All right. Yeah. Yeah, actually 19% Yeah. He didn't hear that. I thought that we haven't Are you going to start us off or are we going to wait? I don't know what that watch on the other Yeah, pretty General I Start with that. Pretty important. Well, actually Apologies. And you seat yourself today. All right. Is that Yeah. Apparently. Okay. Yep. Good afternoon and apologies for a late start. There's utility construction and it happened to catch me. Should have rode my bike today. Uh, welcome to the Monday, June 2nd town council budget workshop. Uh, roll call shows we have council Lay, Council Hardison, Council Marks, myself, Councelor Demerit, uh, Councelor Kenny, Council Powers, and Councelor Baker. Um, item two on our discussion. Um, I suppose I could take a motion to approve the budget, but I won't I won't I'm too late to offer that. Second it. Yeah, seconded. All those in favor in the back, right? Yeah. All the staff. Good. Um, we're going to talk about the budget today. So, review and discussion of municipal budget. Clint, do you want to walk us through? Yeah, I'll kick us off and that'll get it I want to get it into the council's hands as soon as possible, but thank you. Um, so we've closed up all our meetings and presentations with you. We provided some information. I do apologize and for the public as well. Um, one of the attachments was not linked correctly. You ended up getting the budget summary twice. Um, and then we redid the you did get an Excel spreadsheet of the uh of the uh appendix C, but it was harder to navigate. So, we redid it as a PDF this morning. So, they're there, but that was out there as well. But, in doing this, we put together some information. Thank you for the requests I got. I put that together in in a one-page memo that's also attached um that explains uh probably four areas or criteria you could begin to look at as well as some of the questions with a little bit of anything that's in italics and underlined afterwards were my attempts at answering it. But I think, you know, as we're going through this, I shared a short memo saying that I think right now to move forward and having met with uh council leadership that uh with it being in your hands, it's a good time now to kind of take a look. The managers presented budgets here. We've talked about you will pull yourselves on the things you do or don't want to do and kind of go a consensus mode. So if it you know and my suggestion would be is if it's very debatable of where you're going maybe you would have to actually do a formal count of hands to know if it's 4352 but overall if it's just consensus I think we can go through some of the suggestions there. um as you go through that first memo that I think is the council motivated memo that's attached as tell you the name it's the one that's called yes the re council budget items right at the bottom and I wrote it like a response to the council is why I call why I did it that way um so the budget big picture revisited we started off at the beginning late January with what are some of the big picture things um I presented a budget that I feel is very close. One of the earlier conversations was staying away uh it was taking a look at the town only and when we look at the town only understand that there are certain fixed costs. So the fixed costs that I presented in the budget summary were pay and benefits totaling 400,000 and workers comp um just short of another 140. So that was about 540 to start right out the door. Um, a lot of the things that are here, the budget the staff and I have presented to you did a lot with revenues to offset. We lost some revenue sharing. Um, in fact, we got another update just a few weeks ago. So, I updated the in this budget summary. It's an updated revenue sharing number. It went down another $13,000. I mean, it wasn't a huge change, but it was a change. So, I just updated to take that into account as well. We may see one more May. Sometimes they do three. Uh typically it's typically it's two, sometimes it's only one, but right now we're at two updates they've given. Um but and then in the second section of your memo begin of that uh response to the council after those first four or five items if you count the department specific it gets into some others. So when you go back to the other memo attached which is let me get that pulled up. Got to get the agenda in the right spot. There we go. Which is called uh council topics budget review. Um that's one that I had prepared based upon initial thoughts on where the budget ended, questions we had in the pres presentation from staff that the council kind of held off. And then I picked up on a few questions that I had in my notes from you as we went through and kind of incorporated those into the departmental ones. And in the very end, one of the last requests I had was uh I added the capital plan list changes. So the capital plan that's online is different. Um there was some changes in there and I outlined those all in in those numbers and we can look at appendix C if you want when you when you go into that section as well. But, uh, to finish it off, to turn it over to you, Dan, I think the council has put together some good topics in the, uh, in the four bullets, I guess, that I would call the big picture. And if that's kind of the normal, you want to look at things like that, I will defer to the council on how you want to do it. But I think at this point, you got to kind of figure out if the manager staff recommended budget's good or if you want to recommend changes and what changes we should make and and we'll just kind of go down the line through them. Okay. I think um we did have I think we had a strong interest in kind of talking through those first four topics. And for those um those big picture topics are those the council budget what document in the agenda are those in? Those are in the council. Okay. So I think that that I heard that people wanted to talk about those things first and kind of get a sense of where we are and for I guess the sense of the council um is my thinking is I'd welcome others opin in input but my thinking is you know we talk through these types of things to the extent that there are substantive kind of changes or ideas um we get a sense of where the council is on stuff if there is strong support for a particular direction um and there's consensus 52 even 43 we we task staff with coming back for that for the next for our next discussion. Um if something falls to you know just one or two members then that's a hard that's a tougher ask to ask staff to go back and and deal with. So I think if we talk through these items first um and again I'm open to other other suggestions but um I do think we have to limit um limit our asks of staff and try and commit their work to stuff that is you know the council as a whole would like to see happen between now and and the public hearing which is next week. Right. So okay any thoughts on that? Sure. Okay let's have it. I mean I think that yeah that makes sense. Okay. Um and and I so do you want to start right in on number one? Is that what the plan is? And and I I'll start just because I I had put it out and included council that um that I think I for me I would like to see us we're at like 6 something% overall and I would like to see us I would like to hear from staff. I think CPI is April April and it's a moving target but it's like 2.1 but I think I I put in that I think I would like to see us closer to CPI. We are when when the CPI was much larger in the last couple years we we certainly looked to the CPI to justify the bigger increase and I think we have to sort of stick with that with that method or or at least see what it would look like. So, I'm obviously all of you know and I'll just say I'm in favor of us um hearing from staff on what a three and a half% and I think we've already kind there's already been some cuts made towards that and it it's really hard to keep up on where exactly because when we when we get like a narrative like this versus the summary it's it's hard it's hard going back and forth so I don't really know where we are right now. Oops, Jason Baker. Um, so I and I think I I have heard from uh the other the other two people on the You can speak for yourselves obviously, but I did hear from Sarah and Jacob, I think, feeling similarly who the other uh two people that are on the finance committee. Okay. Others interested in that? Jacob? Yeah, certainly. I' I'd agree with Leo. I'd like to I mean I sent an email to to Clinton Finance Committee this weekend. Unfortunately, I I don't I struggled to find um enough cuts to equate to the three or 400,000 that we needed to bring it to uh CPI, but um I'm one member, so I I would like to find additional ways to to trim this um to the extent that we can. Okay. Council Marks, you have as a member of the finance committee. You want to weigh in before? Um, yeah. I guess I I would also just like to say I actually have a question. Actually, Clint, just walking back through on page 11 and 12 of the budget binder. Um, so Leo, if I'm correct, your 3.5% figure would be looking at an increase of only, if that was at 3.5%, we'd be at 427,000 increase. And we're actually at a 798,000ish, right? Increase. So, good question. Pretty big gap there. Um, I can see those here. It's 798 would is what we're at. 798,000 increase on the operating side. I guess I want clarification. Operating expenses in the budget summary that's most updated to the council with all the new numbers we're in. Is it 878375? Increases 878. 878 375. And that's the one you just sent out. That's the one we just sent out. What document? But doesn't that include Didn't you include? Okay. Which document are you looking at, Clint? So, we can all look at the same one. I'm looking. So, again, when you go updated budget summary because that's the one you like as a council you thought would you'd work from? If you do the updated budget summary, when you open that up, town operating expenses, the very first section, which does not include capital, nor does it encount or any of our capital reserve grants in ARPA, um puts you at 13853481 is where we are today, which is 878,375 more in expenses from last year. So, this is where I want clarification. If we're looking at just expenses, we're up 878375. If you're looking net of revenues that take into account everything, the town portion is currently sitting at 671 is our increase. Did you just taxes? Can you just backtrack again? Which document are you on? On budget summary, updated budget summary. Okay. And which page of that are you looking at? It is the page nine. So I don't and sorry 878 375. Thank you. There's nine. Is that the number that you quoted Clint? It is okay. And I and I I think we look that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about operating expenses. So I I I don't even I'm not even sure what the other question you had, whether it had to do with revenues and where they came from, but um I'm I'm looking specifically at at that at that line you just talked about. So 655 on page 878 375 878 375 very top page nine down expenses only. Yeah. On operating expenses, a difference I see is 8.85 655. That's not what we're looking at. Are there's an updated budget summary. Is that Are you in the budget summary or the updated budget summary? Okay. Yeah. So, I guess I'm looking at the one that does not include debt service. Leo, I I don't like the idea of looking at our debt service along with our operating expense growth. I think that's a different thing. So, for me, I'd prefer to look at the 85655 figure, which doesn't include debt service. But other folks disagree, I don't care. I actually I I do agree. I I agree that they should be looked at the way they're being shown here, but from a you know, debt service is not really something that you know when the interest goes when we retire debt and that goes down. That's that's not op. So yeah, I'm I'm with you. 885 655. Okay. Does that answer your question, Clint? 8.85. Yeah. That's the one that's operating expenses, not the operating expenses. Most updated version that was online and shared for the public is 878 375. No. Three lines up from there. Oh, you're not counting debt service and economic development expenses, right? Correct. So, if we cut the use our economic development to budget, that's not an operating expense. Economic development is an operating expense. I guess I would push back. How is that not operating? That's totally fine. I don't care about that when I care about the debt service. Debt service. Yeah. I don't want to look at debt service at the same time. Okay. The only thing I would say is if you ever retire a large debt service payment in a given year, you need to look at that. Oh, I think we're losing half a million dollars in debt service. That's something we need to talk about. But we're talking about operating expenses, I think. And that's So it like ultimately we're talking about 10 grand here. So I Yeah, it doesn't matter that much. It's a tiny difference. Gotcha. No, I understand where you're looking. We can make that work. Got it. Okay. So what is the question? So up there. So what would that Okay, that's operating expense is 7.88. Then it's minus 1. Oh, no. We don't we're not going to minus out the debt service. The economic development is plus.3. So it's whatever. Yeah, it's I mean it's within within shooting distance there, I think. Can I just ask one other clarifying question? um on pages 11 and 12 in the original budget binder, Clint, um just double checking um that you just ran us through these numbers, but I just want to confirm um the increase that in pay and benefits is the first bullet point under expenses, correct? That's the 393027. Um what page? Page 11 of the original in your budget. It's your budget summary at the front of the budget binder. Yep. Page 11. Um so it's 393 is an increase um on pay and benefits. Um does that include the additional FTEES being asked for? Um we have FTEES being asked for in the clerk's office a new half FTE and um does that include the safer grants that are it does not include the safer grant but it does include the half position in the clerk's office. Not sure. I do not believe so. I think it was just the percentage increase of the current without adding. Okay. Yeah. Without ads. And then likewise it that does not include the workman's compensation increase at 143. It does not. So together those are what get us to your figure on the next page which is your 536782. Correct. Okay. Which is what I recommend. You asked me what the fixed increase was. So those are really fixed costs that are just to keep our current staff paid at a level that they should be paid at and to be sure that we have workman's comp. So I guess Leo I would point out that I don't think that we can possibly ask to come in lower than that. That that is a fixed cost in my understanding. Yeah. I guess there's lots of other operating costs, right? Aside Yeah. Yes. But I don't think I there's a lot of lines as far as operating and what would that percentage be? Do you know off the top? If we came in at a $600,000 increase, I can probably run that math if you give me a minute. I know it's a 5.4% increase. If we're at 654,000, it's 5.3% increase. Thanks. I guess that's that was the that that that wasn't specifically the reason, but I mean and CPI is 2.1, but so we're saying I'm I I would like to still see what 3.5 looks like personally. 3.5 is% 3.5% would mean you'd have to cut 424 to 50 or do additional revenues of I mean again and I don't sounds to me like you're not interested in discussing revenues. So this is expenses only. So 35 is 424,000. which would be a significant decrease to your total property tax input impact because right now we're sitting at 6 76 776 of property taxes needed and 106 of that's the county so that's why I came back the town needs 671 you're talking about cutting 424 you got to talk about all four of these right they do relate all right so I don't can we make as we have the we have four items kind of big picture revisited are we going Is there an expectation that we're going to make decisions as we take these on one at a time or are we going to be I think we should talk them all. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, I guess obviously the three of us have spoke a lot. I guess I just want to say that I'm probably more comfortable somewhere in between, although I love the idea of being able to come in closer to 3.5. I'm not sure that that seems realistic when the majority of our cost is salaries and benefits. So, I would probably be asking staff to come back with something lower than that. Leo, I think maybe, you know, around 600, which would be a 200 and something decrease looks more reasonable to me for something that might be attainable. I do not want to cut any existing staff. I just put that flat out. That's not something interested in and it's but it's I don't think it's it's not all staff either, right? There I mean oper as far as our total operating budget is not just staff and salaries there. There is other so and and maybe it's not there, I guess. So, let's hear from other folks. Jacob, do you have anything else before we ask others to All right, Matt, you ready to Yeah, I come back with What do you think? I definitely am more interested in in seeing the options of maybe at the 55% bringing it down. I'm not I'm I although if we can get it down past that, I'm I'm happy to see operating costs not go up. Um can can you just Yeah. Can you explain for me what you can the public or and staff we're gonna have to come back with something. So, I think I think we're we're at a point where um going into the future to have sustainable like um basically double or triple um inflation for our our operating cost. If we're double or tripling compared to inflation, we just that's going to be a really hard task. And there's only two ways of getting over that. And one is to grow exponentially, you know, really, really quickly, which is probably not in the cards, although I am um this is a time for me to to state that I'm I am pro um sensible growth here for future sustainability. Um and so yeah, I will be um looking at that for the future because I do want to make Oro an affordable place for everybody and to have a strong school. But in the short term, if we can we can not be like, you know, almost triple um inflation, um I think that that's a little bit more sustainable. Um hopefully for the taxpayers as as we move into the future. So, if I could see something one percentage point or so down, see what the options are for that, I would like to see um what we would be getting rid of at that point. Okay. And I just we as we talk, we got to we got to come in on something that is actionable for staff, right? In terms of it has to have a number and it has to have both a number of counselors who are willing to who want to see it and then we're going to need to see um and then we're going to have to give them give staff some sort of number to come back to us with in terms of alternatives. Can I just Yeah, go ahead. You know, Beck, can I just say I I look at this as an exercise uh like our fiduciary responsibility to to to see what it looks like. I'm not we pass judgment on what we can can stand or what we can't stand after. But I I I I think that's that's the idea is let's let's see let's see what this causes to the town and decide if that is, you know, again, maybe we just we say forget it. We're staying right where we are. I don't know. But I think it's a healthy exercise to do. Okay. How about this end of the table? I I do see the value in what you're saying as an exercise. I also think about I I find hard to believe that I would be in favor of us cutting down to three 3.5. Um I am more in line with what Sarah's saying. I mean, first of all, what what Sarah brought out is very clear that a huge chunk of that is fixed. Um, I'm curious to see and if there's well, for the rest of the council, I'd be curious to see what it would be like to cut down to that. Um, but I'm not uh I don't feel strongly about the need to, in fact, I I I do feel strongly about not needing to see the 3.5. Yep. Um, and Andrea, I'm not sure about percentages and stuff. I'm still learning that, but I do think that there are places where we could see a reduction. I don't know that three and a half%, but somewhere in between. Okay. So, Feder Rico, would you like to join us for Yeah. Yeah. On behalf of the people of Orno? I'm Frederria Smith. I'm a citizen of Oro and I'm curious to know why you're not looking at the offset of the increased revenues which really are decreasing your overall increase in costs. If I understood Quint correctly, there is a significant increase in revenues which offsets some of that increase in expenses. And you would expect an increase in expenses with contracts that have a 4% wage increase. So I I'll answer that from my perspective. Thank you. Because we've we've actually lo you know for the last five years we've gotten an additional million million1 from the state. This year we're getting now I don't with the new we're getting 300,000 less 260 less. So we've been we've been getting a lot I mean that's a significant amount and and when we when you budget the way when you what you just said where if you well we we have the offsetting revenue. Well, then the state turns around this year and we don't have the offsetting revenue. No, but but there's none. There is not what the what what additional revenue did did you did you reference, Glenn? Just so I clarify, we've gone through the revenue budget when we started here at the beginning, but I mean increases were um excise use of uh we're having great investment returns. We had a lot of nominal ones throughout that added up to quite a bit. Um we also did increase and with your growth and as one of your bullets to increase the use of um unassigned fund balance because it has grown over the past five years. So so you using more unassigned fund balance to me that's not a sustainable revenue that I mean we Clint can I just Yeah. It's it's a great question. So yeah great great question and I just want to give you my my response. Clint, can I just follow up on Frederick's question? Just to clarify, looking again at page nine that uh the overview page you updated and provided to us, it looks to me that yes, the updated one, the same one we looked at for operating expenses. If we look there at total revenues, it shows total revenues down by 96,000. So, understood. But also, state revenues are down 260, right? And and so in general again, our total revenues are in fact down even if we take out the capital revenue difference or are they just up by like Okay, so they're flat. Okay, so revenues are basically flat if we don't account for the capital revenues which are coming down a lot because we're not doing as many big capital projects in this coming year. But otherwise, revenues are essentially flat. Does that help answer your question, Fria? Thank you for the question. Yeah, thank appreciate that. And but and and I think you know looking at this when we say it's down 260 to the the context of that though is that it's typically up a million bucks. So that really does account for a delta of 1 1.3 1.2 and that's that's a that's a financial cliff if you will um that we that we are seeing and we've we've talked about you know the potential for happening and and you know fixed cost when we add add staff those are fixed costs. So I I I guess I don't also know definitively within what we're these numbers we're talking if if the added staff is in there or if it's not in there. So that's not 100% clear to me. Do you want to added staff is part of the increases. It's not part of your pay and benefits increase of 400,000. That was the flat static number. Zach, correct? the the when you did the 254 for pay only that we're sharing that was not including any new positions we created correct that didn't include yeah that was just the existing staff times the percentages of the raises additional staff would be additional part that's why we're at 870 or 860 depending which number you want to use of total expense increases and is that also true about the additional hours added at the library I thought at one point you told us that those yeah library is the only one that I asked reverse it's not in there. It was suggested could be put in, but we don't have it. And staff at this point was going to update you tonight that we're just kind of recommending against it because their year-end cash carry forward is going to be lower than we thought. Okay. So 885 includes everything, Leo, with the exception of the eight hours to the library. Does that answer your question? Correct. Thank you. Okay. So if we're still on the big picture, we've heard from a member of the public. Um we've heard from all the councils, I guess, save me. Um, do we have a It doesn't feel like three and a half was quite where people wanted to go, but if we wanted to charge the manager and his team to come back with, I would propose that we make it very clear that uh no filled positions be looked at in terms of any of the alternatives that we're going to discuss. Anybody have feel differently about that? Not that. Okay. So, and then what's the if so if no one with a job has to spend the next week in oro has to spend the week worrying about whether their job's going to be funded or not. So, we're going to take that off the table and then um we're going to say we're going to charge the the manager to come back to us with some alternatives and they're not going to be the manager's alternatives. They're going to be alternatives. there'll be an, you know, the exercise that Leo and I think that's a fair way to put it and I think that we'll we'll, you know, Jacob and I spent a lot of time trying to do this last year when we had our in manager and um Zach was helping us out so much and uh it's hard it's hard to find um you know nuggets of gold of um in these things and of course we all have some things that are priorities for us and our service on the council and to the community um that that we've asked questions about. Um, so what can we get a sense on what the right if if three and a half's um with apologies to Leo, if three and a half is maybe higher than people want to go, is there a number that we want to come back to? And yeah, no lower than three and a half%. Well, I was thinking about the 600,000 number for growth as opposed to 885 which comes out to be about a 5.3% growth. It's right around 5% growth. We're talking We're talking growth, not cut, Dan. Yeah. Yeah, we're talking grow. Yeah, we're talking about goes up. We're talking about limiting the growth to 5% or something like that as opposed to I was just saying I just ran the numbers and if we said come in at growth that's not higher than 600,000 over past year's budget on the operating expenses, that is about 5%. I think it's 5.3. That was just a number that I heard. So, yeah. And does that does that um then kind of cover that 200 I think in 60 that that we were down from the state revenue about just talking about expenses but I mean I guess it would offset. Yeah. Yeah. That was just a number I heard thrown around earlier so I ran what the percentage was on it. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm I'm okay with that. I And if this isn't the forum but I just indulge me a little bit here. Um, going back to kind of Leo's point about the 3 and a half% and this may be one of those things where it's not worth staff's time. Um, but what would the budget look like if we only increased by CPI and even if that meant cutting staff, which I don't think we should do, but what what would our budget look like? I guess um instead of, you know, continuing to say we can't do it, we can't do it, we can't do it. I I guess is it worthwhile to determine what our budget would look like if we simply stuck to what CPI should would dictate our budget is. I don't know that that's a fair thing to do to staff though and we're consistently asking them to do more and more and that's where yeah it may not be worth their time um to do it. Yeah. I mean especially because I think including yourself I I'm not sure that any of us are willing or interested in exploring what that would look like. I I do I think when I think of what value we get from an exercise of seeing what a cut would look like to whatever extent is to understand what value is really being added by this additional expense. Um if anything it just helps demonstrate um you know how much staff is doing for this town. Um so so I I think it is worth doing. I I I think I I really don't need the 3.5 cuz I I'm not going to be in favor of it almost definitely. Um but if we want to see some sort of cut, I mean, I'm curious to go maybe more in a direction like Sarah is saying, Sarah, what was the number you were talking about? Um the number I put out was a difference increase on the operating expense line of 600,000 which I believe is 5.3. If you divide that by the 11,241027 I get 5.3% there. And how did you get to the 600,000 or remind me again? I was just halfway in. I I looked at what was on page 12 which gave us what the fixed cost increases in pay and benefits and workman's compensation which comes in at 536782. And to me, those are pretty fixed costs. We've committed to all of those um salary increases already. Uh I love to think we could negotiate our workman's comp benefit down, but I'm pretty sure staff would have already done that if that could have been done. So to me, those feel like costs that are going to be pretty difficult to move. So I wouldn't want to be asking to come in lower than that. That that's me. But again, Clint might be able to speak. I'm under the assumption that the very large majority of our operating expenses are salaries and benefits. Is that not correct? Uh, so the fixed costs are from last year's budget, expense budget. Nothing changes at all. We're just going to do paying benefits. You roll it another year. You're 4.1% expense. That's what you are out the door. And to clarify on workers comp, we are looking at it. I've been here 11 months. It renewed in January 1st. We saw the increase January 1. We're beginning to look at options, but it will not affect a number I can give you right now. It just can't. I would be completely guessing. And is that increase in the workers comp insurance is that fluctuating? So like if we have a good year, it could come down. Yep. It'll start coming down. We're working towards those models as well to hopefully have good years. Okay. Yeah. Let's I mean are we you want to say 600,000? Let's show hands on that and see. So this would be for operating expenses at the very top line of page nine of the town of Oro municipal budget summary. Instead of changing it to 885655 it would be 600,000. Anybody following where we are? So essentially trimming 285 an additional yeah trimming 28 285,000 from the proposed bud. And this is alternatives. This is an exercise. We'd ask and we've already made it clear that anyone who collects a paycheck from the town of Orno doesn't have is you know we're not going to consider any layoffs or any any position reductions for filled positions. Show I mean people ready to show a hands on that. Is that kind of a Okay. Is that I think that was at least five maybe six. Did we see your hand? Did I know we're not doing a roll call but I'm willing to see it? Andrew willing to see it. All right. So that's I think unanimousish unanimish. Um now Clint, what else do you need from us? I know that's like a being got three bullets. Yeah. All right. Um discussion on the proposed level of capital expenditures. Capital expenditures are down $1.1 million or 33.81% according to the initial budget summary memo of 52325. So what's the big picture takeaway here? Can what is so what is the number instead of what is it down what what is our capital expenditure number is that on oh that's back on that one we just looking it's on page n updated is the right number to look at things um total capital so the total capital this is updated from the numbers that were in our budget binder. Right. So this 100 1 1,113 is probably no longer the figure either, right Clint? What is the new figure there? Nomination of your capital plan which is in appendix C. But again, what I really focused on is there's three parts to your capital plan. It is the use of property taxes for the given year. It's the use of reserves you've built up in prior years and it's the also use of tiff. Um so and that's where we do capital tiff. That's something that's new in here that I called out. Last year you had 90,000. This year it's 130. Comes right out of your reserves. Not affecting taxes at all. It's for a project that's been identified of as a need. We talked about it in the capital plan. Last year it was sewer. This year it's signals on still water that may or may not happen in the next 12 months. The remaining reserves are monies we've already saved up and that's the list that's there and that's why I gave more detail on the one that starts out with re at the very end of that all those capital projects but that is up from your capital plan we were at 500 we took it to 700 we delayed a few projects and then we added in a different project because if we do their SCBA tanks and the compressor in the same year the fire department was able to pass on a savings in their maintenance and operating budget to reduce their expenses. So we said rather than wait one year, we have all the money now. Let's do it now. And we delayed things like a vehicle and a few other projects throughout. We're delaying a mini loader and we kept the excavator public works, but we reshifted a few of those cuz I wanted to come in and again all this has been done pretty quickly and so we did make an adjustment. So the amount of taxes this year, last year you used 1,662700. This year it's 1,47375 a reduction of 1923 325. So we did reduce the amount of taxes that are going towards your capital plan from last year slightly. What page? So we're still on you have to go back to your capital plan if you're going to go line by line. Okay. Um Clinton, is there a page? Can you mean the page number, please? Page I'm still on the page. So when I'm talking to you guys, I'm sticking to the the budget summary, the new tax rate calculation. It is page. It's the new attachment. I got too many of the new attachments. I have 20 tabs open. It's not on page nage twice and I can't find it. It's not still page nine, Clint. Yeah, it's the updated budget summary. I think it's nine, but page page nine at the top. And this is a small difference, Clint, but can I just clarify um in the same municipal budget summary memo that you sent us with this agenda? um your introductory memo. Yep. Um that number appears to be off by about 60,000 between the two. Like that one cites 1,11399 reduction in capital expenses, which is where I took that figure from is on the your municipal um budget summary 2026 memo, the very last page of it. Um and it's a small amount. We're looking at 60,000. It looks difference, but do we know why those pages don't quite match? And which you're looking at two different numbers. The analogy I've been sharing with some people, if you know, you stand at the back of your house and look at it and then somebody else stands at the front, they're going to see a very different look. It's still the same house. Right now, what we're looking at is the fact that those expenses we're looking at are just true expenses like we've been discussing. But again, I'm trying to focus on the impact of property taxes, which is why I'm pulling forward that 192 number on page nine. But if I'm going to truly tell you how much the expenses are down, it's down over a million because last year you were using well over a million dollars of leftover bond funds. You had an anomaly year, so expenses look like a severe reduction because you're using less reserves. Nothing to do with property taxes. It has everything to do with the the capital plan as a whole. And last year, you had a much larger capital plan because you spent down a lot of reserves and ARPA. I understand that. I I actually don't think that's what I was asking though. Um municipal expense page is not looking at a different view of the house. I'm looking at your summary of town expenses and you're looking at capital expenses which is the same line. It's only off by 60,000. I think it's perhaps the tiff which is close to that and maybe the tiff was included in the spreadsheet page and not here. But at any rate, it's somewhere between either 1,113 or 1,73. So it's right in that ballpark. Correct. When we're just looking at the capital expenses, not a different view. Yep. Okay. Thank you. And I'll bring up I just want to say up front for me that my biggest concern on capital expenses is whether we are um not doing things we need to do to maintain facilities and maintain equipment. I know that's something we've struggled with as a council in, you know, years up till now, being told from various managers that we perhaps weren't investing what we needed to to be sure that everything was staying on track and not going to cause big spikes down the road. And I think we've had great managers who've worked repeatedly to continue to improve that, including yourself, Clint. Um, so my real question to you here is I know we we were brought a capital improvement plan and then um some cuts came in to that capital improvement plan when the budget packet came and um you've provided some details now to us about what those cuts are. Um I just want to put this back to you to be, you know, let you answer for us as a council. Um, do you feel like those cuts involved pushing projects down the line that it would be better to do now or did those cuts come about for other reasons that these projects just couldn't be done now or something that you felt comfortable with? We're not just kicking the can, just pushed out, we delayed um, and we moved up a couple things in the in the process so we could save operating costs. So, when you look at it, the the five delays were um, there was a request to add an additional truck at the fire department. Um, we're delaying that a year. There was a request to do a mini front end loader this year. We're going to do it next year. There was a request to to set aside money for three trucks that public works is going to be retiring in the next couple of years and we delayed that out another year. And there was also talk about a 3/4 ton truck for public works. We delayed that one more year. and the uh the municipal tractor, a holder tractor. Um we delayed that one year in addition as well. Um the ones that moved up, like I said, the primary was for the fire department. We are spending the reserves they already had to buy the compressor that was in the original plan. We're also going to buy all new SCBA gear this year at the same time. So that was the big bring forward as an ad. And can I just clarify again? Those things that were pushed out were because there was a reason we weren't ready to purchase those things yet or to put those into account. Is that just trying to save us money in this year's budget? Which is it? Or is it a combo? Combination. Yeah, more I would say more than anything it was me working with its first year in. We were going through to the new budget and I looked at opportunities when I saw an expense budget where we could invest in SCBA gear and save on maintenance. I said, "Let's try to rework this some." And we did. And the ones that are being pushed out though, not the ones that are being brought forward. I'm just concerned on that. I want to be clear like if you feel like we're pushing things out that really need to be done now in order to stay on track, that we're not building up a backlog of projects that's just going to spike costs for us later. I I'd like to know that. No. And from a theme wise like public works particularly, we're bringing forward and leaving in the excavator purchase now. It's a $200,000 commitment this year, but that means they stopped renting. So an annual cost that was hitting their budget that was fairly high. And this was presented by that department to me. I said, "We can save that." So, not only does that save you money in your operating budget for next year or this year and next year, but it also gets us in a situation where they don't need to buy an excavator next year, we have $200,000 to work with for other projects. So, all these ones that we've delayed are now fundable because the excavator is being delayed. Of course, we got to look at the new things coming forward. But again, this is why we're trying to we're trying to get to a 5-year plan that that has some stability to it. And there was just too many there's too many pieces and too many needs. So, we've had to make some tougher decisions. So, this could be double this and I could justify it, but we can't afford it. Okay. Can you can you uh because I I Has anyone else I I met with Clint and got a copy of the the um these capital projects, but I don't think we does everyone have that and has everyone looked at those actual roads? Uh the roads is that what you I can share the road ones though now the I only have this road the asphalt box heater the sidewalk pa does has I have this list only because you gave it to me I think it's in the it's on it's post online appendix C is there it's got every single one for the whole year listed okay it's all there so on the um excavator is that so what have we how much have we spent on renting excavators in the Bill back somebody all year. No, we don't. Okay. 22 3,000 Okay. Anything else on the item big picture topic number two before we move on. Sounds like I'm hearing a no. Going once, going twice. Yeah. All right. And not that anyone's ever, you know, we're pretty comfortable coming back to things we need to. Well, I guess I would also ask I think I'm seeing in here it's a new facilities truck and then also putting um money in reserves for another new facilities truck next year. Is that accurate? A half ton facilities truck being recommended for purchase this in this capital plan for the coming year. And there is a facilities truck Uh, that's capital Equipment. It was the one that was delayed. Where is it? A pickup truck with crew for the work crew, not facilities. For the work crew. It's one of the teams that goes out in the field for next year. Um, it is uh Are you talking about the three? No. Um, let me It's the uh facilities truck um facilities truck 2026 place in reserves 25,000 for a 2027 purchase. So that's a that's a fund and purchase at the same time. That's why I'm trying to get you guys to see these see your budgets different on what it's impacting reserves, what's impacting taxes. The first the two yellow lines is one truck. 65,000 total. The first 15 comes from reserves. The next 50 comes from operation. I see that. And then there's another one. The green one. Uh I don't even have the colors. Right below the green one. It says pickup truck with crew cab 2027. Where? Right below the two green lines. Okay. And then right below the two. No, that's not the one. Um, okay. You got another facilities track somewhere. Uh, your screen pickup truck facilities. Yeah, those two lines are the, you know, so 15 grand from from reserves and 50 from taxes. And then there is, let me find it on here if I can identify it. Uh, yes. Facilities truck. It's down. Yep. 25,000 going to reserve. Yeah. So, so this has in it a new truck for facil. We don't I don't know what facilities has today. Uh, but um so it has it does have a new truck purchase. 15 grand plus 50 for the purchase and then putting 25 in a reserve for next year. Correct. That that feels like a lot to me. uh two new trucks and facilities and I don't know what what they use today or what they're getting rid of or we go back to the capital plan. We have six over the next two years that were being recommended to me. So, we cut it back to two is what we've done right now and I'd have to go into the whole capital plan and pull up the other three. We bulked three of them because we're actually hoping to retire permanently, maybe one of those three, but we're still working through the right plan. That's why three of them are one line. Um I didn't want to break them out because we're trying to figure out the right way. Uh, Bill, Megan, anybody? The second facilities truck, you can tell better what the use is than I can this year. Okay, that's public works or facilities. Okay. Yeah. 18 years old and and Yeah. And there I assume there are there are lots of trucks obviously at the public works and Right. Yeah. So, and there is there is 25 grand going towards a reserve to buy another new one for facilities next year the way it's written. Yes, it does say that. And I'm looking up the truck right now as we speak in your capital improvement plan. And it was I'm gonna have to look at the individual spreadsheet. If you want to come back, I got to pull up the spreadsheet for that department. I I guess that is just and you don't I don't maybe necessarily have to answer now anyway, but I'm just pointing out to me that that feels like two new trucks and facilities because I know we do retire police cruisers every year, one or two. So those I'm and I know they get used and I know we there's a trickle down going on and but and I think that's good. Um next one for me is it still on capital expenditures? Yes. Okay. I I had talked with uh with Clint also about the sailor development overlay. That's probably our big I think currently we're we're spending a total of maybe 400,000 on roads and 250 of that is the sale of development overlay which I guess I would ask that we confirm that sale development is the highest priority for an overlay. I guess my only comment back is is that this is all capital plan discussion of what we presented and you said tend to adopt if no I'm not prepared that's why I'm sharing this I'm not prepared to go back through every project in the capital plan. I can bring up the team. We can talk about which one's being done when. I can talk about the prior history, but I don't know. I appreciate that. But I think because we've had this discussion several times, we you know, we we approve this with the understanding that well, we're this is big picture. We'll come back and look at it. But we're not and next week we're going to present the budget and we haven't we're not doing that and that that's that's troublesome for me. Can we need an answer on sailor development? I don't know if we do or not yet. Hold off. We haven't heard from the rest of council. So, I guess I just want to pull us back a little bit if that's okay with you. Dan, I would love it if you did. Like, I really think we need to pull back to how do we feel about the basic level of capital expenditures right now before we get into any specific line item. If if we're not feeling good about this level and as a council, we want to charge Clint to come back with something lower on capital expenses. I think that's the level of discussion right now. I am not in that place. I feel comfortable with our level of capital expenditures. My concern, as I said, was the reverse, whether we were kicking too many things down the road and not investing where we needed to be. And I believe I feel comfortable having heard from our town manager that he feels this is a good balance point where we're doing what we need to do, not creating a bigger problem down the road to spike capital expenditures down the road. And I'm comfortable at this level. So, I want to hear from the rest of council about how other people feel. Start on the just who wants to go first? I I have a question. So um I know the numbers have changed um somewhat but in the capital improvement plan this on page 32 there is this multicolored graph and I want to make sure that I I understand it um because I think I do. So in 21 we spent 343,000 um in capital projects so on and so forth and this year and again I know that number's been reduced but the proposal is 1.6. Do I have the trend correct? Okay. So then my my question is is why? So it looks like in in 24 there was a jump and we've maintained that jump since then. So is there any reason outside of just normal inflation and cost of projects that that our capital expenditure line continues to increase at such a substantial amount? Is it because we are it looks like perhaps in 26 looking at the purple graph a bulk of that is put into capital equipment. So is that is the is the increase due to putting more into reserves to start the planning process which we have not done in the past or is the increase actual funds being spent. So to and we're talking big big big picture here to tying to page 32. Your growth is showing the fact that you have been underfunding your needs. That has been a long-term situation. That is what I would agree with. The 167 that's in the capital plan if you look now is actually 1,470. And the reason I shrunk that is because with looking at the workload and everything was going on and what the staff could do when the budget came forward. I said, "Let's make a small change here." Not just not because it lowered taxes, but because I think from a timing perspective, we have too much going on. We still have last year's public works projects we're trying to queue up. The team had a lot of great ideas, but I think it was too many for one year when we're still kind of coming together. So, we reworked it, came up with a slightly shrunken plan, but actually also moved up some of the things that are already in reserves. So, we're kind of spending down the reserves we already have to get to a place where we're not taking what I felt was a break while still reducing the impact on taxes. And again, significantly, you know, 6621,662 last year and 1,470, you know, that's $190,000 reduction 1922 325. That's a savings to taxes by taking a little bit of a break on our use of taxes towards our capital plan. Um, so when you know and again that's where this is kind of tough because you've asked me to look only at operating and staff made some tough decisions with capital. So this is where I think your relevant conversations coming in is is the expense only cut for operating only. You've got to understand we also cut 192 out of your capital. So there is a savings. So that's when you get down to your property taxes. There is a lower number needed from property taxes to make this budget work because operating isn't getting the benefit of the decrease in capital. Can I say something about that? I just I I I really would appreciate for me and maybe I'm the only one in council, so I want to bring it up, but for me, I would really like to keep our operating expense conversation separate from our capital expense. I I feel like that's important for long range fiscal planning. When operating expenses grow, we are primarily investing in staff who we want to be committed to keeping. And that's an ongoing cost that moves forward. And I really want us to look at that separately because capital expenses are very different. They can spike on one year, be reduced drastically on the next year with nobody's job going away. So for me, it's really important that we look at them separately and that's just all. Jacob, did we resolve your question? One follow-up question. Sure. Um, so the 16 for 25, does that include the projects that didn't that the projects that we pulled out of reserve to do specifically the Webster side project? Yes and no. That's taxes only. Yeah, I was showing you the operating capital projects use of operating taxes only on page 32. Webster was funded through multiple sources. Large part ARPA. Large part reserves. Huh? Large part reserves. We drain. Large part reserves. Yes. Unexpended fund. Unexpended uh bond balances. So that one six all of these numbers the 343 so on and so forth that is actual tax dollars. Yep. Not pulling from different funds. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Glenn. Is it fair to say that um it based on the conversations with previous managers and yourself that this level that we're at now somewhere between 1.4 and 1.6 a year is what is being proposed in the capital improvement plan going forward each year in order to keep us on track approximately. Correct. At a minimum. Yes. Correct. Thank you. I think that's important for us to hear. Good point. One of those softballs to the manager maybe or at least something people need to hear. Yeah. Maybe there aren't that maybe there aren't that many softballs tonight and I apologize for that. Anything else on cap proposed levels of capital expenditures. I I think I'm feel like a broken record today, I guess, but I'm right in line with Sarah on this. Um I I appreciate the the balancing that you've done on the capital. Uh I think this capital improvement plan makes a lot of sense and uh I'm not really interested in digging into the weeds on the individual projects. I think it sounds like you already have done a lot of compromising on this to try to get us to where we want to be and else other parts of the budget. Matt or Andrea, you good? You're good. Andrea, you all set? Okay, let's move on to number three, discussion of the proposed reserve levels. And we're going to credit Councelor Baker for touching on this in our audit report. Um, are we comfortable with our level of reserves funds? Um, and I don't think we ready to show maybe a slide, but I don't I don't know if we are or not, but the question asks, do we have that one? I'd love to see it again, actually. Sure, it's in here. So, no, it's not in here. That's the thing. No, I mean, I'm sure it's in like if the slide is possible, it's from the audit report. We don't have it in any of our written cue the slide, Cody. says page seven here in the um Dan can I just say something in the absolutely you can well in the interest of time um I think that the f I I will propose that the finance committee and I think Clint brought this up uh at while he was presenting the capital improvement plan this year look at all of our reserve accounts because we do have a lot of reserve accounts and staff gave some recommendations about where they should be funded, etc. Um, so I think part of me bringing this point up about the reserve levels is was specifically related to a couple of line items in our budget that it seems like we would already have reserves for. So, I'm wondering if it's a better use. Oh, we we should pull out of those reserve funds, specifically the the uh police uh um tuition reimbursement, the $5,000 we have the specifically in reserves. Is that something we should take out of reserves instead of using taxpayer funds since we've already got the account set up? I I I think yes, a bigger picture conversation about our overall reserve levels is important. I personally am not ready to have that at this time, but that's me. I'm just talking specific line items. So, anybody who happened to be in North America last week feel differently? We're going to Well, I had a fun answer that I pre-prepared on this that I thought would be helpful. No, I just think that as you're looking at your unexpended fund balance and what you're doing to reserves, it's great conversation right now with us going to the bond adviser and with what we've got going on for queued up projects potentially. I guess I will say um although I feel significant commitments have been made. I think we got to hang on to that and and have a different plan because for instance in the capital improvement plan there's 2 and a half million for a public safety building needs. Well maybe now that we've purchased a building over there for a future police station we could look at using some of your unexpended fund balance and reduce our bond costs. I'm not saying get rid of the two and a half million but I think we got to start refining that two and a half million number. that was more of if you recall um I knew we couldn't afford 5 million so I just picked a number and said okay two and a half million kind of fits and I know we have more than that in needs in a lot of our buildings. So I've kind of saw it as a building maintenance capital need. Um but now I think we can focus in on 56 Main Street and how much are we willing to put into that to get it to where it needs to be and we need to do that soon. So, I'd kind of like to get the budget done and then really look at unassigned fund balance in cooperation with what we do for bonding. Sure. Is that all right with folks? Yeah. I I just have a question on the public works capital infrastructure reserves. Yeah. Where are you, Leo? Um well it's it's we're talking about reserves different different reserve unassigned unassigned fund balance but you know the what we spent down to zero last year we we spent our public works infrastructure reserves down to zero last year to do those projects and and in the docu I don't know what page it says we there's like there's no recommend like every every reserve fund seems to have a recommended value and this one says re you might know what page it's on, but it says there's no recommended like reserve for that. And that struck me as strange. You I 13 of the uh CIP page 13. Hey, pretty good. So, and and just to rehash what I know you don't want to my my question and in line of thinking with with talking about sailor development is sort of related to this lack of reserves we have and the fact that we're going to start talking about bonding money. So, you know, I I feel like we need to be budgeting like we do in our homes and and if we planned on painting our house in 3 years, 3 years comes and it actually doesn't look too bad and we we think we can get by another two years and we and we know we have other expenses coming up. I I think we need to be thinking that way. So if Sailor Development doesn't need it, I wouldn't I would be saying I I want to I'm concerned that we have zero there and I would like to be trying to build up our reserve our public works infrastructure reserves because we have I mean all of this bonding stuff is public works infrastructure basically or it's it's infrastructure and and I don't like that we spent down last year and I don't like that we're not looking at doing anything with it this year. And did anyone find I I don't Yeah, what page is it? It's page 13. I hear what you're saying, Leo. I just have a different question, which is that um maybe there should be a recommended amount. I don't know. But it also strikes me that infrastructure projects are probably ones where more than anything else they're going to be very spiky. Infrastructure projects are huge costs. So I presume that we save up to some very large amount before we can do most of them. Most of them are not small projects. Well, correct to that to that point. I mean, they can overrun and you know, that can happen. And the fact that we have zero there, I think is a is not a comfortable place for me and and so I would rather have instead of resurfacing as streets that in my opinion probably don't need it. And and if we have to resurface streets, I bet there are I bet there are much worse streets in town. So, um, but again, if if we don't have to and we have that in the budget, I would prefer to be seeing that going towards capital infrastructure reserves. Can we hear from Clint about that? Yeah. The only So, the only again and timing is everything. Data is the most important part of this. The public works has presented me an option to do surface rating of all the roads in Orno. I think it's a great recommendation. I'm looking into that with them, but it's data I don't have for this budget or to share with you and I think that's kind of one of the things, but that's a this year expense to see if we can afford it before year end because of where they're at with some of the other things that came in under budget. So, I again I just got them. It's on my to-do list to work with the team starting in early June so that you guys could see in a council agenda all the recommendations we're doing for next year for whether they're carry forward or year-end expenditures. Just haven't got it ready yet. trying to get the budget and I appreciate that and I like like last year I would prefer we do nothing in instead of just doing something to do something and like if if you're telling me we don't have the data on our streets then then I'm saying we're following the plan of the former public works director was based upon great data. I just think this team's feeling they need to update their data because they want to know for themselves and that's what I've been working with on the for them and I think it's a good recommendation. And I just think it's off on that. But I mean, as far as some of these reserves, I mean, I think the conversation isn't so much budgetary, if I'm hearing you wrong, Leo, but I think it's more of could we look at this after the budget's done and saying, let's hold up on a lot of our public works infrastructure projects this summer and delay because you may or may not agree with all them. And I think that's a good discussion if you want to go that route. But I feel it's a little different than the because I think the number that staff has recommended to you is the minimum number we would like to see set aside and we will keep working that year to year. But I would not want to see this number shrunk at all. If you wanted to change a project, that's another conversation. We could discuss that. But as far as saying that number should come down, I think we're outside of the budget. We're into what projects should we or shouldn't be doing. And I think that's a great agenda topic. But yeah, but that doesn't happen. I've been here three years now. It doesn't once the budget's done the budget's done and we'll talk about it again next year. So that I mean historically I shouldn't you know I know new new new rules here but that that's reasonable. I think I you know I think the overall number but this to me feels like the time to talk about it. Yeah it I think you your alternatives could be I mean you could bring something forward um on the budget vote like a change like an an order to change the budget and we could vote on it. I don't I just it may feel like you don't get any traction on it because you may be the only one kind of pulling down this road. Um but you're welcome to you're welcome to bring an order when we do the budget. Um I tend to agree with Leo if we're looking for places to cut and I I see the value in saving money for projects upcoming. But if we're looking at wants versus needs, what what has to be done, what doesn't have to be done, there must be a way to reduce some of these line items so that we're still attempting to prepare for the projects coming up, but we're still saving staff and we're still saving the town's people money. Well, we're not though. If Leo is ask is advocate, it sounds like Leo is advocating for you to increasing the reserve amounts. So it sounded like move from one line into the reserve. Leo was talking about my bigger focus is is probably building the reserves up the the um infrastructure reserves. Um and and not to say that some of these I I think there should be some scrutiny on on what's on this list and I I feel like we're not we're not going to do that and we haven't done it. We're not going to do it and I I think that's a little bit negligent on my part personally. So Leo, can I ask a question? Because I guess I was under the impression that that level of analysis of individual roads and what the priorities are and what year they need to be done is really a staff question. Not for me that's not a council question. For me, that's a staff question. And I hear you saying you think maybe that data needs to get looked at again sometime soon. But I don't want us in the business of debating every single road at a council meeting. I feel like that's more in the weeds than council should be. Well, when it when it's relating to budget, I think it is relevant and and I I I think it's it's worthy of conversation and apparently I'm I'm Dan, I'm the only one, but I don't think I believe it is. Just understand. Thank you. Could I ask a question? Happy to talk about it. I just So, could we just ask now? Are there more people than Leo who want to make a motion right now to move things out of roads and into reserves? Well, I guess because it didn't sound like that, but I'm not sure. I like you, Sarah, am not interested in going through specific line items of our capital infrastructure plan, but I and I'm thinking as I talk, so bear with me here. Um is you know instead of spending the money on these some of these projects knowing that we should reook at or or that we are trying to determine a better system for evaluating which projects we get done. Would it be better to instead as a council order or something to that extent say please move $250,000 from the CIP budget to the you know capital infrastructure reserve and let staff then determine exactly how that is to be done instead of us litigating every specific line item that I think that could in its face get you know Leo and it feels like that might be align with what Leo's trying to do and but also takes us out of the job of trying to decide what roads need you know should be first or second but fully agreed that if we want to do that as a council that's what I'd like to see would be something like just please increase this reserve fund and come up with a plan back to us about how you would do that I'm guess I'm still curious for Clint do do you feel the need for this reserve fund to go up this year or do you feel that this is something that you're comfortable the way it's presented holding for a year? I like the number, the amount of money that's in your capital plan as a good number for the where we're at, where I'm at, where the team's at to go forward and not be taking unnecessary risks and also not going forward spending money we shouldn't that we're not prepared for. That being said, if if a vote came forward saying, "Keep capital funding the same, but we'd like to see you set some money aside for future years and delay some projects," I would quickly have that pulled together and in front of you as an option for the council to vote on. That's not hard. I just wouldn't want to see you say, "Yeah, shrink it." No, I don't want We're not in a shrink mode. But if you wanted to delay a year like we did with some of the others, um I could talk about that with the team. We would look at the roads that we say least need work this summer and that we've got queued up and how much is that going to cost us and that's the amount we'd recommend to put to reserve. Um and then we'd focus on other things that public works is plenty busy. We got a lot to work on. We got invasive species everywhere. So if you're going to cut back a little bit on some paving, we got a lot of projects we can put people on to. And this is where you set goals and I make the team pull it together. So, not a worry if you want to redirect money to reserves from a from an actual project this year if you have a number in mind. Could you say something to us about why there was a decision not to put money in reserves this year and to allow that to sit at zero for this year because typically you hadn't been doing that? You've been letting that reserve build up from the savings year to year or projects that come in under budget or you have over leftover bond funds. So, we didn't fund infrastructure to put a reserve in. We spent it all down last year. Um, I don't mind saying I I I the one thing I wish I could go back in time and do was when you hired me come forward and say back off on some of the capital projects for a year. I'm new. Everybody's new. We need a break. Um, that would be one doover I'd like. But you didn't. And so now we're owning it because they're good projects. It's just if you could put if you could put time back in a bottle, I'd say go back and do that. But right now, if that's what you want to do, we can rework our schedules to make this fit. I No, this is an easy one. You just you just gave Lee away a told so moment that I really don't appreciate. Um, but Cory, but I said if only someone had had suggested that a year ago. I did. Yeah. I I also thought it was interesting though that I mean the way that reserve fund has worked up till now has been it's been money that's left over when projects come in under budget. And you also said when there were bonds that had extra money left. So, and it built up to quite a high amount, Leo, over the course of I think we asked last time and we were told it took about 10 years to build up to that amount. So, it does seem to me like the existing system was working just fine and a reasonable amount was rolling in every year to that reserve fund. So, for me, what I'm hearing is that has worked and I and it looks like it has from the data. So, I'm comfortable with it this way for a year, but if everyone else would prefer to redirect money, I can live with that. Yeah. And I I mean I guess it would be important to actually understand the funding where it came from. That makes sense. I know. But but put some context. I think we had do we have a million dollars in there? Maybe. Is that what we had and spent last year roughly? 900 something like that. You asked last year about this and they gave us a time period that it took for it to raise up to that amount. I think it was 10, but that could be wrong. Okay. But again, knowing it and and again, it's the timing is I is terrible for for what we're looking at on bonding and all of that. Um, personally, um, and and going just going back to the excavator because I'm keep retracing everything we already talked about, but I mean decisions. Well, I guess if we spend it's 11 years to to, you know, based on what we're spending a year on it, it's 11 years to pay that off. And maybe we keep it for 20 or 30 years. I don't know. If that's the case, I think that makes more sense. But if if we need a new one in 10 years, too, that's these. I mean, these just seem like discussions that should be had when we're talking about purchasing major pieces of equipment and things like that. So, I know we're not Can I make a suggestion, please? Please. I'm hearing over and over the numbers. Okay, it is fine. So, why don't we take this right now and we and and again move off from this topic and I will bring forward a count a staff packet on some of the information. You guys can review this independently if you think a change on the order of projects or things we're buying. We can do that well before July 1 and not catch up the rest of our budget workshops on this. If the total numbers good and you want to revisit this, I get it. Don't worry. And hey Leo, trust me, if I don't bring it back and it never ever happens, then you can say I didn't do it. But until then, yeah, we'll bring something back to you. I don't know if it'll be the 9th. That's one week out. I think it might be more like the 23rd, but you bring something back. I'm all about this doing, you know, Leo asked, they're good questions and and I I want everyone, you know, who sits here to be successful and get to the bottom of things they want to understand. Um, but is this something that I mean Clinton, you're offering this up. It seems like it's something you're able, willing to do. I don't know if the rest of the council feels like this is something they want or need, but at the same time, if you're offering to do it, I don't want to stand in the way of you being helpful to someone who's, you know, a member of the council who's got questions, too. At the same time, I would like to see that. Yeah. Yeah. I'll do it. Okay. I'll do it. Yeah, it'll help us long term. I'm wondering if we could pull back again and get the slide back up. That was actually looking at overall reserve levels, which is actually our big picture discussion issue. Um, but we just so we we just we finished that discussion though, like we're going to bring something we're going to move into our budget hearing next week. We're going to keep the number where it is on the capital proposed level of capital expenditures, but Clint's committing. we actually had to bring some things back for us to look at in terms of timing and things like that. So that does that work for you, Leo? Okay, thank you. No, happy. So, back on number three with actual reserve fund levels. Um Clint, I heard you express clearly that you feel like it's at a good level for us to be at going into our bonding process and possible investments in the building across the street. That's where we left off, right? Correct. That discussion. Um and I just wanted to take a quick look. Oh, yeah. So, we switched slides. Um, and this one's good to look at, too. This was actually Nope. Stay right there. Yeah, this is actually my next question. It was easy to see on the other slide that our unassigned fund balance has been steadily growing. It is my impression that that was a conscious decision that had been made by management um based on some advice. I don't remember if it was the audit last time or or two years back somewhere saying that an unassigned fund needed to go up compared to our assigned funds. And it looks to me like we have accomplished that. that when we take a look, am I correct, that our unassigned is what has grown significantly and our assigned has gone down. Is that what this slide is showing me? I can't see the years for each color. Oh, at the bottom there they are. Um, it's in an audit report. It's not in a page. Um, so right. So the big bar, the tallest bar on the left, correct? On unassigned is is 2024 and the shortest one is 2020. Correct. And then on assigned we see that the assigned funds were much higher uh previously back in 2020. They've come down a lot. The only thing careful of restricted and assigned because you do have bonds and bonds are restricted. So when those numbers are in there those will look like they're going down because you may have bonds you haven't expended but they're sitting there and we own them. Um unassigned has grown. Yeah. That has I would say is partly a conscious decision. you had been low. If you go back again greater than these years, it was lower probably at the minimum where you would like to see it and still be fiscally responsible. But as it's grown, I think the conversation of assigning some of it is well worth discussing. Yep. And when you have that, especially as you're about to go into a bond issuance, this is where I think the bond adviser that we're out to RFQ on will help us as well kind of begin to explain is that good, bad, should we take 1.1 million just to pick a number out of the air and and put it into some assigned things that we want to do with it. And if that's the conversation, we should figure out what our priorities are. Um, but again, on my mind, you know, your facilities is definitely a priority that seems to have been underlooked. we have some capital needs that we could start to talk about and then there's other projects but again that's just for conversation. Um I would also say some of this has been a natural outgrowth of extreme rapid municipal revenue sharing without question and that has not been a sustained growth that has been a blip. That has been rapid growth over three maybe it's grown a little maybe four years but again when you look at that that's not consistent with it when you go back you were at a million dollars 25 years ago. Yeah. You know 201 19 years ago you were at about a million dollars. Now we're at 5.3. That's some rapid recent growth because one the state's fully funding. Two spending has gone up and sales tax has grown exponentially in the state of Maine in recent years. So that's where we are. Um, and that's and Orno again is the highest receiver of revenue sharing in the state of Maine because of our demographics and our value as a community. That's who we are and we got to start dealing with it. One of the things as I shared to you in the capital plan is we need to start look as we come into the budget. We need to be less revenue sharing dependent. This is the same as a town that has extremely high excise tax. You've got to be careful because that's volatile and you can't control it. I'm not saying I want to increase property taxes, but there is a way to say if property taxes were slightly higher and we were offsetting the use of that revenue sharing and that revenue sharing were to go down, you'd actually have a better spread. But again, that's a bigger conversation and not part of this year's budget. That's just a hint of where we're going to be coming in future years. So yeah, I would say you're right and I think it's a good time for a conversation where to put it. But it should have been a goal coming into this budget if we were going to dig into it. But I think we learned this together as a team a few, you know, a month or so ago and now it's time to look at this a little bit more closely. And I had seen this. I mean, I was aware prior to hire that you had pretty good fund balances. That's one of the things you need to look at really quick to make sure what you're coming into. you are in a healthy financial situation, but you do have a lot of needs. So, now it's about priorities. Thanks, Clint. That's really helpful. I feel very comfortable based on where we're at, given that we are about to be bonding and um you know, we have some buildings and to be investing money in. Um so, I feel very comfortable whether our reserve amounts are at. I think it's a really important conversation for us to have each year as part of the budget conversation. So, I'm really glad that we're having it. I hope we'll do that every year in the future. Um, and I, um, yeah, I appreciate seeing this slide and how things have shifted as well. So, for me, I feel quite comfortable. I appreciated that you had already sort of taken a look at this coming into the budget binder and had recommended, as I recall, an additional several hundred,000 coming out of reserves, correct, in our revenue this year. So, I feel very comfortable with the amount you've chosen to take out and where that's leaving us. to the rest of council on that. Anyone else on that? And Jacob, you offered to have discussions of the finance committee. You think that's a good spot? I mean, know I know that the whole council would and committee would have No, I Yeah. So, however mechanically that needs to get done, but I was going to bring it up after the budget process. Yep. Yeah. I would concur. I'm definitely comfortable and and glad that that it is what it is at right now because of what's coming. So, and comfortable with the amount we're we're using for 2026. Okay. Anybody else on that one? All right. Number four, big picture revisited discussion on the proposed tax impact. If we went with the FY26 budget is currently proposed, are we comfortable with this level of tax change? And from are we looking at the page nine again? Is that the best spot to see where the That is something I wanted to ask about. Um, so these numbers on this page came from our original budget binder. Um, they came from pages three and four of the budget binder. And when I went to look at the updated memo, this number is drastically different. So I don't I I could use some explanation on that. The new updated page on page nine says that the net town assessment is going up by 671,293. Even though page three and four of our budget binder had only the 397,000. So that's a a yes. The original budget binder, page three, it cited the town increase at this figure that is on our document here 397020. Yes. How does that turn into different perspectives and what the numbers were and it was early on in those budget numbers. Oh, my speaker was off. These were early on. So that tax impact number gets tough because what was done in the history is if you look at fiscal year 25, that's your actual commitment work off your tax rate calculation form. And so I had to try to figure out how to get us to giving you a projected number comparing to a number you didn't know until August of last year. This is one of the reasons why this one bothered me a little bit. Why I was a little bit careful bringing it forward, but eventually I had to give a number of what it was going to be. 397 was that number. It would is a 6.73% increase, but again 6.73 of your tax commitment from last year to this year on the town and a total of 3.28. We're sitting at 569. So we were at 502 and I'm currently at 700 and something. That is just on how that math came forward, how you counted tiffs, how you counted your reserves. And when I redid everything for your form that you requested that I was struggling with, it's reconciling to a different number than what's in the budget. And I just felt that comparison was tough because that 5903 includes Betty includes your TIFF fundra the amount of money you got to raise for TIFFs, the amount of and not tiffs that you're going to spend this year, but each year your tiff district has to create its reserve. So you have to tax people for it. Each year your Betty has to tax people for the refunds. homestead has to be raised in order to refund. All those ones are post commitment tax dollars. So when you go back to page nine, that's why I did something different than what you've done in the past. There's four numbers at the bottom in yellow. Those are big numbers that we don't know until you set an expense budget and a revenue budget and until we know the total town value. And once we know all those things, we can refigure out all the other numbers. That's why that slide caused me trouble, Sarah. And that's one that I put in there because you've been using it a lot and you liked it and I kept it and it's wrong at this point. It needs to be updated. But I still can't tell you what it will be because I need to know our expense and revenue budget and I need to know the town value to make that right and I just can't I won't know those until late July because the assessor is working on your town value as we speak. Did you use the existing town value from last year? That's what I used as a divisor. So, I'm still a little confused how we got from the 390 to 670. So, what you're saying is that that's simply a range and we actually really don't know where that's going to come in between 390 and 670. I know page nine, page nine right now where we're at, you're looking at things in very good compartments. Now, you don't get me into the total tax commitment from last year compared to this year. I'm looking at similar numbers that compare to each other. That slide on the front was based upon and has been for years on the actual tax commitment, but you don't know that when we're building the budget. So, I gave it to you the way you've always seen it in the past. And it's always changed. If you go back and look at last year's little box and compare it to where we are now, it's different by how much? Six figures. Uh, I can tell you right now because I had it open. Uh, and I'm looking at the net town assessment line. Is that the line you're talking about? Yes. that little box on page three. Nope. I'm looking at page nine now and wondering if the number on page nine on page nine is where I'm building my confidence. You asked for that. That's what I came forward fully comfortable with for you. Okay. So then just for council's knowledge, the numbers listed and number four are not correct. Then they are going to be significantly higher, nearly double that amount as far as tax impact if we're coming in at a 671 increase as opposed to 397. No. 40% I would say is probably closer. I mean you're at I'm right you know and again town versus school versus county. I'm only looking at town. Yeah. So then and you so at 600,000 you would be 230 over but again last year's is a different number. You need to look at page 9. That's what I'm trying to do. So the number on page 9 is 671 and all I'm pointing out is that the number on this other document was using the 397. So if council is looking at this document with big picture discussions on number four y 397 is not accurate 397,000 the accurate number here is the 671,000 correct. So again that is close to double what the 397 is 40% more. So if we're looking at tax impact we should be assuming that these are going to be nearly doubled what they show here. So instead of 55 on 100,000 it's probably close to 100 and instead of 165 it's probably closer to 300. But again the tax pay right now what you know on the page nine in front of you is if a person's property value does not change. Understood. They should experience a 5.69% tax increase. That's what should happen. That's as clear and this is the cleanest you see this number at any point. That's why I like I see why you like the form and I like it here. I'm just bothered by some of the other ones we give that show it in a different angle. So after the refund of the Betty and Homestead and overlay that's not a refund, but no. Um but does that make it closer to the three? Does not until you reach that line, you're comparing really cleanly this year to last year. It's everything after that that starts to get different. So your like for example your tiff district commitment, you set your mill rate for your town operations first without looking at your tax value in your tiff districts. They then take that mill rate and apply it to the remainder of your value that's in the tiff district to see how much it's going to generate. That number may be significantly higher or significantly lower. And by mean that you won't know till commitment. That's why you don't look at it. But again, I've seen how deeply you've dove into your budgets, and I'm like, if I don't start sharing this number and be fully transparent, you're going to come back and say, "Why'd you hide that?" I'm not. It's right there, and we don't know them because they're in yellow. Yeah. And I will admit this is still fairly convoluted and it's And for me, I I care. I think our focus and really what we control is expenditures, is expenses. And at the end of the day, we control that and then and this this spits out at the bottom really and and we don't Well, you've signed contracts for every one of your diff districts. So, yes, they are and that's all. Right. Right. Exactly. So, I I appreciate that you're giving us this full convoluted view of this and it's good it's good to wrap our start wrapping our heads around it, but for me, I really our expenses is what drives everything. So Clint, I'm still a little I I just want to say I'm still a little bit confused on how we get to that 6% and it does matter to me because if we take the 671 um town assessment increase, I mean the simple way to know what that does to taxpayers is divide it by a total assessed value. And when I do that, I get basically close to one mil increase. And and it seems to me that a 1 mil increase I don't I won by 21.35 and that gets me to 6%. It's going to be around 56%. Thank you. It's the percentage. Yeah, it is. Oh, one mil. Yep. We're Yeah, I would say 1 mil is currently where you're floating. So, I guess I'm thinking that percent increase matters less to me than mill change. Yep. I guess is what I'm trying to say. I think percent increase is a little confusing if it's telling me the percent of the mill, you know, how much has gone up. I would prefer to see something that gives us a gist of what's happening mill-wise. And it looks like what's happening mill-wise is approximately just under a mill. I get 0.9 mil for the town. Yep. Yes. On the town 17. So again, which if you go back to the other document, 0.9 mil will be pretty much double close to what is on this page. So I do think it matters to taxpayers to have a sense when we make decisions what this really means to a taxpayer. So I guess the the trick to that is that you know what what is our valuation? I mean that you're using this year's valuation in the calculation because we don't know yet what it will come in at. So if valuation stayed flat, Leo and it may change, but assuming valuation stayed flat, the proposed budget is looking at about a mill increase. Does that make sense? Do you know? And that's what matters to me because that converts to real dollars for taxpayers whereas telling them that their mill rate goes up by 6% doesn't tell me anything as a taxpayer. So, um, you know, a one mil increase, you can figure that easily, right? On your $100,000 house or $300,000 house, $100 on a $100,000 house, 300 on a 300. Valuations ch I've heard different back and forth that valuations do and don't change on a yearly basis at times. So, if that if your val if your valuation's automatically going to change, that also changes everything 100%. And we can't know that. But I do think as a council it's really important for us to take a look at our best guess as to what this is in our budget that we're looking at right now. And our best guess right now is in the budget we're looking at. It would be about a 1 mil increase. So again, a $100,000 house, that's approximately $100. A $300,000 house, that's approximately $300. And I think it's important that we say that out loud to the public and we talk about it as a council like does it an increase that, you know, we're comfortable with or not. So, I think that's the last big picture item on here and I'd like to hear from people how we feel about it. I guess I'm curious um excuse my potential ignorance on this. Um, as far as the the question we're trying to answer, it feels really tied to the very first discussion we were having um about entertaining uh different potential expense increase or decrease levels. I guess I'm curious what we hope to get distinct what we hope to get out of this discussion distinct from the discussion we had at the beginning. I think there might be nothing. We might say we already addressed this in number one, but for me, I was trying to build a template that I want to have these discussions every year. I could imagine a scenario where we get to number four and we've had no question on number one and all of a sudden we look here and we go, uhoh, nope, bigger problem than we thought. And this does matter to go back to number one at that point. Again, I'd like to hear from other folks on how people feel about, you know, what this budget is bringing tax increase wise. I I I I guess I fully agree that we should be talking about this now and and but my point I think Rob just made was we did you know it all comes down to spending. So we we had it but but it's it's I think it's great idea to tie okay just so we know the impact of what we just talked about be at the beginning of this meeting. That's a mill increase. I mean and that's yeah I guess I'm not super I'm still not super comfortable. I'd like to see less. Yeah. And I certainly wasn't commenting necessarily on the the value of discussion we're having. I just wanted to clarify in case I was missing something if there was some additional element to this. Um but that makes sense to me. Um but I'm not sure that I agree with Leo. So if anyone wants to go back to 3.5. All right. Anybody else have any? So we're ha having the discussion about the post tax impact out loud so people can hear it and um anybody else have anything else? I mean feels like we're sausage is made. Yeah, it is being made and you know I people we crave our services in Oro and I you know I'm an advocate for those services um and and sometimes more so right. Yeah. Okay. So, are we going to do are you if you number five was to go on to the Q&As's and the managers list? Yeah, we had the big picture stuff and then let's go on to number five. Um just for a sense of time how long this is where all the little pieces are and then but there aren't I think we're jumping documents. Can I finish? Thanks. Sorry. It's okay. Um, we got to we move into number five, but then we also have another whole document of council counselor items that we haven't spent any time on yet. I think this is number five. I I guess I would Mhm. Yeah. Oh, is that part of number five? But does that move Does number five move us to and Sarah's telling me it's moving us to the council discuss the fivepage fiscal year 2026 council budget review? Yes. Okay. And I do have three or four in there. I would really like to know before you make me go back and answer the one through four if at all possible. So if if you know I can kind of go through it pretty quick and I'll take the questions for you. Okay. Do I see that? Um thank you sir. Yep. Sorry. So um so there was a couple floating out there. uh one right off the bat in code was there was a request on how much it is to add a code officer be an increase between 100 and 125,000 with all the benefits workers comp etc included in there um I'm not going to come back with adding that based upon your request to reduce things just so we're clear um and if I'm wrong you tell me but that's where I'm leaning um parks and wreck this is probably going to be a long question in the council's perspective But we have budgeted for both festivals in parks and wreck. The council still carries contingencies as well as you did create your and you brought this up yourselves and I don't want to get into it, but you also brought up your own grant program. Um, you should, that's not one of my big three to get answered, but if you want to come back and talk about this, there's at least some of the money in here that you could tell me and say, you know what, take it out of council and we'll shrink a little bit, but can we I'd like to come back to that one. Um, probably going to get So, the next one gets into the library. There's 25,000 allocated for moving costs. A couple counselors have made suggestions of something else. Um, I'd kind of asked this in the initial budget. Um, I think kind of where I'm sitting at, this is one of the ones I would probably cut and move to a reserve funded project. I will say that with a teachers mentality that that is disappointing because I think we're not seeing the responsibility for the current library that we own. This was a cost associated with the building we own and that we have to get out of there while they're going to redo the new one. And I I I would have liked to have left a little bit in there, but since we're on this and you're going to see more about this, we're going to give a, you know, if the move out happens, we're going to feel it because one of the only ways to make this work with the building is the library is going to be in the back half of this room for the better part of a year and we're going to get used to them because they're going to be out back there in portables to run children's things out of. So, that's the way that we're going to do some of these things. If we can't get money to move them, we can only do so much across the street. We can only fit so much there. So, we we're going to give them a little bit of room back here, too. But they need a place for the children's area. And and not saying 100%, but I would say right now, I'm 100% telling you I told the library, it's okay if you want to use the back of this room for the year. I'm 100% certain. I promise them that. That being said, we got to build the plan and we haven't done that yet. We're in the early stages. So, but I mean, as I'm looking at this, this is where Dan, I guess I'd like to see a show of hands. If you're leaning to not putting 20, you know, if you want 285 in cuts, this will be probably be one of the ones I bring forward. Okay. I mean, that's that. Yeah. Uh, hold on. Hold on. So, yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Is this a big number as a list of or itemized? Is this a am I building you a shopping menu with values per item? No. I I think I think the I think we'd be disappointed if you gave us a list of things to pick on our own. Yeah. I think it's I think we're asking you I would tell you we'd be very disappointed if you gave us a list of 24 things to just pick from. We you know we're leaning on you with your expertise as our manager and their staff to say to provide some alternatives that add up to that number. Um, and then we'll have a discussion and if they're tenable, we, you know, we'll approve the the reduction. If they're not tenable to us, a majority of us, we won't. So, okay. But I, yeah, I don't want, you know, close the pool, save you 34,000. I don't want those ever see those in front of this council again. Okay. So, then the only one that I do have that's going to probably put there's only one then that I really need aside from what you guys have brought forward, the safer, the the fire department. I'm leaving those positions in. They are currently vacant. But I mean the way I propot this forward is if you did utilize a carry forward to create a reserve fund which is just another way of using unassigned fund balance. There is a huge savings to the taxpayer in this. It will not reduce your expenses because what we pay these people is a fixed expense. It is there and it's real. But it would reduce the amount of tax dollars we need. How would that happen? What's the Because we're going to move money into a reserve and use the reserves to pay their salaries for the year. So currently $92,97 of wages is in the budget to come from taxes. I would take that out and move it to or not take it out. I'd leave the expense in there and I would fund it with the the fact that we've had a great year this year because we have been vacant on so many positions for so long for the year that we're running with major overages in those revenue lines or those expense lines. So rather than lapsing it to fund balance, I'd put a I'd transfer in June a portion of that into the reserve fund and then you could fund that next year and that's long-term good fiscal management because you got money left over this year that can reduce the cost next year and delay that impact a little bit more. But that that's just I don't know that doesn't get into your expense conversations at all. No, it kicks the can. Yeah, I I I really don't like the idea of funding staff positions out of reserve and carry forward amounts unless you're committing that they're one-year positions that are going to be gone at the end of a year, which I've heard is not what staff wants. And I I don't want to get us in the habit of that. If we're just saying we have funding for this from a year to pull somewhere else, it's just hiding something that's getting built into the budget. That's a cost we need to maintain going forward. I would much rather have the money roll into the reserve account and for us to spend what we spend. If you want to take more out of the reserve account because you think the reserve accounts are high enough we can manage that I'm fine but I don't want this to be a direct feeder like straight into the safer grants that makes me really uncomfortable. Okay. Is that I agree agree. And just so I'm making sure I'm understanding that doesn't so that basically means you're not looking to remove that. I mean you were only that would have only showed up on expenses. We're not the whole what you're coming back with is something to cut down expenses by the 280 or whatever it is. And we're not talking about the how we're not getting into how all everything's funded. We're just talking about the cuts expense wise, right? That doesn't that doesn't change anything if you by you leaving it in there. It's in there. Yep. And and the funding portion we're not really talking about if I'm correct. Just so I'm clear. Thanks. No, that's I agree. That's what I wanted to clarify. That's why that kind of was queued up. So, the rest are all on yours, Dan. I mean, I know individual counselors had some ideas requests. Um, why don't we go through um so it makes sense instead of going through the document piece by piece? Are there counselors who want to identify? I mean, some of these came from different people. So, do we want to do it that way? Just just so we're clear, we we did not want to do this with the capital, but we do want to do this with operating and everything. Is that what is that where we were asked if there was something we wanted to add Leo anywhere or specifically take out so I think it's fine you brought up the ones you specifically wanted to take out of capital right well I did but there was there was no conversation and it was that's we're not getting into that was I think what we what I just heard I don't think so I thought there just wasn't a consensus down the line that everyone wanted to do it if there's one you want to cycle back to I guess we could do that at the end can we do these first and then cycle back I don't know Dan go ahead I Do you want to start Rob? Is there anything you want to bring up here in terms of document that you brought forward or I don't want to put anybody on the spot who didn't bring it, you know, but is there anything in here you want to talk about and advocate for? I don't have anything. Okay. Andrea, you had a couple I know you had a couple like Yeah, I'm thinking it might come later if we're asking the departments to come in with a decrease. I'd like to see what they're going to do and compare it to what I saw before. Okay. So, but in terms of like the the police department position, the Thursday, Friday, Saturday night position or the code enforcement position, I think if we're going to look at what that seriously being a lever, we need to look at including the salary rather than adding it later on trying to find where to fund it. Code enforcement, I understand. trying to cut, but if we're going to ask the police department to add a position or add shifts, we need to look at funding that now instead of later just sorry, I don't want to I didn't mean to jump on you. That's okay. So, what did you have for a question though as a followup? I was just going to say that we we did have our first meeting today, I think, and Clinton did express that that's a that's a shift of that. If anything, it would he's more leaning towards and of course police would take a an additional officer if we if we put that on the table. I I'm I'm not even close to doing that. and and I think we heard from Clinton this morning that with regards to what we're talking about in the safe neighborhood um discussion that if anything maybe there's a shift of a shift versus a addition. So I I would put that on out there and again we're just starting conversations but I'm I'm not in a we're talking about cutting. I'm I'm nowhere near entertaining adding staff personally. So, um, one of the other items I had was if we are adding the festival days and the arts festival from council and into park and wreck, I think we need to look at reducing the council line item. Um, I also think if we're I mean we've all talked about wants and needs and whatnot and I think if we're asking the departments to come in with cuts, we also need to look at what are we going to reduce our spending on. We're going through an exercise. We're going to look at alternatives and we'll see what it looks like. But I agree that um I think the I still don't understand I we've talked about reducing the mini grant piece, right? And then I don't I still don't understand why we have these festivals funded. We have them funded in two different spots. I So I Yeah, festivals are a parks and wreck function. Y you've been carrying them in the council budget. Yeah. So I brought them forward in parks and wreck, but I didn't want to take money away from you without talking to you, which Okay. So that's why I kind of brought it through. Don't worry, I'll be taking care of it for when with 285 cuts. It'll be taken care of by next week. Jacob, I do have something alternatives. I don't think you have to do a thing going because it's in there twice. Yeah. Sarah and I have already talked about this. She has a opposite viewpoint of me. I don't actually. I just have a tweak, but um I guess I also wanted to say I don't think that you're eliminating that lever completely. You're just saying not this year. if you decide to pull that lever on extra police hours, that's not funded this year. So, it would not be until the next FY budget that that could come up for consideration. The committee could certainly still bring it back as a proposal. Just understanding that it wouldn't be funded until the next um year. Correct. So, does that mean we'll be asking the current staff to work o extra overtime hours on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, or are we just looking at a possibility to add an officer in the 26 27 budget? I think it's it's a allocation. I mean, we have a choice policy choice to make. Are we going to ask staff to make, you know, allocate existing resources in a different way where maybe there's a part of town where there are more needs at different, you know, I don't need a, you know, I don't need anybody on page place at, you know, on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. Um so is it makes sense you know and that's not to be dismissively like you know the the resource allocations that our our professionals make but our pol I I see it as our policy decision is do we want to you know do we want to ask the manager and his team to take a year to kind of understand that this is a priority for us in terms of responsiveness and and work to address it through the work that this the good neighbor committee does and the work that the council does um or do we want to set aside the the funds for an additional officer um right out of the gate and it feels like the former you know ask ask the team to come in and do um understand that this is a priority for us allocate allocate accordingly and if you can't meet our service expectations our good neighbor service expectations with existing resources come back in and we'll have that discussion about additional staff that feels like kind of But I think that's kind of where we were started going a little bit this morning in that meeting. Yeah, I think I'm largely with you. I I just think a lot of this is putting the cart before the horse. I mean, we're so early in understanding what's even possibly going to get recommended. Um I I think it's hard for us to allow a lot of that to really guide much budget discussion here, but I I could be alone in that. Okay. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Um, so I did put one uh request for us to consider. Um, I brought forward the fact that uh we made a commitment to hire McCoy Museum Solutions to bring us back an interpretive plan proposal for the town um regarding Wabanaki history and ongoing presence in Orino. And I am I would be uncomfortable with us having no funds anywhere in the budget to actually enact anything that's would come out of that recommendation which I believe is due back this summer. Um, so I simply threw out a figure. I'm not wedded to this figure. I also could feel comfortable with no money specifically. Oh, it's on under administration. Leo, I put out 20,000, but I mean I'm we could talk about the figure. I just want us to make sure that we made a commitment to do this interpretive plan and get these results back. And I think implicit in that was to consider the recommendations and which ones to act upon. And I'm betting that at least some of them will come with a cost. Um, Clint has had more discussion and part of that process than any of the rest of us and maybe can speak to that. I was going to end by saying I could be comfortable with no designated fund for this if the council contingency and special project lines stayed put in the budget, which allows council some wiggle room if there are projects we want to move on this year. But if we were to take out both the council contingency and special projects lines, then I would want us to talk about putting something in specifically for this commitment that we've started our way on. And I would hate for us to back out halfway. Um, so that's where I'm at. And the page for the council amounts was in front of everyone here tonight. Zach gave it to us. We didn't actually have this in our budget binder. Um, and so Zach gave us this one pager so we can see the full council budget. So that's where I'm getting those figures, Leo, about currently there's 10,000 for special projects and 10,000 for contingency. And I guess I'm going to add by saying again as we're looking at how to cut because we need to make cuts. I would be comfortable giving up the miniigrant program completely at this point. I feel like it has served a purpose, but I don't need it to stay. I feel much more passionate about not doing this interpretive plan proposal and then saying, "Oops, we did it, but we didn't actually budget anything to do anything with these results." That's where I'm at. So, is the contingent is the interpretive plan supposed to be on here or it would be on here? I was suggesting that we could do one of two things. Either add a line to do some follow-up with what comes back on the interpretive plan or have an understanding as council that we're going to keep our contingency lines so we have some ability to use that money that way if needed. So, I'll just jump in. Of course, I I I'm I'm not comfortable with council adding 20,000 for an interpretive plan. I am comfortable if we keep a contingency and realize that that might be how we use it. We weren't talking about removing the contingency with regards to the um festivals and stuff. Correct. That that's I think we talked about potentially removing either council contingency or council special projects or both. So, I'm advocating that we don't remove that money so we have some wiggle room on what comes back. I I would advocate for removing special projects, keep contingency, and just leave it at that personally and and not adding another 20,000 for the interpretive. I'd love to hear from other folks. Yeah, I would just say I'm not in favor of removing either of these items. Um, I think as you just said that without those we we have no wig room for anything we want to do. Um, and I I think that there I mean the council budget is relatively small here in comparison to a lot of these other items. And well, I recognize the the value of sort of walking the the walk as we're asking departments to consider where things should be cut. I mean, many ways we're already committing a lot of this to specific items. Um, and I would like to have that room in case we want to be able to fund. I'm not I'm not necessarily in favor of adding an additional 20,000 here, but I do want to allow us the ability to to do right on this whatever comes back. Does that feel like eliminate the special projects and keep the contingency at 10,000 kind of with the understanding that that's a likely the interpretive stuff is a likely project for that? I'd personally like to see us keep the contingency and the special projects. That's me. Where are you at, Rob? I agree. I um think it's important to continue um our work and trying our work with um relationships with the Bonopscott um nation and the Wabanaki nation. I also believe that um these will you know these are um one or two year going forward and hopefully then we can um be in a good standing good relationship and um I would be um happy with either the 20,000 or keeping um our contingency fund at least um and maybe our contingency and project to to follow through and If we don't need it, we don't need it and we we keep it for something else and next year we put it to something else. But if we do need it, I I want to make sure that we we can move forward on this and I know that there is a a good group of of community members who want to see this happen. So is that do we are we going to do the mini grants then? Is that what we're No, I I mean we can take that out. Yeah. Where are the mini grants accounted for now? I think it says in this community building grant program to provide startup under under council special projects is I don't see it. Where are you on? It's in the description in the comments. Funds for added by the town council during the budget process support a community building grant program to provide startup support for programs events. I know that we were thinking of keeping like 2500 last time we were talked about this and I was an advocate for it because I like to see these many grants go on but I think these other um things are more important. Is it the sort of thing where also if the interpretive plan results come back with nothing that's going to cost us any money, then we have a council special projects line and we could talk then about whether we do or don't want miniig grants. But I like keeping these lines. I'm perfectly happy if the mini grants need to go. But I would be uncomfortable if we don't have any funding to act on recommendations that we've asked to get back. I agree. And I don't feel very strongly about us. I mean, I like the mini grants a lot, but if I I don't feel strongly about fighting for them. Jacob or Andrew, I think um I I don't feel right uh asking Quint to cut 600 out of the budget um while keeping 600, right? There's two. Sorry. Two. Yes. To only do it. Yes. Okay. Sorry. Anyways, asking him to cut 280 out of the budget. Um while to be fair, we're going to cut 280,000 out of the budget if that's what happens. We're going to go through an exercise and there's going to be some allocate some proposed alternatives and it'll be up to the council. But okay, then my short and sweet point is then I think that as part of that the council budget should be reduced and so I would be in favor of eliminating the special projects line item and leaving the contingency. So, of the council budget last year, the orno stops program of 5,000, did that come from the council funding or and now it's going into the police budget? It's in the police line is my understanding was 5,000 that supported extra call-ins for police officers to do. So, it's that sounds right. Yeah. Yep. That's how I understood. Again, I was full disclosure, I wasn't here when you did it, so I did watch a lot, but I'm not 100% remembering. But to Andrea's question, I don't think that 5,000 came out of the council special projects line. No, it was an additional line. It came from somewhere else and it was an additional line added to the police budget. Andrea, I'm still advocating for a reduction in our line. If we're asking the departments to do it, I think we need to tow the line and do it ourselves, too. Are we be interested whether then we're going to give up our own salaries as opposed to actually cutting what could come out of the interpretive plan? I mean, I just want to say that when we cut something like the interpretive plan, that may show on the council line, but it's not it's not like it's coming to council. So, I feel like that's a commitment to the community we made to do that plan and be able to follow up. So, um anyway, if there's something on here that directly is comes to us that we're allowed to give up, I'm all in favor of giving that up. I don't know what those things are, but it's not like these projects don't benefit us as a council. There are still community projects that we just choose to use the council contingency line to enable to happen. Is there something on here that we can give up that directly something council doesn't get to do? I mean, we have a training and travel line. Do any of us feel the need to travel and train? I don't know. I'm just asking. Do we have four that are for removing that and three that aren't? And can we should we move on or no? I think we should have a vote. How many people want to get rid of just one or versus how many people want to get rid of two? Right. Or just no lines. Correct. The the the the split seems to be between whether we get rid of special projects special projects or we get rid of neither special projects nor council contingency. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Where are we the um so I guess we get a sense of the council whether the and again it's not a it's a straw poll but the council council special projects should go. Okay, that's four. Those opposed to that. Okay, that's four to three. And then the contingency, those uh want to see the contingency stay. Thank you. Well, let's say go let's say so we're consistent. Those who'd want to zero out the contingency line or some other Yeah, I'm not seeing anybody opposed to that. So those feels like the contingency at 10,000 would stay. Thank you. Can I ask of the travel and training? Do we have an estimate of what was spent last year? Is it being used? Cuz if it's not being used up, I don't know that way. I mean, you do use some and I would not advise against a huge reduction. I mean, you got new counselors that could come on. You should all go to your you have some requirements. You do have your foyer mandatory trainings. You do have your new counselor trainings that you should try to attend. Um, if one of you want to go to the main municipal or two of you this fall, that's always a good idea for someone to go at least attend. We're not talking big expenses, $100 here, $200 there, but, you know, even including a little bit of gas mileage, but I think those are important to have so that you can stay um informed as a counselor for the demands of the role. Okay. And All right. Well, so thank you for that. So, and so we're not calling this and this is the hard sorry just to make sure we're saying it out loud. The plan would be to the contingency would be the opportunity for the um interpretive funding to support the interpretive work that comes back and that's all we're going to leave right now. Sounds like it. Okay. Um did anybody I had still have one. Anybody else have any? So, we had a survey that went out on the um orninal stop survey. This year, we funded a couple different things, including the Westwood project. Um the survey items are going to come back to the community development committee for conversation. We had I don't know, Cody, how many responses did we get? 73. Um 71 if you don't include my two, but um so many speed bumps on Win Haven coming coming your way. So anyway, um this is a request to consider um identifying at this point $50,000. I picked them, you know, it cost us was it 15 for the Westwood lights? That's closer to 20. Yeah. So the thinking was two or three projects um like that Westwood style. You know, I'm not talking, you know, we're not talking new bridges or um overpasses or anything. Um so I set that as a number. So, we have something. I'm sure there are other ways to I'm not going to say skin a cat. There are other ways to get things done around here. Um, and I don't recall how we allocated the Westwood funds given that how much of a barrel we're over. Maybe it's a a conversation we have later on once we identify the funds and come back with, you know, we have um unallocated resources. There's other other ways to get small projects done. I don't remember where the where the pot what pot we dipped into for the Westwood lights. Remember uh we did it in existing projects from the fiscal year. We did it right through the infrastructure lines. We knew they were coming in delayed. So we were able to Are you suggesting adding 50? I don't really feel like that's probably, you know, at 708 we couldn't get Sarah. Seems like a pretty easy response actually. But I I guess I would I would say back to what we talked about with the with the capital that we're going to look at. I mean that seems like a place where we may decide within there that that and and I you know I can think of you know like the other crosswalk right even the one someone brought up the other day. I thought it really was a great idea by the church where that's one oh oh no it was down here this one over here because people are making that left and don't realize that it's pedestrians are in there. which I wouldn't have I never even dawned on me but I'm like yeah that actually if we had a blinking light there the one at the Mill Street um Mil Street Main Street you know where you're crossing by UCU on Main Street and there's that we got we have a delay in there now which I think helps but but having a blinking light there would probably be more would be valuable too which again maybe there's no space whatever but I think I think there are I think those are really meaningful pedestrian and safety stuff that for me could make sense to discuss. Yeah, sure. Council marks. Yeah, I just had a question also on this that I've been wondering. I I I think I remember that we approved the town buying its own crosswalk painting machine and was that purchased? Because my biggest safety thing at this point is the first one Leo mentioned is that light where people are crossing and people turn into them. But my second one is the fact that if we just repainted the crosswalks regularly so they were more visible, people would stop more easily. And I thought we invested in the equipment and I guess I'm wanting to ask was that not purchased and also is there staff time not available? Do we need to I don't know. I want to know what's up with that. Yeah, we can get more up that. But the the the clarification I've made before and I want to make again I think we made when we told you we're buying it. These are not crosswalk striping machines to do all our crosswalks. We bought a very simple machine to go out there and augment what we do for contracted services. Crosswalk striping, line striping, all those are major capital investments. I mean, and again, six figure capital investments. We did not run out and buy one of those. So, we have the ability to go out, touch up some crosswalks, do a few, and if there's some of those priorities, it's but I mean, as I go around town and seeing it, we're struggling with getting a crosswalk striper. This is getting to be a bigger issue and may become something that we need to take on a little bit differently. But that being said, the one we have, what we can't run into is we do not have the staff resources to go out every night and do all them all the time because we're just not designed that way. So, it's a little bit here and there or if one's wearing, we were going to go touch it up afterwards. Now, we're in the full worn gone. Um, so these would be harder for us to do. But why don't we uh I'll come back with some more information so you get a better visual on what I'm talking about and so you can understand what that and explain what a real investment in a major striping machine is. So thanks because whether it's a striping machine or some other solution to make our crosswalks visible pretty much every month of the year. I would like us to talk about that as a council when we have the capital project discussion because it seems like a really big safety issue to me. Yeah. Okay. Um All right. Well, cool. I'm happy to talk about oral stops as part of the other um in these survey safety projects as part of other capital projects or you know bring things forward as we have opportunity as we identify things and have opportunities um and not make Jacob vote against you know the safety of oral residents. Um well there there'll be a time for you to vote against it but it won't necessarily be tonight. Um, so I I'll move off that, but I'm definitely going to bring, you know, I think the I I'll be asking the community development committee to look at these and as part of our agenda and bring some stuff forward for us to consider. And I think um it's all part of the process, you know. Okay. Thank you. If you're are you wrapping up? I wanted to say I'm done with my piece. Yeah. But I just wanted to point out before we finished with this document that Leo, the end of this document is actually where the changes to the capital plan from the capital plan we saw originally and the one that was presented to us in budget, they're all delineated here. And to me, this would be the place if there's a specific ask that you want to see council's read on about something else you want altered in the capital improvement plan, to me, this would be the place to make that ask and see if the rest of council's on board with it or not. So, we do want to do this now at seven. I don't know. I mean, I I'm okay also with All right, we're okay with the number. Let's have that. Let's have this conversation about how we're using that number. I think that's fair. And I'd rather I'd rather do that than try and try and churn churn through these. But, I just wanted you to be clear that we hadn't skipped it. Like, there was a whole capital section on here to allow that discussion if it needed to happen. It sounds like you're comfortable with the plan Clint presented. I'm comfortable with the dollar amount and coming back to that's what I meant. I didn't mean the capital improvement plan. I meant the plan to come back and discuss more details. Yes. Is that right? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um I think that concludes this document, right? Is that I just got one question before you're done. Sure. Yep. I just want to clarify. So with the coming back with alternative alternative plan or plans, whatever it may or may not be, it may be in broken and parts. There might be more than one choice. I don't know what I'm going to come up with, but I have started taking some notes and just in general thoughts. Here's your going and things you've said. The way the charter reads, are we okay that when this comes back, the public hearing in one week is a public hearing on the budget. It's the manager's proposed budget and staff. It's in your charter. I have to bring it. You're having a hearing on that. I will create a document such that the at the public hearing people would be able to see an alternative or alternatives and then they you can take feedback on that during the public hearing as well at which point the council then has to take votes to amend the recommended budget. So those are where that I think that Dan did a good job bringing that back. That's how those will be through a motion vote. It may be and I'll try to word them so that you know how to how the orders would be but it may be a bulk. What I'm assuming is it would be a bulk. This is plan number one and so moved be ordered that can we see those in our packet and not at the at the meeting for the first time because that's I will do my best by Thursday noon to have them in your packet but again Thursday noon and visible to the public also correct at Thursday no thank you I'm trying that's well and also Clint you know we've said we'll we'll work better together with you and the finance committee to be sure that weruct structure this differently next year so that this discussion happens more weeks before the public hearing. Yeah, I've already got that commitment on that, right? I know you and I have talked about it, but just want to say it out loud that it's important, I think, for the future and and I realize my we didn't end up at my percentage, but that is why I tried to that's why I did it a week ago to to get us thinking that way. And I I think I because I don't want to do this last minute and okay, now it's Monday and we're talking about Thursday. And I I appreciate the challenge that that poses and that's that was my rationale for trying to get that across the across the board. Appreciate the positivity. So yeah, but that would be it. So the idea would be in terms of our schedule, Clint, and just for everybody to hear it, we have the hearing next week with some alternative. We're going to go through the exercise. There'll be some alternatives for us to look at and for the public to comment on. So they'll ideally you'll see them in the packet that goes out Thursday noon. Um and we'll hear that as part of the public hearing and give you know there'll be a presentation on what those alternatives are and then um then the next meeting is um after the public hearing is the 9th. So then we have what we can call a meeting on the 16th if we need one but currently we don't have one scheduled till the 23rd after that. Is that correct Glenn? And the 23rd is the day we enact the budget. So if people have at that point if people have changes, we would that would be when we'd say alternative one, alternative two, alternative three, you know, that's when we'd have a motion to alter the budget base with alternative one, two, whatever the however whatever alternative we want to pursue. I guess I'd be more preferential after the public hearing to know that that way. So on the 23rd I'm presenting a complete finalized budget document that we will post online so that this is the final budget. One of the steps that I identified with you earlier is to have that fin and again what we've agreed here or what I've talked to the staff about is the final adopted budget that the council will enact will be the budget summary because the manager recommended budget I want to memorialize. So that will always remain to be the departmental summaries. That is what we recommended. it will not match, but that's intentionally not matching because the council will have amendments and then we'll have an amendment page that said this is with changes made from manager to finally enact it. And you said you would redo those overall pages. Page n will get ad adapted and posted too. So we look back the next year we'll see that because that's been a problem in the past. It hasn't always gotten updated online. So and so the reality is your budget summary is truly going to be your core budget documents always. Yep. Can I just ask one thing? I just wanted Can I Can I finish finish with quick%? Thank you. Um, so the 9th you'll want a sense from the council of what alternative we'd like to be presented in the budget that comes before us on the 23rd. When we decide with if we needed a meeting on the 16th, could we decide that on Monday the 9th or should we decide that now? Because if we're going to look at changes, I would definitely decide before the 16th if you want to. Well, yeah, like the 9th. I think at the end of the 9th, if we haven't if we haven't got our arms around it in a way that we feel comfortable, then I think that's when we would I'm not comfortable waiting till the 23rd to say A, B, and C. I think we need to decide that. Yeah. So, but the ask is that after the public hearing on the 9th, if if there's a consensus among the a clear consensus among the council, then that's what Clinton and the team will go back and produce into the finalized for us for a vote on the 23rd. If there's not a consensus on the council, you're going to see us on the 16th. We'll be together again on the 16th for a special council budget review workshop if needed. Does that make sense? Hosted by the finance committee says right here. Um, all right. So, that makes sense to me. And then anybody who has a change on the 23rd, you got to come with an order, right? So if you want to see something, if I want, you know, the $50,000 for the or no stop stuff and I got to come with an order at that point and change, you know. Okay. So that's I'm probably not going to do it because um I don't like losing, but uh I I'm going to be the ornal stops guy as long as I'm doing this. But I don't like, you know, we'll we'll get to this when we get to it. But all right, anybody? Yeah, sure. And oh, go first. Andrea, please join us. Thanks for sticking with us. What? Yeah. Yeah. I just have a question about the legalities, ordinance, whatever the correct term is here. But it was my understanding in the past that if you made changes to the budget after the public hearing, those also were subject to a public hearing. In other words, they couldn't be enacted without an additional public hearing was my understanding of of the ordinances. But I'm I'm not the expert. I'm not a legal person. We I read it today and it says that after the budget's presented, you are to hold a public hearing. And it says then the council can only change it by amendment. I don't know, but we can clarify. I read that to mean if there's a public hearing and then the council can amend it by vote and does not need another public hearing. But I'll double check that. It's a good one to double check. But I did read that today and I'm like, I wonder where we're going to end up. Does Does that mean the dollar amount or the allocation of how it's being spent or both? Like if you can you you can change like if if the dollar amount doesn't change, do you need a hearing? Is that what she's asking? Are you asking just about dollar amount changes? Well, it's a twofold thing really. I mean, I think there's some I don't know if wiggle room is very legal term, but but there's some possibility of shifting funds if you have a major problem with council approval. But my understanding was that the dollar amount that's discussed at the public hearing is what the council enacts and changes associated with that that would change that dollar amount would require additional public hearing. I don't know for sure. I just have that impression from prior budget hearings which I've been sitting in for 12 years now. I I would I mean I know with the school it's it's always been what you approve is exactly what you can spend. They I don't even think they can change it and I've always operated under that same assumption with with council but I don't know either. So So I'm wondering if um I think that's a great question. Um I'm wondering if when we're having a public hearing and we're also having at the hearing from what I was understanding we were also going to have the alternatives presented for public hearing as well. I wonder if that does anything to solve that problem if it if it does exist. If if we're also having I'd asked somebody who knows a lot than I do. That was more just telling you that's sort of what I'm thinking of as a potential answer to that. kind of heard was that if you have a public hearing, what I heard you all say and I could have misinterpreted it was that if you had a public hearing on the 9th and you weren't where you wanted to be, you'd come back with additional proposals on the 23rd amendments or whatever the term was. And my question is, is that legal according to the ordinances? I would say per your charter, this is what I read today and this is where it exactly says that the council shall thereafter so it goes town manager shall be uh shall propose and prepare a budget to be reviewed by the council which shall be approved the budget with or without amendments. The town council shall fix a time and place for upholding a public hearing on such budget. Give the public notice at such hearing. the town council. So thereafter review the budget and adopt it with or without change. So you can amendment after the public hearing. Yeah. With or without change. And that's the way I would read that. And again, but you bring up a great question. I read this over and over and there's some nuances. But I don't know the answer. I'm not legal expert. I just call that I like it. I I just wanted to like I I love that you brought this up and I just think that best practices for us might be whether or not it's legal or not. I don't know cons like I just want to say that that Matt like if we couldn't amend the budget after the public hearing there would be no point to the public hearing. Exactly. The point is that when people bring ideas and suggestions we have the ability as in a council to amend it. I mean that is the point of the public hearing. So, we definitely can amend it after the public hearing. Um, I asked Sophie when I first came on. It was my first question. How's this work? Um, and I read, you know, the the just ordinance, too. No, it's a great question. I'm just was saying I mean that is sort of the point of the public hearing is to get feedback from the public. So, I hope people come and give feedback and so that we can consider if something should be amended. And we have Yeah. And we have the discretion. We would all the timing may not work for us. Thank you, Fica. Um we would have the disc discretion if there were subsid we don't want to be in the business of bait and switch a little bit of change we would want to perhaps invite another public hearing if that's the case but one more question sure council marks has another question I just wanted to bring us back to the first document that we looked at which we got through the big picture questions but on the bottom of that there were smaller topics that I think had also been brought forward by various counselors and I think a lot of these have been covered but I'm not sure they all have and I think it would be nice if we pulled it back up one more time ourselves as a council and looked to be sure there's nothing on here that any counselor does want to have discussed or get any question answered on before we send Clint off with his charge um there are answers as I understand Clint from staff or what are in underlined text is that correct it's the bottom of the documents was response re yes and there was a few questions um you know like the first one talks about using, you know, credit card fees of $22,000. Is there some way to remove that? And the reality is is we want those. We have a very very good online registration portal. That fee is built in. So, there's a revenue to offset that, but we build that fee in so that the user's actually offsetting our cost. Um, but that allows us to have a really good um parks and recreation registration system. We like it. Yep. Are there any of these other ones that any counselor wanted us to actually talk about on here? There's things about the Orno observer and a lot of other things. Are these ones you're everyone's willing to just assume Clint's going to take a look at with what he brings back to us or is there anything anyone wanted talked about? I had brought up the Orno stops because it just seems like I thought that we were double charging the council budget and the PD budget. That's not the case. So, no, that that was addressed in my I I brought up the Orno observer and looking through the line items, the amount of postage that we spend in each department with the use of Cody and social media. I would like us at some point to look at possibly making use of an electronic order observer with maybe a small subscription fee to receive it by mail. I would I have definitely had very direct feedback by somebody that's uh I think heavily engaged with say the older population and they would according to this feedback that would not be a good thing. I think many people don't go online or or some people don't go online and and so um I think taking the direction I mean we're just trying to communicate and it's our it's so hard anyway taking away an avenue seems like the wrong direction for everything we've been trying to do for the at least you know probably for the last 15 years but at least for the three I've been here um just trying to make sure to get our word out and make sure people are hearing what's going on and I I'd be I think I'd be really hesitant to do away. I mean, some people might actually get excited for that thing to show up every love. You know, I love getting it. I like I look at it online, too. But I love it when it shows up and I completely agree with Leo and when our pictures are in it, I think, well, never mind. I know that there are some people that they don't use access online and stuff. I just thought there might be a way we could look at Okay. Anything else on this list before we are we need to go into executive session? Is that um I find the All right. So, um we're going to now have Well, it's properly headed. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yep. Um, so we uh we're going into a spe we're closing the workshop and we're going into special town council meeting. Uh, item three is an executive session. Could I get a motion to move us into executive? Not yet. Executive session pursuant to one MRSA section 4056C regarding economic development. Moved. Seconded. That well timed. All those in favor? That's unanimous. Okay. And we are going to be in executive session. Nothing after. Right. Nothing. kept after. So, so long, Oro.