent so that there wouldn't
have to be big changes in the tax rate.
Um I'm not proposing that we go forward
with these numbers. I think we're going
to have to dig into these a little bit.
Uh but this is kind of our baseline of
kind of what's needed. Some of these
yellow areas are places I didn't carry
the numbers all the way through. I need
to talk to the police chief about
pulling some of the other stuff off of
here. U but overall it's not a it's not
a bad starting point for where we are.
The numbers are huge, don't get me
wrong, but we have to find our way out
of this, right? Um we we haven't been
setting these to keep up with costs. So,
we're still saying why can't we have a
1980
cost thing for the town when we're in
2026? And I'm not saying we should go
hog wild, but we we do have to come with
the realities that this budget, except
for some of the recreation projects, is
what it takes to run the town. Those x
number of fire trucks, x number of
cruisers, x number of dump trucks. Do we
start saying things like, "We don't want
to have four dump trucks and four plows.
We only want three dump trucks and three
plows, and we're going to wait for our
winter snow maintenance, and we're going
to be a lot more patient." or do we say
you there's there's choices and I'm I
don't even want to put choices in
anybody's head, but we have to start as
a town saying these are the basics for
where we are. So, with that in mind, let
me any questions that bubble up? I I
know there's a whole lot we're going to
be digging into here, but any I wanted
to just introduce kind of the topics and
figure out how we wanted to go forward
as a group.
Are you looking to present some of this
maybe in conjunction with what some of
the trustees do at like the deliberative
session? So you have a prayer some more
articles getting passed with some you
know capital investment.
>> So this is this is going to be on on the
on YouTube and I think I've got in our
in our slides where do we go next and
there's an outreach section. I think
we're going to have to before we even
propose stuff to the selectmen, we
should probably do public hearings to
say here's what we're thinking and and
see how the public responds. Okay, that
whole question of Sutner or Nashville or
somewhere in between. I don't think
we're going to hit either one of those
ends, but I don't know where we're going
to land in here. Right. And I think
that's what's the appetite in town could
be a very interesting discussion of how
we're going to fund things. You may have
to translate that to the taxpayer to
say, "Oh, I'm paying $10,000 a year now
in property taxes. That's going to turn
into 12, 13, 14,000." So, at least they
get a feel for it. You know, they they
they may not get a feel, oh, there's a
million dollars going into, you know,
capital reserve. What does that mean to
me? Mhm. Mhm.
>> How um
how do towns do this? Do you have to do
a
capital reserve as a separate warrant or
could it theoretically be in the budget?
>> Could be either one. You don't have to
have capital reserve. Capital reserves
are basically specialized savings
accounts.
>> Uh you know, we know fire trucks are
expensive. So trying to budget 1.2
million for in any given year is
difficult. So if you spread it out over
10 years or 20,
>> yeah,
>> you can basically make it more
palatable. Um
>> trying to save up in advance,
>> salailable,
>> but that's that's in a you know like a
special account then it's the trust fund
so that it's locked away and it can't be
used for anything else.
>> Correct. a specific function that can be
used but nothing else.
>> Um whereas like a town budget
if they had a budget line item then it's
kind of a process where you're supposed
to encumber it and it's not it's not
good for rolling over from year to year.
It kind of like the budget is for things
that come and they get spent and they go
away.
>> Plus there's also discretion to go and
transfer it to another.
>> Exactly. Might not go where it's
intended. So, if we think about again
the septic, nobody planned for $30,000,
but the septic system had to be
>> fixed, I guess, is what you do to a
septic system.
>> Um, replaced. There we go. So, that
money had to be found from somewhere,
right? So, I put up on the screen there
are, you know, it's interesting that
none of these things works in isolation.
So, that you can put things into a
budget. So um we don't have a hardened
firm somewhere between5 and $10,000 if
it's equipment then we can call it
capital. It has to have a life cycle of
more than more than three years. Um so
you don't put equipment like services in
here. You don't put um you know like
getting assistance on a on a on a on a
piece of equipment you know that type of
thing. Um it's for the equipment itself.
Um, so you can you can put stuff in the
annual budget. Again, I don't know how
often it happens, but every once in a
while, sometimes the pool stuff would go
into the town budget years ago. Uh, you
can have a revolving or capital fund.
Um, and that's what the trustees manage.
So, those are dedicated funds that can't
be spent on anything other than that.
They're a dedicated savings account.
Think of them like your kids' college
tuition accounts, if you would. Um, the
third thing is a warrant article. And a
warrant article could be for a
standalone approval. So I believe last
year it was, hey, we need a new dump
truck and we're going to put out a
warrant article for a dump truck. And we
voted just on a dump truck. Um, so
that's one option. I think we're going
to see something in this category. If we
want to level set this at a point that's
tolerable to the public, I think we may
have to have a few of these standalones.
already the emergency management
director is saying, "Hey, we need this
tower. It'll be a standalone warrant
article because there's no capital fund
for us to even fund that. It has to go
onto a warrant article."
>> Well, it but also I don't know if uh the
um
the trust funds would have to
necessarily be all on one article
either. Um I have just thought about as
far as like you know people see it and
it's a pass fail on the ballot. So if
they say
why are we approving so much for fire
like you know good bad or
>> were you listening to the trustees
[clears throat] this afternoon that's
what they were talking about separating
them out
>> do you have the appendix C that I sent
you? Can you bring that up?
>> Um I do but I really don't want to go
there right this second.
>> Okay. Um
>> um my challenge to that is that then you
start being well we like X department
more than Y department
>> like what happens if all the parents say
we want more recreation and we don't
care about buildings or
>> you start how do you start
>> yeah but it will reflect it like
eventually
>> but again that we're not talking about
anything in here that isn't plowing
>> right
>> buildings standing up you know it's not
like we're talking about things that are
extra
>> I guess here's my big thing know like
from a qualitative
standpoint. So like I don't know how the
whole process is going to work where
department head puts something in that's
what they think or what they want or
whatever it is. Um,
you know, I I would hope that it works
like, you know, we're saving the money
towards it and now we have money for
this thing, but Peter can be out there
and like, oh, this uh this machine that
we use for scooping dirt over here, I'm
glad we have the money to replace it,
but we can probably wait a few years. I
don't know. Is that a good idea?
>> And that's what's happened. We've done
that.
>> Yeah, exactly. A lot of these funds were
incredibly over overendowed as because
we didn't want to spend money
>> and so a lot of them
>> but then all of our equipment started to
break. Well, then we had to buy five big
items.
>> Then you suck it all down,
>> right? Well, and and now you have all
these items that are going to
potentially start breaking down at the
same time.
>> Yeah. So again, I would prefer
>> I would prefer that that the three
groups can agree
on what's tolerable and we can help set
those priorities and not put it all on
the selectman that we can if we don't
feel the town's going to have a
tolerance for something that we we buck
up and we don't put all the pressure on
the selectman to be doing this that we
start as groups saying here's what we
recommend and there's enough breadth of
these three groups that we should be
able to take some of the heat off of the
selectmen, good or bad. Right? If we
start saying, "Well, we can't afford um
we can't afford a new dump truck." Okay,
then what we're going to propose is that
we say to the public, we we're not going
to propose a fourth dump truck, but it
means your plowing may need to wait. And
is everybody okay with that?
>> And and if the answer is yes, then the
answer is yes. um or we can't maintain
those those baseball fields or whatever,
right? How does that manifest and come
down to the public? Like those soccer
fields, people love soccer. We haven't
developed those soccer fields in over 10
years.
>> We've had the land.
So, and again, nobody seems to be
heartbroken about it, but I also don't
even know if they know that land has
been dedicated for that purpose. Right.
So, you know, it's a
>> whereas if if it was separately as a
warrant, then
>> like some things are separate. So,
people like, oh,
>> I would have no problem saying the
things that are extra we can put
separate. But I think we should be able
to propose a package of what it takes to
maintain the town and get the trust of
the town to to approve that as a block
because if you start pulling anything
out of it, the whole we get to where we
are now and we can't do another 20 years
like this.
>> Mhm.
>> The costs aren't going to go down. So we
have to figure either we're going to do
with less services
or we're going to change how we how we
do things. Now, Cody from down to the
last one here, item four. Cody Valancort
is hot on getting some getting a grant
writer in his budget this year. And he
said, "We have got to find a way to get
grant money for stuff." And I think that
that's a bandwagon that the town should
get on as a whole and say, "Hey, we
want, you know, if Cody says, "Hey,
we're going to propose x number of hours
that we look at what would it take to do
that for multiple groups within the
town."
So that's I think that was a really
brilliant idea on his thing. Grant
writers usually get a percentage of what
they bring into the town. Now, I don't
know that that's always the case, but
it's probably like a lawyer, right? you
you if you win, you can either pay for
the fees of of while they're doing it
or, you know, again, not my area of
bandwidth.
>> I've offered to do it for free, so if he
didn't take me up on it, so we'll maybe
I'll revisit that with him.
>> Yeah, I I think that's worth it. And I
also think that um there is a school of
thought that there are people who get
enough grants that they're worth going
to because their track record is so
good. And I don't know where his mind
is. We didn't we haven't had that
dialogue.
So, um, so here's my question. We're
going to I I would think that we need to
start taking the data that we have and
we're going to want to start doing
stuff. My goal today was to introduce
it. But where do you think the town
preference is? Is the town preference
pay for things as we go, try and get it
into the capital reserves, or do you
think we're going to have to deal with
some leases and other types of changes
in how we go forward? And do we propose
like two models and we work two models
or some other suggestion?
>> It's all going to come down to how is it
going to affect their taxes,
>> but we have to work it up first, right?
And then we're going to have to model.
That's what's that's what's going to
sway them.
>> Yeah. I think I think one thing was what
how would this be presented, right? As
if it's presented as a warrant article,
what does that look like on the ballot?
What what do we
>> Well, the warrant article shouldn't
change from what we typically see,
right? But what's under the hood is and
realize that when something becomes a
warrant article to buy a dump truck,
right now we are leasing a grader. I
think it's either a grader or a loader.
I don't know which. we're great. We're
leasing something that goes into the
operating budget. So that becomes once
it's approved, it goes on there for the
life of that lease. So, but it doesn't
change what we pay. So, the question is
where do you think the tolerance is for
the town?
>> Are we okay with a couple of leases but
not leasing everything? Or are we okay
with no leases? Where do you think we I
think leases and grants are where we can
take the edge off of some of what this
is going to look like long term and get
us back into sync. Right.
>> Just as an addendum to that, the uh the
greater not the greater um the back hole
I believe is up for uh replacement.
>> Is that the one that's leased?
>> Okay. So maybe we have two that are
leased then maybe. I don't know.
Anyways, we have at least one it one
item big ticket item that's being leased
right now. And evidently um most as
Aaron was saying, most towns now are
leasing some element of their fire
equipment, big trucks.
>> Um the selectman did not want to go that
route a couple of years ago, but it
might be time to revisit that.
What are your thoughts?
For me, without seeing the numbers on
what the what the difference is, it'd be
hard to I mean, I think if it's
necessary, like you say, to get us to
get us into the right cycle for for
paying a piece of equipment off or to be
able to to be able to,
you know, bridge a gap, bridge a few
years to be able to spread that out,
then then that's one thing. But it it
would be hard to say that I would I
wouldn't say that we want to go
exclusively to leasing only because it
seems like that would be more expensive
long term. Exactly.
>> But I don't know that for sure. Right. I
don't know that.
>> But the good news is we have some
numbers, right? And we could probably
get numbers from the Ring Fire
Department about what their cost
difference is.
>> Um so maybe we can explore some of that
>> that way. Yeah. I mean that would level
out your that would level out to some
extent your
>> it would help level Yeah.
>> Or any other thoughts?
>> We provided you you know again that
little over a million dollars annual
contribution
to implement the um capital improvement
plan as it currently is defined or at
least the
what 15 17 July I think was the last one
that we saw.
Is that practical to go to the voters
for? I would say not. Um, so we need to
put together an integrated plan is
really what you're saying. The way I
would phrase it and it's something that
to my knowledge hasn't happened before
like the trustees never even saw the
capital improvement plan in the in the
past. you remember during the
deliberative session I heard about it
and okay de what do you got um so now
that we know about it and we know who to
contact we can put together that plan I
think it will be a combination of all
the above um I think that's the only
thing that's affordable but
>> so the way the last year's budget and
capital numbers laid out except for
police
every one of those counts
would be drained
within two three years maybe a little
longer right
>> if you look at it that appendix C it
>> gives you that's was the basic so
I
how are we going to propose service cuts
to town if what was already there that
wouldn't have been sustainable couldn't
pass are we looking at service cuts and
do we have to talk about that
Now,
>> well, you need
>> if if there isn't the appetite for what
was on the warrant article list last
year, do we have to have that
conversation sooner rather than later?
>> I think we do. I think one of the
reasons we put together that appendix C
is because that was just a number. You
know, we need to give 95,000 to the fire
trucks. What does that matter? Now we've
got a list of what clients are actually
going to be purchased and what year and
how much.
>> We've had that since 2003.
>> So we haven't been able to present it
that we haven't been able to defend that
$95,000 isn't the right number and oh by
the way it isn't. It needs to be more
than that
>> which we've been saying for 10 years.
Now, we give you a [laughter] number to
meet your current plan. It's $336,000
per year for firet trucks. So, we have
to make that decision. If you lease one,
the cost of leasing over owning is
always more expensive.
>> The only thing that's appealing with
leases is for small business owners
because they can write it off. They
don't have to do capital depreciation.
They just lease. Boom. Bang. Give me my
money. I mean it the truth and we need
to have a conversation among us and then
get together with the selectman and say
okay here are your options
what do you what do you want to do um
moving forward
>> so I have excellent segue um I put some
next steps there um complete the uh
updates and try to start figuring out
where we might be able to smooth there
are some things that if we don't have
numbers especially going into next year.
I think we should just say no plan. We
can't consider it after a certain date
because we need some shity of what we're
proposing. Um, we need to do a review of
the committee and we're going to need to
do some scenarios and I think we need to
do that before we go to the selectment.
I would say in the next month and to be
able to present to the selectman in a
month what this would look like and what
services they may need to be
considering. And I'm not sure we should
I'm not sure we should propose service
cuts initially. Um I think that's where
we would float the idea, see what kind
of response we get um and see what the
selectmen have to say about areas where
areas where they would want us to
consider and then go from there.
>> So then and an example would be right
now this plan to to purchase a new fire
truck in 2029.
Um, and you're replacing I believe it's
a 25
plus year truck in order to to do that.
Right now the capital reserves cannot
support that. So that can't happen with
our current plan. We need to tee that
specific conversation up with a
selectman to say what other options are
you willing to consider leasing
adding more into the contributions yada
yada yada whatever we can come up with
and get that I wouldn't go to them with
a set of definitive recommendations.
>> No, not yet. Not yet. By December this
is the scope of the problem. put a fence
around the problem and have a dialogue
with them about what they're willing to
support politically because they're our
political leaders. They're the ones who
get elected. They're held accountable by
the voters, although we are too.
>> Well, I think there's there's sussing
them out and then there's us finishing
our recommendations.
>> So, that's where some of the outreach
item was here. um that we're going to
want to do some outreach both to the
town's people and to the selectmen and
then draft our recommendations and get
them over to the select board.
>> And getting the outreach to the town
people is a is a tough nut. Um
because you have to make sure you have a
representative sample of the the town
stocks that's large enough that you can
actually make some excursions based off
of it.
>> And the the trick is how do we um avoid
the Facebook armies, right, and and
pitchforks and yet get people out. There
are things that we had posted for zoning
changes last year and we had a couple of
meetings where there were 15, 20, 30
people at when we had good hearings and
then there were a lot of people that
came and said, "Oh, I thought this was
going to be horrible and it's fine." And
so, you know, I think it is ongoing
outreach. I don't think again that that
it's it's going to be something where
for everything somebody says we don't
want to pay, we're going to have to
figure out what the cut is that goes
with that. And that means people are
going to have to put their selves out
there as well. Um and and that might be
the public as we say, hey, if you're
going to propose some a raise, let us
know how you think it should be
financed. If you're going to propose a
cut, tell us where you think the cut
needs to come. You know, I think that's
we're gonna we're we're gonna have to do
some hard work and I think we're gonna
have to expect our town's people to be
able to be part of the conversation.
>> Yeah. And it all is Stephanie's point.
It all comes out of what is the tax
rate.
>> And we know the tax rates. I mean, taxes
have increased over 36% the past five
years. People just can't afford that.
>> Well, and and fire is is a big place
that that's happening. Does at least
reduce some of the impact that we feel?
I don't know the answer to that. Right.
So, we know that that firet trucks were
going up like 50% every year. It was
like, you got to be kidding me. It's to
the point where there's actually a
federal investigation into this topic.
How whatever number it is, it's it's not
amusing at all. And so, there, you know,
there is actually state I mean, federal
investigations as far as why are these
costs going up so fast? Um, and towns
again, do we start looking at combining
fire stations? Um,
Greenville and Wilton combined their
police stations. I think that's the
groups that did. Are we looking at
something like
>> Temple?
>> Greenville and Temple. Um, combine their
police forces because if we're going to
need to start considering that between
now and next year, we need to get on
that sooner rather than later. And I
think that's a good conversation to tee
up with again the selectman because I'm
I'm not so sure especially in a time
like I whips we can afford our own
dedicated police force.
>> Should it be more of a regional force or
some sort of county sheriff
representation and I realize the current
structure doesn't support that. So it'
be a change but I don't think towns can
you know we we have six people. It's a
part-time service. Don't call on the
weekends. Don't call late at night.
>> So, is it really worth even on the
operating budget, it's it's a quarter of
the town's operating budget for a
part-time police force.
>> Fire has to be up there.
>> They're not that much because they're
volunteer.
>> They're about half what the police
department is, believe it or not,
>> cuz they're volunt the fire is
>> Hell, we have to buy a truck. [laughter]
their credit.
>> You have to buy the equipment.
>> All right. So, that's uh that's where we
are. We said we would try to leave limit
this to an hour. So, any closing
thoughts from anybody? Um I think we are
going to want we have a couple of
outstanding issues on fire leasing and
the current lease on our heavy equipment
for DPW.
Anything else we need? Um
We are currently planning for over 30
volunteer firefighters for equipment.
Um I don't know what that number should
be. Um and I don't know how we would get
that number.
Anybody have any suggestions?
>> I'm sorry.
>> What we we are currently planning for 30
volunteer firefighters.
>> Okay. Mhm. Basically the question is or
I assume the question is is that is it
necessary to have 30? Is 30 the right
amount or is
>> we have I believe it's currently 30
about 34.
>> We currently have equipment for
>> we I'm sorry. We have to have equipment
for 24 seats because that's how many
seats go out on a call when all the
equipment goes out. So we have to have
equipment for 24.
But is there a big difference between 24
and 30 or and 34?
The other issue is [clears throat] can
you get
>> that's if you're going to send out that
extra 10 people
or firefighters I should say and um so
we need to look at um how you know how
many total we have how many are actually
um supplemented with uh sufficient
equipment
and um you know what else can we do with
Yeah, some of the equipment is changing
and becoming more savvy over time. Um,
and that's really not the only thing
that impacts the capital
>> expenses is how much we need to buy, how
many, how much.
>> So that is, you know, that's the only
place that touches us. The rest of this
would go over to you guys and finance.
We heard from, you know, in that
specific example, interesting enough,
Cody asked for five sets of the personal
protection deal where I think five sets
was about 36,000. So, it's a little bit
over 7,000 a set.
>> Some of these nonp
equipment.
>> Yeah. So, I mean, all of this all comes
together and um
>> All right. So um
>> so our ask from you is you know we need
we need the capital improvement plan
we're going to baseline for next year.
We need that you know within the next
four to six weeks so that we can do what
we need to do from an investment
planning perspective. We would like you
to review the appendix C. We just took
your capital improvement plan and laid
it out um in a little different.
>> Yeah. Everything just said there wasn't
enough money. So I I kind of there just
isn't enough money period.
>> But at least it shows you what the
impact is. I mean that would be article
one that I'd want to go to the selectman
with and say this is the scope of the
problem that we have. You know we need a
million. We got 10 bucks. What do you
want us to do?
>> All right. I'm exaggerating.
>> Let me get the point.
>> But I can use those [clears throat]
numbers to fund the um to put into the
system for what our baselines are.
>> Yeah. What what it was based on what you
had given us the middle of July. I
forget the date.
>> Okay.
So, um I think the next time we would
get together might be maybe an hour
before the next select wins meeting that
where where we're going to be able to
discuss this with them.
>> What is that?
>> I we haven't set a date. That's why I'm
kind of just trying to float the idea.
I think the selectman go back to weekly
meetings starting right the week after
Labor Day would be my bet.
>> Probably. Yeah. [laughter] Let me get
the schedule and we'll figure out and
I'll I'll shoot that something out to
make sure everybody can be there.
>> Tuesday after Labor Day, you're
thinking.
>> No, they meet on Mondays.
>> So, it would probably be the week after,
I would bet.
>> The week after the 14th, maybe.
>> I'll be out of town that week.
>> I think it might be What's on the 21st?
It would have to be the 21st.
No, that would be if you're meeting
every other week, but you got to be
going back to meeting every week.
>> Why you didn't Why you say that?
>> Because that's what they usually do.
>> Usually there starts to be so much pent
up demand that they wind up going back
to every
>> Oh yeah, we're we're smoking to to get
through.
>> There was nothing this week. There was
like one subgroup.
>> Actually, there wasn't.
>> We'll find out.
>> All right, we'll find we'll find a date.
And the other thing is maybe we just
invite the selectman to come to a
nighttime meeting to come to one of our
meetings. So
>> I don't know. They're pretty scary.
>> I always talk about Lou in the third
person. It's pretty funny.
All right. Anybody have anything else?
Thank you for coming and joining in the
dialogue. I do.