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Town of Troy Budget Committee 5/12/2025

Video

[Music]
I'll entertain a motion whenever
somebody is ready to do so.
Move that we approve
the minutes as submitted. Second. Motion
in a second. Any uh adjustments,
corrections, thoughts,
concerns? Hearing none. All those in
favor
opposed
abstensions. Motion carries. Okay. Uh
next on the agenda is appointment of
officers. So we have three officers. We
have the chair, vice chair, and
secretary. Um before we make any
nominations, um I will not be sitting as
chair this year. This is going to be my
last year on the budget committee. And
um I would like to
um nominate Jamie for chair and um I'd
be happy to vice chair along with her if
you guys were so inclined um to help her
kind of get through this year and then
send her on her way for next year.
I nominate Jamie for chair, Ben for vice
chair, and me for secretary.
Okay. Second. Second. filled in the
blank for you, Dick. Thanks. Um, okay.
So, we got a motion, a second. Any
discussion on that? Any thoughts?
I think it's a great idea. Oh, thanks.
Um, okay. Hearing no discussion. Uh, all
those in favor?
Opposed? Obstensions?
Motion
carries. Do you want me to carry on for
this meeting? You carry on for this
meeting. her fair run. We're going to
have some more business meetings before
the uh start of the actual budget
season. So, you'll you'll have plenty of
practice without uh without without a
major audience. So, you know, I know I'm
having problem with myself in front of a
major audience, but I might have the
verbiage down. Well, no better way to
learn. Yeah. Inspire. Yes. Um Okay, so
new member orientation. Charles is the
uh Charles McDeay is our our newest
member this year. Everybody else is
returning members. Charles, this is your
uh this is one of the packets that one
you have in front of you. And then you
should have gotten an email for the
budget turning package. Yes. So that so
that manual, the budget manual that goes
over all of RSA 32 and it covers
everything you need to know about the
budgeting process all the way down to
warrant articles, who's responsible,
what parts, and this one here is
specific to Troy. This is how we do it
in Troy. We basically follow RSA 32
right through. But there are just some
nuances about how we do things in Troy.
So everything you need to know is in
those two documents. Got so um any
questions or thoughts before we get
rolling on? Okay. Yeah. And just ask
questions. That's it's the easiest way
to do it. Most everybody it takes, you
know, a full budget season to kind of
get it under their belt and but well
sometimes two, but uh but yeah.
I just ask questions. Nope. The dumbest
question is the one that's not asked.
So, it's simple as that. If you feel
that you don't want to ask a question
because you think it's a dumb question,
write it down. Slip it to me and I'll
ask it. You're used to me asking them.
Better to ask here than go to town
meeting. I'm sorry. What? Better to ask
here than go to town meeting.
Better audience there. Yeah. Um, okay.
Okay. So, that's kind of the quick and
dirty on the um on the orientation. And
again, ask questions if you got any if
you got any and we will we will help you
along. Um okay.
So, inside of that uh packet that
everybody has, we have a proposed
schedule for this year. Um this is
nothing we have to adopt tonight. I just
um it's page 10. I just adjusted um
the calendar from this past year and
made it work for this coming year. And I
think I skipped over although November
10th that sounds like a that sounds like
Columbus Day.
That is
November 10th, right? So Veterans Day,
what is it? November 11th. Veterans Day
would be November 11th.
Okay, that's a Tuesday. Y
Okay. Um I tried to skip over holidays
for the most part, but um
so anyway, that's the um that's
something we can review. We don't have
to act on that today at all. Um but it's
just take a look at it and um Jamie will
be delegating out to somebody to go over
the calendar and make sure that it works
for the entire season. uh plenty of time
to get that sorted out between now and
then. You'll notice on page two of the
of the um schedule, I've got a lot of to
be determined in um in these areas
because I just didn't want to go through
the RSAs and figure out the math for the
dates. So, usually the municipal
calendar comes out in about September
time frame and all of those dates are
predicated on the municipal calendar. It
makes a lot easier. So, that's why it's
done like that.
Schedule
detail. We now have a uh calendar for
the use of this room. Excellent. Yes, I
did see that.
So, normally you call library.
Okay. So, when we we're happy with this,
I'll load it in. Okay. Um towards the
end of tonight's meeting, we're going to
pick our next meeting, which is going to
be not not this schedule. It's going to
be something sooner than that, like a
month from now or so. Um and um we'll
probably once you put that on and then
maybe by then we'll have sorted this out
and we'll put them all on that. Yeah.
Okay. It's it's to
avoid double booking. It's great. Yeah.
No, it's nice. It's just Andy. I looked
at it today. It was like y that works
good.
Um okay.
So goals. This is a this is a more broad
conversation uh stems specifically from
the comments that were made at town
meeting. Uh town meeting was um
just for the record, your computer will
not the the school Wi-Fi will not allow
you to use Dropbox. So that's what was
happening on that town meeting. Um so
for future reference
Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, it's it's
probably good that it prevents you from
doing other things, but that's that's
why crazy things where you don't want
them. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um
but the uh one of the thoughts was it we
almost got a 10% haircut. Was it 10%.
That night? Yeah. So, it was it was
close because we we went So, a couple of
things that happened. We had a ballot
vote that uh narrowly passed for the
whole budget. So that was going to be a
failing budget and have to revisit. We
we almost had a 10% cut pass. Um so so
yeah, a lot of uh consternation in the
room about the overall budget. And um if
we wanted to do something a little more
drastic this year or at least consider
it, we need to start doing it early. So
if you were to take a broad stroke and
say let's cut 10% across the board, you
know, you would you really need to have
those conversations starting today and
you need to have them with department
heads, with the select board. These need
to be in-depth conversations and it
wouldn't be, you know, we wouldn't
really, it would be a full-blown
partnership with everybody to make this
thing happen. And and it might not even
be achievable. That might be a lofty
goal and then we get to the end and we
we cut 4% out of it. But if we level
funded or less, we would be better off
than we have been for the last five
years. So, and I think that would be
received fairly well. Um, but I would
like to be able to um to say to people
at town meeting next year that that
we've we've gone through the exercise to
see what it is that we can do, how we
can do better. Um, so as far as goals
are concerned, that's the genesis of
that of this conversation and I leave it
to everybody else to come up with some
thoughts and what what we want to do
here. How do how do we want to treat our
upcoming budget
season and answer the an answer to the
taxpayers?
Well, yeah, I think we let the
department heads know we're looking for
ways to cut because that's what the
taxpayers are asking for. So, as people
are making their budgets, I feel like
feel like they kind of treat us almost
like Christmas time, you know, they come
in here with their budgets and they're
rather elaborate and, you know, well, we
need money for this and money for that
and then we kind of question it, work
them down. It would be nice if they had
the understanding was come in with them
work down. really think about what you
need money for and what you can wait
until next year for and not just come in
with I'm going to ask for all this,
they'll cut it back a little bit and
I'll still win in the end. Like really
our department headsets need to be
looking at it that way too. It's hard to
make that work because there's a
tendency not just in government but in
private industry as well to ask for more
than you think you need, right? So that
when you're told to cut it back, you get
it back where you really wanted it.
Well, and that's what they're doing.
Like I I mean we've had departments had
sit in here and actually say those words
when they come in with their budgets,
but like think about it as they're come.
They really just they have to be
responsible and it's part of their job
to
respite substantial amount of money left
over. My my idea was buy what you need
to buy those one-offs get caught up now.
That way the money doesn't way next year
we're not bumping the budget up. So, we
kind of missed the boat on that one. But
for this year, going into next year, I
think it's we stress that to say, you
know, whatever those one-offs are, you
need to do, do them now. Yeah. And don't
worry about leaving a $100,000 surplus
in your account year because that really
is you come back next year and ask the
tax payments for it again. Well, as long
as it makes sense that he's not like
buying a box of Tylenol because he's got
this much money left in his, you know,
flex spending account. You know, it
really should be things that he knows
that are going to have well, you know,
in our in the private world, you know,
we get to the end of the year, but like
so makes sense with what he's
purchasing. The selectment haven't
discussed CIP yet, but I think we should
definitely look to schedule that in
at some point soon. We'll want to get
that committ Okay.
Two two things.
One, I think it would help if the
selectman dug into the budgets more
instead of just approving what comes
through because that's basically what
happens. You know, if you make them run
through two
processes, then
it's it's that much tougher.
Yeah. This is what I'm saying about
getting on it early is and being a
collaborative effort is it's you know
the budget committee is is really kind
of the gatekeeper. They're not the one
formulating the budget early on in the
year and coming up with the the larger
game plan. Um and we're not and we don't
manage department heads. They're not our
our employees. So we're we're kind of
like a little bit of the odd duck over
here waiting for the information to
arrive at us. I think we can force the
conversation a little earlier just by
encouraging that conversation, but we
can't have um you know, we can't we
can't tell the department heads what to
do essentially. Charles, why not make an
amendment that we have like a
midway decision for all these department
heads instead of waiting till the end of
the year. We can do amendment to add
another around like halfway through the
year
like a budget review mid year. Yeah. So
they're
what we would would be doing if we met
regularly. Yep. And I think that's kind
of that would be a little more time from
everybody but at least we're not doing
that at the end of the year surprising
them. If I can offer a couple of
observations to your point, we should
the select board should dig in it more.
Dig into it more. We not come out. The
the budget committee and the select
board have agreed on the proposed budget
every year for the last eight years
which which I don't should do anymore
about that. Well, that's because of
negotiating. Correct. We I mean we made
it we made it a point to work with the
budget committee and work with the
department
heads and trying to come up with the
best possible
alternative. So if everybody if if our
if if the point is that somehow this is
an evil plot to raise taxes, everybody's
complicit. No, there's no evil plot. The
the second thing that I would like to
point out is look, I pay as much taxes
as anybody in this room. Maybe Ben pays
more. I don't know. We're probably a tie
at this point. Yeah, probably. So, the
which isn't it isn't the
point. The point is we're not looking to
waste money.
One of the problems that this town has
is we have a great number of things that
are we're we're playing catchup on
because they were missing
not handled previously. They weren't
handled previously and there is you know
and I I use this analogy of we're going
to use it in the future one that's
cheaper but well that's nuts and we have
those things. I think if you uh those of
us who were there, if you think about it
the last several years that Jimmy Dy was
uh the road agent, every time somebody
squawkked about the road budget, he just
cut his budget back. Well, it's not
because he saved any money. He just
didn't do anything. He did that much
less. And so now here we are in the
future and there's that much more to do.
I know. So you have those issues.
um the as to and then the so you know I
I get it. I don't like a 10% tax
increase
either, but I also don't want a 40% tax
increase. And I I I think I'm going to
use the analogy of the water department.
So they didn't raise the rates in the
water department for 20 years, 15 years.
And they really have so long and they're
still out of whack. Yeah. And so then
you
go, "What the hell?" You know, my bill
was $150. Now it's
$450. And and that's a shock to people.
And so we pay we're paying that price.
Not to say we can't do a better job. And
I got one more. I got a third thing I
want to do which is I want address your
point.
The one of the things we're doing here
tonight, you're you're probably seeing
for the first time is a budget and we
where we are year to
date and the selectman do look at this
on a regular basis. We look at it once a
month and uh obviously at the beginning
of the year it's all warm and fuzzy
because you've got you know 80% of the
year left. And if you look at what we've
spent so far this year, we are I believe
we have 66% of the year left and we have
67% of the money left and that's with
some budget overruns that are Jeremy's
fault. Um once a month, yeah, we could
pull it every day, but people have other
things to do and and the department
heads all have this too. Yes. And
depending upon who I can tell you that
John is very conscientious about
following his budget. Dave is very
conscientious about knowing what his
budget is and I think he follows his
budget but you know he's got his
department to run and he he comes in and
he makes his case. He gets what he wants
mostly.
And I would address the
issue that was brought up in Provo Keen
in this last weekend. The uh the the the
thing that Dave signed on for to assist
ICE. Uh and they they they would tell
you that their their article says, "Oh,
it's going to raise
taxes." Well, it isn't because it stay
Dave has to in his budget. Number one,
so that's a fallacy. Number two,
uh Troy has been in the same canoe as
the state of New Hampshire for a long
time. New Hampshire has been in the same
canoe as the United States for a long
time. So we
have to to try and find daylight or
create daylight between Troy and New
Hampshire and the United States is
absurd. There's no reason for the local
to not be able to assist ICE should that
ever occur. And the and as I shared with
the people at the Sentinel, I said, "If
you watched the
uh when the so-called Maryland dad was
pulled over when he was trafficking
eight people across country in Tennessee
and the Tennessee local police called
the ICE agents and the ICE agents did
not respond, if that was to randomly
occur and Troy and Dave would be duly
authorized to handle it
himself. That's what it comes down to.
But it's not running up the police
budget. Um, and it's just it's just in
Troy. It's just in Troy, right? What's
the occurrence of this is probably
likely zero or close to it. This
building, this building is as likely to
get hit by lightning as that, you know,
so it's a non-issue. But this is, you
know, make a issue where you find one.
Um, but I think it's important to
understand
that for you who you're new here on this
committee, these department heads are
not out there wantingly wantingly
spending money without consideration of
their
budgets. They're they're all really very
conscientious and frankly most of them
are taxpayers in this town and would
just assume see a tax rate of nil as
much as anybody. But Mark the If we find
a way to do this, there are certain
things which we are legally obligated to
do but not a lot.
Uh we have to we have to pay the school
district and we have to provide welfare
to indigent people. And you could make a
case we could shut everything down, but
I don't think any of us really want to
do that.
Doing a lot of extraneous stuff now.
We're not. No, we're not. You're not
replacing all the curbs with granite
curbs. And Oh, they are granite.
you know, we're not fixing them. They're
slowly sinking down into the pavement.
Yeah. One one thing is um the cap is a a
good thing to bring up in the middle of
this conversation because we definitely
have to have some sort of long-term
capital planning um in place. That that
that needs to happen, which we have
lacked. We're obviously funding our
capital accounts, but probably not to
the degree that we need to be. Um, at
the same time, an effort like that is
going to show us that
if we did this, um, the very first
Capitol CIP meeting I was at with you.
You you did this year. It was years ago.
It was the first and only one we've ever
had and um I think it was
um what was his name? The fire from the
fire department in Callahan there. He
had kind of put put it all together for
the fire department. when he got done,
it was a very very comprehensive report
and it had all the end of life um you
know the national standards for end of
life for each piece of equipment that
they had and it would replaced them all
on this very specific timeline and it
was like the the fire department alone
needed I think
$125,000 a year every single year in
order to fulfill the CIP plan for that
budget alone. So um they there is um
actually I say the police department
that the
so but the the the point though that I'm
making is that um often it's human
nature especially in in municipal
budgeting for people to shoot for the
moon kind of like you're talking about
come in with the with the big budget and
then we'll we'll you know we'll
negotiate down and so that is obviously
the select board and the the budget
committee's job is to is to manage that.
So yeah, they don't I don't think they
want to be playing outside their budget,
but if they had the choice over the
used, you know, piece of equipment as
opposed to the brand new one, they're
going to ask for the brand new one hands
down to begin with. And we go on every
equipment purchase, we go through that.
Yep. And you know, sometimes it goes one
way and sometimes it goes the other.
Yep. The And I I think I think that's a
good dynamic and I think that we've
worked reasonably well on that. And to a
certain extent, the town of Troy suffers
from the problems of a
debtor. Uh, you know, you borrow you you
borrowed money on your credit card to
pay your groceries at 24%.
And now if you just had that money, you
could pay your pay for your groceries.
And so this is the this is literally
this you could actually you could
probably fund a CIP with 150 or $200,000
a year in it if you didn't have to pay
for all of your ongoing maintenance and
operating costs because you didn't have
a CIP 50 years ago. Yeah. Because you
haven't built up any resour we have
emergency purchases basically that we
have to come up with the money for y
every year. And and the painful thing is
how you get caught up. Well, there's a
little I think the answer is exactly
what you guys have you guys have worked
on the CIB and I I we've got money set
aside capital reserve funds. If you
noticed in the the budget, we have we
have money capital reserve monies which
is effectively the CIP and that money
hasn't been moved over to those accounts
yet.
And I think you start and then you have
to slowly get to the point where you can
stop doing a little less emergency stuff
and a little more planning. But you're
not going to you're not going to do that
in one year. There's there are there are
Go ahead. I know that I mean and that's
what we when we looked at all of this
last year through CIP thinking. Yeah. I
mean it would have been like a $4
million if we were catching everything
up to what we needed fire truck, right?
You know, you have a $4 million USCIP,
right? We're like that's not going to
work. So, well, at least for a few years
to get caught up, right? Right. I mean,
that was 220 or 2,000. It was way more
than what we were going to ask taxpayers
to try and put away to get We didn't
touch the buildings. That was just
vehicles. Yeah. That was really just
vehicles that we were looking at. Oh,
yes. Well, and so it it really needs to
be outside the box thinking on a lot of
this stuff as well because um it's like
the the the truck that they we just
bought down at the water department. If
you if you notice, this thing's got
steel wheels. It is the barebones work
truck. This thing is it's it's white.
It's got a sticker on the side. It
serves its purpose and it has there are
no bells and whistles on that thing at
all. No radio, right? It barely has a
radio and it and um and it's like Yeah.
Yeah. So um so th those are that if
you're going to buy new, that's what
it's got to look like. And honestly,
buying new isn't always the answer. Um,
so that's kind of the outside of the box
thinking that needs to happen, but
there's other stuff that needs to go on
too. It's like, um, we're talking about
health benefits by and large,
broadbased, um, re review of where our
health benefits are, looking at alter
alternative programs that fit for our
employees and doesn't hurt our
employees, but helps our bottom line.
Well, the select board just took that up
at our last meeting and Jeremy's working
on getting some
information. Uh, you know, one of the
things that I struggle with as a
uh as a selectman in this case
is Mary comes to work for us. She's a
single person. It costs us $18,000 a
year. Joe comes to work for us. He's got
a family. cost us $32,000 a
year. I don't see that as equitable. I
think personally I think there should be
a fixed amount per
employee
and and that's this is not bizarre
thinking outside of you know other other
than public employment.
um you know it's yes if you're a teacher
you have infinity benefits for healthare
if you work for the state you have
infinity benefits for healthcare uh
although that's another
subject in the case I I think that what
we are going to be looking at is saying
this is our budget for health insurance
we're looking at setting up and some of
the other counts have done it around the
state
setting up setting up an HSA for
employees so that they can have that
with some coverage to cover some
insurance to cover the gap. Uh but where
most of our staff is relatively young,
they are more likely to benefit from an
HSA than having goldplated old-fashioned
coverage that they're not using. That
they're not using. Y So you're literally
wasting the taxpayers money and you're
and and and their opportunity. Yeah,
schools could do the same thing we're
doing now, but they just don't do they
well they have not that's not totally
correct because they have unions and all
that. Well, there's another there's
another tunnel vision in the municipal
world. I'm well aware of it. There's
another consideration two options.
There's another consideration, not to
bore you to death with the reality of
the situation,
but the legislature
uh in 1987 created a special category
for
uh health insurance benefits for public
employees and
entities, firemen, policemen,
municipalities.
So even though you might be a public
employee and you might be filing your uh
health insurance claims through the
Etna, it's actually run it's not
regulated by the the insurance
department. It's regulated by the
Secretary of State's office because it
is actuarily unsound.
And we heard testimony literally last
week from the insurance department and
the actuary that was brought up to fix
it again because the system is about to
collapse. You're looking at a 40%
increase in health insurance rates uh as
your when your policy reduced because
they are not
liquid and the of course the there are a
vast pe number of people who want to
keep it the way regulated regulated the
way it is, but they're not solvent. And
the actuary came, he said, "Look, I came
here 10 years ago, the last time you
guys screwed this up." And I he said,
"I'd like to retire, but I don't want to
come back in 10 years and have to fix
this again. You really should move this
over to the insurance department and
regulate it like insurance." Um because
that's what it is. It's health
insurance. Uh so it's one of those
things where it's good while it's good.
It's all nobody makes a claim. Insurance
is great. You know, I have a question.
Do the employees pay anything for their
insurance? It's 8515. Right now, the
employee pays 15%.
But we have $10 co-pays for
prescriptions, $10. It's oldfashioned
insurance. It's really nice. If you use
it, it's really nice. Don't get me
wrong, but if you pay less than I do,
but the town's My plan alone as a single
plan is like 15 grand a year. I don't
need $15,000 a year. And don't get me
wrong, takes one small thing to rack up
that bill. But I don't need I don't use
$15,000 worth of insurance. But
catastrophic is all all the young people
generally need because they just don't
need it until they need it. And then if
you have an HSA that's got that covers
their deductible, they really don't have
any impact. Well, and that's that's
that's what we're that's what we're
advocating for. So, we're trying to work
out the details so we can say Jeremy
gets $10,000 in his HSA. It covers his
deductibles and that is a much better
opportunity when you look at our staff.
And that's still better than what you
get in public. Private stuff. Yeah.
Private. Absolutely. Yeah. That's still
better. If you go work for CNS, you
ain't getting that, right? Exactly. So,
so is that part part of the HSA paying
the insurance premiums?
Well, we said no. We Does that I mean
that's another I don't think you can I
think legally you can't pay your
insurance premiums out of your HSA. No,
what you get is No, but you can you can
set up a
The problem is though is what are the
rules around how much you can actually
put in the HSA? There's tax rules with
that too. Sure. But we have so we're not
that far yet. Okay. Well, there's some
we don't know exactly yet because single
person tax there's tax limitations to
what you can deposit into an HSA. It's
it's much higher for fan or employee
plus even one more and it like more than
doubles but still it it
it's the idea of I still Yeah, I agree.
We need to go that way. We need to come
up with something. We could probably cut
a nice percentage out of budget just by
revamping the healthcare. Well, and then
and again then it goes to a situation
where every every employee is the same
insurance expense to us. Yeah. And so if
you one person works for the town of
Tory and the other one works for Chester
County, maybe you just take the bio and
you take the Chester County insurance.
Yeah, maybe that's the way it works for
your family. I've seen alternative
plans where you switch to like a high
deductible plan and the town would more
or less fund the payouts. So it really
wouldn't be an effect to the employee.
And um I've seen the math where say you
had a year where this has never happened
where every single person on your plan
max out their it's like game where the
library games start twice but the town
would still save money from their
current premiums because right now the
towns and schools go to health trust
which we're in or school care was a
third option they've already gone
belly these towns are so television they
won't even look at the map. No, I
absolutely agree. We have basically
doing we're currently with Health Trust.
They took a vote that if the bill
doesn't if the bill as it's currently
presented and it's probably changed or
whatever, but the the brass of New
Hampshire Health Trust is so scared by
this bill. They've already taken a vote
that they're going to they're going to
dissolve by the end of the year
depending on what happens in Cong. So,
we might not have a choice here anyway.
We might have to find something else.
But we already decided before that
happened.
And that's good because I don't think we
have a choice. I I think we're we're at
the point now where the where health
insurance has gotten to the to the a
number that is just at some point you
selfinsure.
Well, I mean that's crazy, but Well,
that's actually an option. Yep. I was at
their annual meeting last year and um a
lot of larger towns with unions and
stuff were saying how it's hard how hard
it is for them. Just tell by the
dialogue that other towns are starting
to look their options. Well, and what on
the issue of self insurance, the state
actually self-insures and then hires
Etna to pay their claims to process
their claims. Process their claims.
That's that's how Medicare works pretty
much. Yeah. Yeah. Military health
insurance. When I when I retired from
the army, uh human Yeah. handled my
insurance, but it was government pay,
right? They're just paying for it.
Somebody else is paying the
administrator.
That's how the Medicare Advantage plans
work, too.
Yeah. It's all It's all backed up by
Medicare, right? And they offer stuff on
the I I when I got elected when I got
elected to the House, I I became a
retired New Hampshire state employee
because of my age. And so I briefly had
to deal with Medicare, but now I'm on
the state
uh retired state
employee. That's kind of cool. Um so
here's a delegation project that
somebody can do is um go through our
entire budget and come up with what our
uh what our total healthcare cost is.
Um that's not something we need to do in
this meeting, Karen. But um I'm just
curious while while we're on the
subject. Yep. I was thinking that when
we present the budget at the end of the
year, it would be nice if we did some
pie charts
and say this is where this is what we're
spend on health, you know, health
insurance is what we spend on salaries.
This is what we send on this thing.
Because I didn't really see that
anywhere, you know, everybody goes and I
that's where all the money goes. Well,
that would be helpful because I I do
have the bar graph and stuff by
department, but we can we can easily all
the data is there, so I can easily pull
that over. I think I think that is a
good thing to do and for for a reason
that you didn't state. Okay. Which is
when you you know, the average taxpayer
gets their bill and it's $3,000 and they
go, "Okay, $3,000." They're sending a
check to the town of Troy. We're taking
the hit for that. Mhm. But you know,
when you look at the
breakdown, it's a h the breakdown is the
school district and the county are way
in front of the town of Troy. Yeah.
You're going you're basically going to
have two pie charts. You're going to
have the one that breaks down the
county, the the school tax and the Tro,
the three three
part and then you have a second one that
just has the Troy portion of it and what
components of it are healthcare. what is
really um you know because payroll is
going to be everybody's gonna be shocked
when they see the pie chart and how much
of it is payroll and then how much of it
is general operating expenses which is
the part that you can really trim yeah
that's
part you know we've gone out of our way
um I
to reduce the number of full-time
employees is a small town and many of
the positions don't really really merit
being
full-time. Um, and so we've saved in
that
area. Um, but it it's it and I don't I
don't think that we're lack I don't
think we have anything work any better
or any worse based on making somebody
full-time.
Um,
that's one of the things we've done in
the last couple years. There's a half a
dozen positions that used to be
full-time and are now part time.
Uh, so that's your insurance. This
year's budget is three little over
305,000
for insurance for health insurance. Just
health insurance, not dental. Not
dental. Wow. I mean, that depends on
like who the library hires, you know,
the new director. That's a
huge percentage wise. Sure. If you think
about the town's budget is Well, that's
what I'm thinking. I'm
think it's 10% of the um That's
basically 10%.
Yeah. Little
just salaries and that probably takes it
up to 25 between salaries are a big part
of you. But if you're just looking at
like health insurance, dental and and
that type of stuff, it's
dental is cheap. It went up last year
though. Still cheap. I know, but it's it
still adds to that. No, it went up. It
went up more than that. Dental insurance
is upside down. Any I mean I mean they
pay for the little stuff.
We're not gonna debate. I mean the
medical insurance field coverage. Oh
that's a nightmare. Like there's a whole
issue with that. We're not going to fix
that. We're not fix that. We're just
looking at how can we balance our
budget. We're looking at how can we
exactly what we can do. Yeah. How can we
manage the what's we're not going to
come up with the United States answer to
healthare. No. So on the on the HSAs
because you can do a HSA, you can do an
HR. Well, the you're going to ask a
whole bunch of questions that we're not
prepared to answer. We're we're at the
we're at the beginning
part what you're thinking. Okay. I'm
thinking whichever one works the best
for the employees and saves us some
money. Okay. Or I didn't want to say
saves us. HSAs control all costs. Has
don't. Correct. Well, HAS don't really
roll over. You can't have an HSA with an
H. Yes, you can have both. What is an H?
H is like Yes. It's like you're kind of
regular insurance without having It's
not the cate. It's a reimbursement
account. Yeah. So, it's more like
regular insurance that you can put your
deduct you can pay your deductibles out
of that and all that. Well, so we have
we are not we're talking different
letters, I think. We're not there to
have that. We're not ready to have that
conversation. It wasn't even on the
table two months ago and we decided we
needed to look at look at in this. Was
it at the last meeting, Jeremy?
We've talked about it briefly and I've
worked with the insurance agent. Right.
So, we've identified a big, you know,
obviously a big component of the um of
the budget that has opportunity for
savings. So, um and the budget committee
really plays very little role in that.
Um but you know I think further analysis
of of different tanches within the
budget that are are big segments like
that um might might shed some light on
exactly the same conversation for
something else you know so healthcare
obviously is a big one um what else is
there you know there's also the
individual coverage health reimbursement
arrangement IC which I never heard of
We'll let you guys sort out all the
acrony there's a lot of options out
there. There's another side of this
business that I think is important to at
least keep in mind and that is
collections. Troy had a collections
problem.
uh then we have worked diligently I'm
saying we the select have worked
diligently to resolve that
problem. Uh we had people who had not
paid taxes
in well 32
years. Um, so there's a little bit of
money. And we had people where we had
taken houses back for taxes and then
rented it back to people for less money
than their taxes were. Okay. Same
people. So, we've gone a long way to
resolving that. Uh, and we brought money
in and we've been much tighter on our
collections policy. Some of it's a
little difficult to do because people
aren't used to doing it. But we've
attempted to stay within the
law. Well, we have stayed within the
law.
We have stayed within the law. I can see
the article now.
And one of the, you know, one of the
further things that we are looking to do
is Droid has had a policy of taking
properties of of taxdeeding properties
and then holding them. And we don't
really have to do that. We have the
ability to simply sell the property
literally on the town hall steps, take
the money, we're paid, hope it works out
for you, go play off the guy who bought
your tax lean. Yeah. And I think that's
probably the next step. And they people
do have further rights of redemption,
but rather than the town of Troy be the
arbiter in this thing, just you just
sell the debt to somebody and sell it
off and hope it works out for you.
Really don't care. Yeah, that's
typically the process anyway is you you
take it for tax deed and then promptly
have a tax sale on it and you like Well,
mo many places do. We do not do that,
right? We we just we skip that last part
and then they just piled up. We're not
the only town to sit on. Um I think in
the in the end though and I don't know
you guys know the property list better
than I do but it's probably not going to
solve our long-term problems by
liquidating that property. So um but one
of the other things that outside the box
thinking is um surpluses being applied
to um capital reserve funds. So using uh
end of the year surpluses
uh from that department going into that
department's um CIP part of the program.
So that incentivizes the department to
come in under budget to come in under
budget as far as as deep as they can so
that they can augment their capital
reserve um with that money. We talked
about that.
We talked about it but somebody somebody
said we couldn't do that. You got to we
couldn't do it. We talked about it be
possibly having a warrant article for
that and then would it have to come up
every year? There were issues. Oh, I I
think there I think it's it's I I think
it's in the category of it depends upon
how you word it.
So to just make it a hard if you save
this, we're going to take it and put it
into your account. That doesn't work.
But you can do it and the school
district does it regularly. If there's a
surplus of X, then they'll put X into
the uh account for whatever. Yeah,
because it elapses in the year and then
you can use it to pay down a war
article. So essentially doing a warrant
article for that account just using that
same number. Yeah. But every year you
have to redo it which is fine. Warrants
it have to be okay with I don't know. I
think we would probably
that we didn't work we would probably be
very happy to do that but we didn't get
there yet. Right. Right.
Yeah. Because the the processes we would
have to change is not using surplus to
buy down tax rate. We would we would
accumulate surplus and then come into
budget season and during the at town
meeting we would take that surplus and
apply it to capital reserve. Well, but
you're still paying down your tax and I
don't Yes. Yeah. You're still paying
your tax. You are you're taking out of
this pocket and put in that pocket. I
It's still a good idea. You're avoiding
future tax increases, but the incentive
on the department head to get their
budget to come in low is not there. when
we do a straight buy down. Correct. We
haven't been able to do it because we
didn't know what it was, right? We had
no idea whether we had surpluses,
losses, and that's that's coming to an
end as well. So, we're we're going to
all our audits are going to be up to
date. So, this is something that can
absolutely be done. 23 now. They just
wrapped up 23.
No, they're doing 23 now. Oh, they're
doing They don't have That's the one
they were in the office for the other
day. So, they're just starting now. We
don't even have 22 yet, but they should.
No, but they they they pulled their they
don't they said they wouldn't be back.
That was for 23 last week, right? Yep.
So 23 we should have and it's in pretty
goodstead.
They don't have to invent a lot of
things. Um
so there were gaps. I know. Um so that
really takes us up to 24, right? So the
likelihood of us being caught up on
audits this year is pretty good. Yeah.
Very good. Yeah. We'll definitely We'll
be up through 23 for sure. Probably 24.
Yeah. So you be you'd be doing 24 this
year anyway. So we're not that yet,
right? Well, so so in in theory, you
would be doing the audit between during
the budget season. In
theory, the bud they so scheduling wise,
the auditors just pulled their numbers
for 23. In a perfect world, they would
have just pulled their numbers for 24.
You should have an audit before and it
wouldn't it wouldn't look like Chinese.
It would look something like they should
be able to pull those numbers, transfer
them over, say 99% of the money is in
the right place and what was this about
and wrap it up in two or three weeks.
It's one year removed though, Steve. So
like when you're planning when you're
planning your 26 budget, your 2026
budget, you're going to be looking at
surpluses from your 2024, right? Year
end or 22 and 23. Okay. So, you're just
hopefully those are all done. But once
you're Yeah. Once you're in a perfect
Yeah. If if we work
Well, no. I think we're going to be
caught up and then I think that's the
way forward. So, one of the one of the
issues that you have going forward is as
as the as the the surpluses will be
smaller because we've been tighter about
our
budgeting and the surpluses. So, you
know, that which isn't necessarily a bad
thing. As your budget, as your numbers
get better, your budgets get better.
There's just the surpluses, many of them
have occurred simply because we just
took a threw a number on the wall and
said, "Hope it works." And then we came
in under that. So, you
know, and we didn't. And we have
accumulated years worth of surpluses
because it's taken. So I got here in 18
and the last budget completed was 13 and
they were hoping to finish 14
and so it's been you were running at
least four five years behind
uh at which you're not supposed to run
more than two years behind. And then in
November they'll tell us they being will
say this is what you have available for
surplus. There's so much that you should
keep as a cash reserve.
And
uh but at the end of the day, it should
go back to taxpayers one way or the
other.
If you if you're putting it in the CIP,
it's still really gone back to
taxpayers, right? Because they didn't
have to pay pay money.
And I think and I I I stand on my point
that the the only person that truly
knows that if they can do the as good a
job with less money
um is the department head. That's
correct. They're the only ones that
absolutely know that. So we can
criticize all day long, but they're the
only ones that absolutely know that. And
if they don't have any incentive to do
that, which is this, this would be an
incentive program essentially them
because department heads do look at
what's available in their savings
account and depend on that. and they and
they pride themselves on a large savings
account so that they can make these
purchases they want to make in the
future. So um obviously we we we would
be there'd be a stop gap here at the
budget committee to prevent gaming the
system meaning inflating your operating
budget so then you you know you can
easily come in under budget and things
like that but um that's probably not
going to be really be an issue. Um, but
incentivizing them to do the job that we
need them to do for less money is this
is one of the only ways I can imagine
that that works. So, I think in the long
run it helps them be more efficient and
be able to get better equipment in the
long run. They have a better savings
account. So, have the better piece of
equipment to do the job that they need
to do. And the town as a whole isn't
sitting on a bunch of cash. Hence why we
need Right. Well, it would be nice to
not have to have
So really it's a number that RA and the
auditors have that is your surplus but
that money is really just a number
because the money's not in the bank
right borrowed money. Well some of it's
real some of it's not but well it's all
real. It's just on the timeline that
that you have I mean the first part of
the year you've got a lot of big ticket
items that you have to pay for. I mean
you have you have bond payments and
stuff that are due before March meeting.
Right. So that but that goes back to our
collection problem. Part of the reason
that we had tan, some of them were quite
large uh was because we had a collection
problem, right? So, we had tax bills
running long and if you got a June tax
bill that's not getting paid until, you
know, November or whatever, you what are
you running on? You're running on no
cash. Well, November wouldn't be We can
handle November. It's November of 1987
that's the problem. Yeah. It's the
December Christmas
gift from the county that Yeah. And then
we always get hit with the county bill.
I And I I I strongly encourage the idea
of the graphs in our presentations on
this
because I believe the county government
New Hampshire is the black hole of
government in this state. While most of
the entities in this state are committed
class, we're here. We're on camera. You
can see all of it. county government
received virtually no input
um from the public. In fact, up until
this last last year, the public was
barred from even commenting at public uh
county
meetings. So, you know, if more people
saw what went on, I believe there would
be more pressure on the county
delegation to spend differently. Didn't
you say they don't even usually question
the budget?
Well, if you do, you're going to get
shuted down. The answer is to get rid of
county government.
I don't suggest. In the 1960s,
Connecticut and Rhode Island eliminated
county governments and all the county
functions either went up to the state or
down to the towns and it worked. It
depends. I agree with you. I I believe
that it could be either probably in this
state because it's like except county.
They're the only county you'd have to
keep because they have unincorporated
areas and you know some places in the
south the local government is the county
government. You know again it's because
of unincorporated areas. Well largely
mostly but the lower nine counties out
of our 10 don't have unincorporated
areas. Correct. That's why Rhode Island
and Connecticut were able to do that.
Right.
I I I there's a there's a number of
different options, but we have to deal
with the situation as it is on the
ground right now. On the ground, the
county operates with virtually no
feedback
whatsoever. Um and those people who uh
questioned the county budget were
essentially shouted down by the other
27. How does their budget get approved?
The county delegation. So you have the
executive and the commissioners. The
county executive draws up a budget with
his
staff and then it gets a it goes in
front of the county commissioners and
then it comes to the county delegation.
So in Cheshire County there which is
composed of all of the house reps. Every
state every every county is the same way
in New Hampshire. It's interesting like
in Hillsboro County which technically
includes Manchester all Manchester reps
are there. So every Republican in
Cheshure County voted against the
budget. It's a 6%
increase and they said, "Well, it's not
that bad." And the biggest chunk of that
has to do with the EMS
in Swansea and because that was going to
be free. Uh, and they they they were
using the ARPA money to create it and
then magically it wasn't going to need
further subsidy. Well, guess what?
Surprise. Surprise. Well, they didn't
use the opera money to just create it.
They used it to operate it and that
money ran out. So, that's correct. Yeah.
So, and it was subsidizing it heavily.
Correct. And then when the money was
gone, it's like this. Yeah. There's the
budget line item. Yeah. Um, so outside
of scope of this course, so just the
graphs would be a good thing. I think
the more education we can provide, I
think it's better for the people at town
meeting who are interested. Well, right.
You know, people are used to bitching
about the school and all all the cost of
the school, but at least you're getting
something for it. You know, the county
maybe I guess.
So, my my original thought on the the
pie chart is when people say we want to
cut the budget 10%. Yeah. You show them
the pie chart, you go where where? Oh,
yeah. I get it. Right. You know, you
want to cut salaries, that's the big
chunk of it. I think I I agree with that
100%. That's that would be a um that
would be a good demonstration. But I
think to back that up, we'd want to say
we've looked at this pie chart a lot. We
hunted for the 10% and it's not there.
Or if we go through the efforts and we
dig through, we found we found 3% in
healthcare alone. Maybe that's the case.
you know, um we definitely want to bring
some sort of work product to town
meeting this year that shows that that
um we have we've we've scoured and
looked for the um for what it is they're
looking for because last year they were
at the point of fed up. If we come in
with a budget this year that's higher
than last year, we're yeah, we're going
to get freaking chased out of So So do
do you have all the input for that?
Yeah. So like you you could literally
take and figure out what 10% of our
overall budget is and then apply it to
each department and say okay this is how
much it's got to come out of each one of
these departments and then look at those
departments and say what would you know
what would you pull out of here for 10%.
And a lot of what I what I used to do
when when we did this more
comprehensively than the last couple of
years was um a three to five year look
back. So if I have something that's
basically come in under budget 3 to 5
years in a row, the the the obvious
answer is to bring that line items
budget down to where it's been over the
last 3 to 5 years because you haven't
needed it. So you have bloat in there.
So we did a lot of that early on and cut
we cut quite a bit um early on and got
rid of basically just just fluff that
was hanging out in the budget that
really didn't need to be there. Um, it
certainly helped with surpluses in the
end, but also at the end of the year,
you'd have departments that think, well,
like, you know, a little spending spree
and you get the you'd get the uh the the
bucket of aspirin or whatever.
Well, you know, and that's the back on
just another thing on the
surpluses, you know, if we apply
$200,000 from surplus to the tax
rate, it can't it can't offset a
$300,000 increase from the county and
the school district and the state. And
that's one of the things
that I think it's important for people
to understand that there there have been
times where basically you took the town
of Troy to zero, your tax rate would
still very close to it.
Yeah. No, that's a that's a that's a
very good point in illustrating this
when we were discussing that town
meeting is going to be is going to be
key. But yeah, last year was we just
didn't have um yeah, we we weren't able
to articulate exactly how we had gotten
there and I I think we need to do that
for this year. So on a tax basis still
it is very limited. It is largely
residential single family houses. Yeah.
And we're not growing. No, I mean a
little bit but we're not not not to
match the budget. Not on the magnitude
that Swansea is. Yep. Right. Exactly. If
you're if you're growing um on the
existing roads, with the existing
library, with the existing town hall and
you're adding house after house after
house or or development or what have
you. Um you you that is got real impact.
We don't have that going on here. No, we
definitely don't have that going on. I
bet this budget's grow too. Well, not
not as much as the gas. That's good that
Yeah, I would I would agree. You put in
you put in some of those places that
like the place across from Mount Huggin
or whatever that is that is a zero
impact to to their tax base. They're not
they're they're raising more money, but
they have their budget is not going up
anymore for that.
Um the staff the the the police staff
that you have cover it. They Yeah. Your
water sewer department covers it. It's
already it's already there. Yeah. So,
um
I think that's on a well sector. No, no,
I saw them connected. Did they connect?
Y. So technical stuff.
I'm looking at the budgets here. All the
100s are salaries. Is that correct?
Um I'm just trying to figure how this
stuff all pieces
together department.
You're probably right, Steve. So I don't
know if that's categorically correct
throughout the entire budget, but but I
would say it's mostly correct. Okay,
we could do some work by loading loading
some of this stuff into a database
queries.
So I have it all in in that spreadsheet
with with every um year from 2017
forward. So I can share that with you
and you can take it from there and do
what you want with it there. Because I
find that spreadsheets are nice, but
they're only two
dimensional relationships. You're going
to do
3D. We're going back in time. That's the
fourth dimension. Steve, one of the
things I want you you made a statement.
I want to be clear that we don't all
walk out of here with a
misunderstanding. The 100 accounts
represent personnel, but it is not
necessarily employees.
So just in the case of the town hall uh
line 102 is custodian but that is not
the employee that is a contractor 1099
individual. Uh so just so yeah okay you
know but like the planning board clerk
yes that is an employee but
so it's just yeah personel something
going on here. Yeah, they went that
way. They left this window.
Oh, okay. She family something.
And not police related.
We might get a show here. It's I got my
back. Maybe get his first ice.
Exactly.
something.
Um, stick the camera.
Yeah. So, takeaways as to what what
Steve, you're you were headed down that
path. What What is it we want to How do
we want to prepare for the next meeting?
What do we What do we want to look at
here? I I you know, it was brought up at
town meeting, so the 10% is just stuck
in my head. Yeah. Um, and I know it's
not achievable. It just it really isn't,
but um why not start there, you know?
Yeah. Why not, you know, why not start
there? And you could go through it and
say, "Okay, we're going to cut 10%."
What's that look like? Yep. Well, we're
one less person here and no new
equipment for this and they got to cut
up their gas mileage and cut down the
fuel costs and you know, like, is that
practical? Probably not. But, no, but I
mean, there might be some areas where it
works and there'll be other areas where
it's like, no, we can't do that here. In
a world where you do a 10% budget cut,
there's a low hanging fruit. really not
on on our plate, but it's the healthcare
one is is low hanging fruit. Um the
historicals is low hanging fruit.
Looking at the historicals to see those
budgets that have just been over budget
for years um that need to be cut back.
Um and some of those you'll look at them
and you'll be like, okay, we've been
over budgeting this multiple years in a
row and then it's actually for something
that's cyclical. So this is a year that
we need that high budget and what the
department heads are not doing is
bringing it down the following year. So
it just rides along at this time budget.
So we might learn a little bit about
that along the way as well. But um but
that's that's where you you may need to
look at how you deal with those things.
You know, in other words, just putting
the same amount in the budget every year
because one winter you're going to get
12 feet of snow. Right. Right. You know,
do you cut it down but have a reserve
that you can use in that case? Yeah.
I think at this point. So, yeah. How
long does this all stay good?
But just just getting getting the pie
chart to me look like a problem without
doing the analysis. Yep.
Absolutely. Yeah. Putting everybody in
everything in the right bucket, right? Y
and they're pretty aptly named each of
the line items. So, I think um it's
going to be, you know, Yeah, a little
bit labor intense. Something ought to
get a little better. Yeah, it would be
nice. Is there any category information
here? Doesn't show up here,
you know, like it says it just says
account name. Is there like a a category
or a type of expense or something like
that? What is included in each line
item? Well, like you know, all of the
employees could say, you know, it's an
employee HR costs or this. I'm just
curious if there's data in the
system reports.
I don't think there we went through this
years ago. It may have changed, but I
mean, all the numbers are from the it's
not broken down like a regular company,
uh, you know, or a regular business
because you would have all your
employees would be in your payroll and
then you'd break it down by classes. And
the way the town budgets work is they
break it down by department and each
microscopic thing within the department
has its own line which is you know and
so so that's why some of these if you
square the numbers across the
departments then you can go by the well
but they're not they don't all have the
same the answer we're going to tell you
is they don't all have the same stuff.
So you have some departments that have
52 lines and some that have four. So,
there's a there's a couple of things
though. Um,
so the comparative statement that the
treasurer does um is broken down into
groups like um executive is one of the
ones listed in there and it has a bunch
of different things that are attributed
to that group. Um I don't know if that's
going to give you the information that
you're looking for, but I do know that
it's grouped um through that process and
those groups are um predefined by DRA.
Yeah.
That may be something that one of the
reasons that we couldn't convert to
regular private sector accounting
programs because that's not how you run
your business. That's not how this
business Well, that's not how this
business runs, right? Because you're
conforming to a DRRA standard, which is
would you want a system that works off
that standard, not one that works off
general accounting principles? Well,
right. Because general accounting
principles would say, you guys are out
of business. See? Yeah. I mean that
that's I did systems. Yeah. One of if
you wanted to buy a system it was always
okay buy the system but buy the
processor. Mhm. You know you bring in
software do use it the way it was
designed to be used. Well, and you and
we tried to what happened here is we
tried to do that and you the cost in
every possible way and in our cases they
maybe write the customizations. Well,
that's what happened and it never got
fully done and the cost the hard cost of
the mistakes that it generated. Oh yeah.
And the misfunding goes back to it was
just why it took so long to get caught
up on the audits.
because absolutely nothing meshed.
But if you want to stop, we can talk
about it. I mean, the other the other
way is just to build up a table that
normalizes this stuff.
You know, you've got a table and in the
table it
says
4130-101 and it says it's executive
salaries. So, are we saying this is what
we're going to utilize
to provide information to the public or
is this just what's happen? That way you
can look at you can look at things
different ways. Yeah, it's like a SQL
database essentially that we're
developing and yeah, so but one one yeah
have a conversation with Jeremy on this
because the way BMSI produces its data,
it's you you you've got to try to work
with that. Otherwise, you're doing a
bunch of copy and paste crap that I have
to do into my spreadsheet because BMSI
just does a terrible job of producing
anything in in delimited form or any of
that. doesn't really do that. Like you
would you would expect especially
creating a SQL database, you would want
to you'd want to create your data in a
delimited form that you can then
download and import into your database
and it just doesn't do that. It doesn't.
And when it when it creates a
spreadsheet, it's like jumbled up and
headings are all over the place. It's a
freaking mess. So, and that's just BMSI
being archaic in that in that way. So,
but maybe just just the way
go into I mean I used to write import
programs all the time so it's not trying
to figure it out deal with what the date
is and get it into a standard format.
You meet with Jeremy and let us know
what you
next week. So, um, after he has his
holiday
on the, um, year-to- date budget that we
received, we've received an updated one
today as well, but um, is there any is
there any questions, um, on that that
people want to anything you want to talk
about on the year to date, but this is
this this should be a quarter of the
for today.
Yeah, almost half
close, you know, more than a quarter.
So, you shouldn't be seeing any
necessarily anything that's below
about 55% something like that.
Oh, right. Yeah. Services
See, the problem is that some of these
things, they're paid in advance. They're
paid up front. So, you can't just look
at the front end, right? You need to
know that this is an annual cost versus
this is Yeah. You might have something
that's 0% left and an annual single
payment. Yeah. The insurance hasn't
already been paid.
You may get something that's years past
that and October is 0% gets paid, right?
the end of the year. Well, and so that's
like you have capital reserves, you
haven't moved over yet, but workers
comps done once they're moved, you spend
100% insurance,
right? Right. All of those are paid at
the beginning of the year.
They are
insurance property liability workers
comp.
We have a bunch of front end loaded
stuff.
Yeah, we operate without a budget until
it's written right in law. Anything
that's a recurring expense considered an
operating expense is allowed to be
expended in that year's budget prior to
approval of the budget. Right. There's a
there there is a way
to you can convert the town to a fiscal
year jive with the state and
uh school
district but always it seemed to me
which I would personally think is what
we should do July one right
but I think we've had more pressing
issues our financial management over the
last That gives you like a year and a
half, one year. Well, you either do a
short year or a long year. Yeah. And
there's a actually it's a very detailed
laid out process for it. There's a
surplus amount that you need to have on
hand and or tents or whatever to fund it
and Yeah. It definitely qualifies as the
least of our problems. Yeah, exactly.
But it is it is would be doable if it's
something we really want to do, but not
to the top of the list.
Yeah, that was one of the one of the
other things that we that pre previously
we had a process where we
would give people raises.
Well, the raises become effective
January 1.
You haven't voted. They haven't voted on
it. So, it's contrary to the law, but
they have their they either got paid
retroactively or they got the raise and
hopefully the town approved it. Um, and
so that's why when you get when we get
back into the budget processing, you
remember we had that Yes. where the
raises all become effective after April
one, right? And the other thing that we
run into with some of the department
heads and then with their employees is
just because it's in the
budget doesn't mean you get a raise.
Make it so right. Uh we had that issue
because the selection took a position
several years ago that without annual
reviews no one gets a raise.
And then we had one department had who
came to us after a year and said where
are all my people's raises? And we said,
"Where's you giving us any reviews?" And
it was like, "Oh, remember when we said
you shook your head and nodded like a
horse?" Yeah. Okay. So, nobody,
interestingly enough, no one
quit. That was the only conversation we
had about that. But we get the reviews.
And I think from a personel management
perspective, whether you're doing a good
job or a crappy job,
those annual reviews need to be done.
I mean, yeah, but they weren't done.
So, we have data that we're going to
that we want to put together. We have
probably a little more in-depth look at
this on a little more in-depth look at
our year-to- date budget at our next
meeting. Um, we
have probably want to rope the
department heads into this conversation.
Yeah. Sooner than later. So, it seems to
me we come back together as a as a group
um talk about some of the homework
that's been done in between this meeting
and the next meeting and then bring the
department heads in with a bit more of
our game plan as to what we'd like to
see going into uh 26. Mhm.
Um and that will bring them into the
conversation early because if they have,
you know, delusions of grandeur about
what 26 is going to look like. Um with
with the budget committee being on a
totally different path of we're trying
to freeze the budget at least for the
next year or two, if not bring it lower
and looking for, you know, what
cooperation from everybody else to make
that happen. Um yeah, we we won't have
that. It's not fair to just bring that
on, right? Certainly in October.
Well, they shouldn't be that surprised
if they're telling
you and let them know that this is our
expectation and we're sticking to it to
the
best% they know that they're budgeting a
lot easier. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I
mean, Right.
Okay. So, we need that incentive to be
able to take money spend this year and
carry it over. You can work on that next
year. Yeah. Yeah. Because then they
could you they could say, "Well, I can I
can put off this stuff as long as I can
do it."
Well, I I think just the reality of what
you're actually going to be able to do
in a year is something people are
learning and being able to think about
some of these cases, the money is all
expended in a year. They're gone. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, it's it's setting up this
is a longterm thing. You're not going to
do it in a year. This is like a paradigm
change, too. So, like people it's going
to take a little it's a
I think we have to figure out how we
want to go about it before we start.
Yep. That's what that's what between now
and the next meeting should be. In the
next meeting, we might find, well, we're
going to need one more meeting before we
rope in the troops to, you know, get our
get our heads on straight before we
before we move forward because we don't
we don't want to bring this to the
department heads without a without some
sort of plan in place, some examples of
where savings can be seen just by
looking at historicals and things like
that and then getting their feedback. I
think pro probably maybe even now we
should put together sort of a a goal.
Yep.
formal written. This is our goal. So
that's what we're working
towards. Just so we're focused on it,
that's all. Not that it's, you
know, I mean, is is the goal to cut cut
10%. Or is the goal of cut as much as we
can or is the goal to just see what we
can do? I don't know. They they they
almost passed a 10% cut at town meeting.
uh that that to me gives us incentive
and direction. I mean these are the
people that elected us, you know, that's
what they want. So it gives us incentive
and direction to go that route. And
again, I don't think it's actually
probably doable, but it is if that's the
goal we set and we made it three, you
know, 30% of the way there or we made it
40% of the way there and we can
demonstrate that that we listened to you
last year, you wanted a 10% cut. That's
crazy. We won't things will go arrive to
do that. But we tried it here and we
came up with and this is what we looked
at. This is how we got there. And if
you're really really still pissed off,
go to the county.
But then we're driving the bus at that
point. Yeah. If if we you know, if they
came in and did a 10% now, it's chaos if
they just cut it to 10%. Exactly. That's
why I asked at the meeting to give us a
chance. And that's I mean, yeah, I I I
asked the entire room for that. And um
yeah, that's why I've been kind of
adamant about this 10%. I mean, well, if
inflation is 4% and you cut 4%, you've
actually got an 8% reduction. Did I do
that right? Yes.
4 plus 4.
Well done, Dick. If inflation is 4% and
you come in with the same budget, you've
cut it 4%. Right. Right. So, what I have
up here is the um is the spreadsheet
that I've been referring to. Um you can
see a lot of times I'll hide out the the
year so you you know like I don't know
how much I have hidden out here now, but
I have it. It's all open. So, every Yep.
2017 forward. Um the older years are not
as good. The data is not as good because
we were we were transitioning between
QuickBooks and there was a lot a lot of
crap going on. But the last five years
of this is pretty good. And um and so
each one of the line items has the um
the the budgeted amount, the actual
amount that we spent, and then the
percent of budget that we spent and
every every last bit of it in here. All
right. So all all of them are in here.
So living color. Yeah. I'm all for
color. Yep. So I would probably have it
more colorful than this.
Hey, if I go over here, there's even
more colors for you. There's like
orangey red over there. I I'd have the
I'd have the dollar option number.
You can you can format it however you
want. I'll send you a copy. Don't mess
with my original.
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely never send me an
original anything. I need the copy.
Yeah. And then there's some other tabs
down here that that um um I've you know
some of the stuff this was when water
department was a separate budget and and
it sat in the um in the warrant by
itself.
Um, and then this is this actually is
all formulated so that when you change
the numbers over in the main sheet, they
populate over here and it gives you your
your grand total for your operating
budget warrant article. So, all that
happens there. Um, and then your
department budget graphs. Um, this this
takes a little bit of manual adjustment
as you're going along here if you want
to um do it for the following year, but
this is good for
2025. So,
But I'll I'll get that over to you too
so you have it. When did we bring the
word in budget in under the town budget?
Three years ago. Three or four years
ago. Yeah.
Yeah. So,
um yeah. So, so there's that. So, you'll
have that data. Um where else we Yeah.
So, next meeting
probably earliest June would make sense.
Um, what are our dates? Mondays are
Mondays are our day.
So that would put us We have 2nd, the
9th, 16th, the 23rd,
30th. The 9th is probably reasonable.
That is 1, two,
Four weeks away, right?
9th of June. 6:00 here. That work? Yeah.
Your pain meds wearing off yet, Al? Oh,
yeah. Yeah. You look you look like
you've had enough.
Not pleasant. No, I've been there.
All right. So, we all good with that? A
June 9th, 6 p.m. here? We need to book
that with you. Yeah, I'll take I was
just going to say I'll I'll get I'll get
that. Thank you for
that. Okay, so that's in my calendar,
too. All right. Um, anything else we
want to just have two things. One, yes.
Um, three of us have terms expiring this
year. Okay. Um, you're one, you've
already said your intentions. Yep. I'm
one. I haven't decided yet, but I
probably will. And Tara is the other.
She's not here. Okay. So, we'll go over
that again at a later date. And I just
want to point out that for the first
time in my memory, all nine members at
large of the budget committee are
serving three-year terms. We have no
partial terms or appointees. Yep. That's
good. We've had we've had pretty good uh
pretty good turnout for the last I don't
know how many years now, but been
basically a full budget committee for a
while now.
The public to come to our meetings and
question us before we stop meeting.
Well,
I watch. Do we want to talk about CIP at
the next meeting? Who's on it? What
we're doing?
All right. So, you guys can talk about
your ideas for that. We're probably
going to deal with health insurance
first. Okay. This is trickier and more
important. Okay. Probably at some point
need to go in and adjust the vehicle
course. I'm sure there are
in the CIP. Yes. In the CIP. Do you guys
want to serve again
or both sides? Yes. There's there's
another thing that since we're before I
don't want to go. I want to go. The
selectman are also looking at into u
what do they call Jeremy impact fees
impact fees. So for my first three years
as a selectman if we issued six building
permits it was a
lot. Uh I noticed one signed the other
day is number 25 for
2025. And so there are rules on charging
impact
fees. Uh we met with uh planning
board last Wednesday and it would have
to go before town town meeting. So this
goes back to your CIP issue.
If we were to charge
$1,000 per dwelling unit for a CIP,
just say you have to
allocate for an impact fee. You have to
allocate within the impact fee what you
are allocating that money to. So we're
allocating $200 to the fire department,
$200 to the police department, $50 to
the library,
$100 to maintenance of town buildings,
$100 to roads, whatever your numbers
are, but it has to be specific. You
can't just pull a number out of the air.
Um, and that money has to go into you
have to have a CIP and the money has to
go into a CIP.
Um, so there are probably, as is true of
everything in New Hampshire, there are
probably different ways to put this
thing together as there are towns that
have them within very broad frameworks.
But uh where we are likely to see an
increase in building well we're seeing
an increase in building. How much more
consequential it is is hard to say but
those of the selectment are looking into
bringing that up as an additional source
of revenue because it's you you have one
shot
for an impact fee, which is the day that
building permit is issued for a new unit
of any kind. And there is absolutely an
impact of new construction and
additional dwelling units on the capital
structure of the town.
Well, the town was built without you.
Essentially, the town was built without
you. The town was built without you. And
we're now going to have to do more stuff
because you got here. Yep. and you
contributed nothing in building the
town. So, right. And you know, I
I it probably would be viewed by some
people as a bad thing. I came from the
building business in the Washington DC
area. And in Maryland, which is where I
did most of it, it had a different name
in Virginia, but in Maryland, it's
called the front foot benefit. And
depending upon the county that you're
in, if you had 20 feet of frontage, it
was $100 a foot, you paid $2,000. If you
had 400 ft, you paid
$30,000 at work. Uh, and that was how
it's done in Maryland. And that funds a
lot of the
uh burdens and one-time costs that
accumulate when you do a lot of
development. I mean, are we going to do
30,000 units in Detroit? No. But we
might do 50 or 100. So, um, one thing I
we this has come up along the way and,
um, I think we're supposed to have our,
um, our master plan updated and all and
we're work and they're working on that.
And the other thing is if if we are
happy with the master plan or largely
happy with the master plan as it
is and nobody's come up with it. Oh my
god, we should never have had you know,
residential on Brook Street. Um, you but
if they're happy with the master plan
versus zoning changes, they can simply
reertify the master plan. Yep. Uh, or
they can make small adjustments to it
and reertify it. Yep. I I think that my
guess is that's the way it's going to
sugar out when they get the bill to have
somebody redraw a completely new master
plan that says exactly the same thing.
Honestly, if you haven't looked at it
since you created it in 2007, correct?
Too long. You You're I mean I mean
literally you're not using it to to plan
then. Well, there hasn't been anything
to plan. But I'm you know you know it's
just Yeah. It seems like using the same
one isn't going to hurt. Six building
permits and in four years is not like oh
my god we need to think this thing out.
Yeah. You know, if you're going to do
six six a week, oh, that would be a lot.
If you're going to do 60 a week, yeah,
you better have your act together. And
the other thing that we've we are
looking at, so if a building permit has
already been
issued, it wouldn't affect that
obviously. Uh but if it is a building
permit that is a on a new pole. So let's
say that building over there was
actually only a threeunit apartment
building and the gentleman who owns
it converted it to a five
unit. That this is a factual statement.
That's exactly what happened over there.
And so uh there you would charge an
impact fee for each of the additional
units that are added. Y but it has to be
specific in writing again. You have to
allocate where it's going to go. Yeah.
So that's a potential increase that goes
back to your CIP. Yeah. Yeah. But that's
the development part of it too, like
zoning adjustments and things like that.
Um that you would normally look back at
your master plan to see if that's what
you wanted to do. It isn't so much
deciding whether or not you want to
develop this part of town into more
residential or reszone this area or
whatever. It's it's okay, do we want to
do we want to take, you know, two
buildings that are in in downtown that
have big units in them and convert them
into four and five units buildings? Is
that is that can that go along with the
master plan? Does that does that fit?
Yeah. Does that fit with what the master
plan says that we want to do? Right. So
it it should be the guiding document for
all zoning adjustments going forward,
but it when you don't look at it, you
just make it up as you go, right? So
okay. Uh so
around around the CIP
all those were appointments.
What's all that? Nothing.
Were they one of your appointments? I
thought they were to infinity and
beyond.
I have to check to be sure, but usually
CIP
I I thought we just they were
indefinite. Yeah.
Usually things like that are I don't
like redevelopment group, right? Okay.
Just something that popped in my head
the other day. No, you don't get off the
hook that easy. No, you're not leaving.
I can leave anytime I want.
It's an ad. I could check out, but I
can't believe it's an ad hoc committee.
So, the committee stands until the
mission is completed. Okay. Mission's
never Well, there you go.
All right. So, on June 9th, we'll be
we'll be getting a CIP update.
Hopefully, we'll be getting um some sort
of healthcare update or or some sort of
progress in that direction. Well, we'll
tell you what we're thinking. We'll be
looking at a um um we'll be looking at
data analysis and where we are in that
process and then we'll be looking at
what a 10% cut looks like across the
board. Those are the those are the
things that we'll be looking at on June
9th. Anything else? No, that seems to be
enough. It's a lot. It's a lot. So, um
on too. What's that? Pass the gabble.
She was in charge of I am now. She's in
charge.
[Laughter]
Just getting her warmed up, that's all.
All right. So, um All right. Next
meeting July uh June 9th here at 6 PM.
And uh I'll entertain a motion to
adjourn this meeting. So move second.
Motion and a second. All those in favor?
A bose.