Okay, so I'm going to call the Finance Committee meeting to order on the, it's April 23 of 2020, 3 o'clock. And pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. General law chapter 30 a section 18 this meeting of the commute of the Finance Committee is being conducted by a remote participation. And I'm going to call. I just need to get the participant make sure all of the participants here and can be heard so that we can confirm all of the participation requirements. You can be heard. Kathy, Shane. I'm here. Dorothy Pam. Here. And we know that that's not here Bob Higner. I'm here and can hear. Sharon Povinelli. I can, I'm here and can hear. And Mary Lou Talman. I'm here and can hear. Okay, so I think that we're all set to go with today's meeting. And I want to, first of all, get to the agenda and put the agenda on the screen for a moment if we can, and explain what the agenda is and I think I'm not sure that we have any participants on at this point who are not members of the. No, there are two attendees. So I do want to make sure and they are people who are not on the committee. There is provision within the agenda for public comment. I may take it after agenda item four. I'm not going to wait until last two items. And I'm going to explain why I say last two in a second, but there's information on the screen telling you what you would need to do in order to participate in public comment. And I'm not saying that we reached that phase, but wanted to at least skip through some of the initial discussion because it might provide information that is going to be things that are going to provoke public comment interest. Public comment doesn't necessarily have to be limited to what we're going to be talking about. The other thing that I wanted to just say right at the beginning and then turn to the next item on the agenda is that there is one item under unanticipated business which I will explain later. In yesterday's GL meeting, there was a request that we take up items to assist GL and its responsibility to move forward with appointing the one position that has to be reappointed. I believe July 1st for a resident non-voting member of the committee, Mary Lou's term was expired after one year or will expire after the end of one year. And that is the term that would be advertised. And the committee for Mary Lou's information should be contacting you to find out whether you want to be in the pool of candidates who would be considered for appointment. Welcome back to that at that point in the meeting. The major items we were going to spend time on today, however, are to follow up on our last discussion about how our budget process is going to move forward and differ from the prior budget process that we used last year and had thought we were using this year. So with that, we'll have the screen switch over to the PowerPoint presentation that was presented earlier today. And I know that there was a number of members of the committee who were participating this morning by either as members of the budget coordinating group or participating members of the public, but not everyone. So we'll try and do a briefer version of this so we don't spend as much time quite as we did this morning. And it's also contains some information that I think you as a finance committee are more familiar with. But I guess we should go on. Paul, are you going to do the first slides. Hearing Paul. So yeah, I will go through it and Is there a way to show the whole page. Or not. So this is a presentation that we made to the budget coordinating group budget coordinating group is Is in the charter it require it. It's a meeting that's called by the town manager includes representatives from the town council the school committee and the library trustees, plus any other staff that are part of it. Typically, this is a group that really Andy will get more detail if people feel they need it. Will agrees on sort of the budget category the budget projections for revenue and guidance for the town manager and preparing the budget. The things in this presentation we talked about BCG organization which I don't think we really have to focus on. A little bit about the budget challenge, but really focus on the 521 budget calendar and the impact and the role of the finance committee in the calendar. This is a presentation that was put together by Sonya and me and with support from Brianna sun red is our communications manager. One of the things that I emphasize this morning was that we wanted. This is a challenge to, you know, we had done so much work on the previous budget we were really ahead of schedule. The schools had in library had done similar things. You know, Sonya had done yeoman's work to build the budget so we're really prepared to present it to the council to the finance committee. And then this came along and basically just washed it all away. And so we're starting new and so there's a whole new set of parameters that we have to build this budget from.  And so one of the things that there are two messages I wanted to deliver one is that we are going to do this we will be methodical about how we do it. We will make decisions when at the right time and when we have enough information. The other is to ask the finance committee and other people for patients as we get through the process. But I think the one thing that we draw from is that there's a new. I feel that we have renewed sense of collaboration among all the entities we always have really good cooperation with the library in the school at the staff level, especially but also at the committee level. People are really committed to working together and we have very high communicators on all levels so that's really good. So the next slide down. So the BCG works under consensus. And that means that there are no votes taken at BCG is basically, you know, do we agree on these things and the three things that we presented this morning were the concept of a one month budget, which would get us through the month of July. And it's and that's to distinguish between a one 12th budget. It's really what gets you through July. It doesn't doesn't mean it's one 12th of a regular budget based on prior fiscal years, but can be something different. FY 21 budget, and then the schedule that we would follow for the next. And so I'm not going to spend this. So this is what the BCG did this morning. They designated co chairs and typically the chair of the finance committee and the chair of the slack or had been the co chairs previously. That's sort of replicated this year where by acclimation. Lynn Griezmer as president of the council and Andy Steinberg as president of the finance committee were designated co chairs of the budget coordinating group. And we talked about that. Well, we can go to the next slide. This just shows the section of the charter that references the budget coordinating group. That's not really relevant for the finance committee at this point unless Andy or do you want to put anything in here and because. No, I think that the finance committee is generally more aware of what the budget coordinating group is there to do it and includes members of the library trustees and the school committee and then senior staff from each of those entities of government. In addition to members of the council and Paul and finance director, and it's to try and help reach consensus about considering budget issues, including calendar, but it is not a policymaking board. So it what it decides then gets reported to the finance committee, which is a large part of why we did the order of the meeting today, because there's action that needs to be taken out of this and these are discussion and then referral on to the council is this committee teams appropriate. Next slide Lynn. So the two things that we really focused on was a one month budget and the FY 21 budget. And I'll identify some of the challenges at the next slide. And so you can weigh in if you feel like there's more to be added. And I think we you may have looked at the third quarter. I'm not sure if the finance committee has looked at the third quarter report yet Sonia. Do you want to take this slide. No, that's probably going to be done at the end of the next week. But we're right on target with our third quarter. Third quarter revenues we've collected 75 maybe a little bit more than 75% depending on the different types of revenue. What the fourth quarter is going to be the quarter that's telling and we're going to see a lot of we're going to see that we're not going to be collecting much meals tax or hotel tax if any at all. Our collections are probably going to be a little slower on motor vehicle during the second half the quarter. They do get collected eventually though. Some department mental revenues licenses and permits investment, that's all going to be affected for the second quarter, as well as into the new fiscal year. You want to talk about the enterprise funds. Yes, thank you, Paul. The enterprise funds as well we're, we're having a consumption was going down has been for water and sewer has gone down so we were struggling with our water and sewer funds. Before this happened. Now that the schools are closed that water consumption is going to go way down so we're going to have a challenge with the enterprise funds as well. We're going to be collecting parking revenue for downtown transportation budget. We're not collecting parking revenue right now so that's obviously going to be affected and solid waste is an influence. Ambulance receipts. What would I do without you. A lot better probably. Ambulance receipts are going to be down because the calls I've actually dropped since the colleges emptied out so very challenging. So yeah, it's sort of interesting how with the college has gone how how low our call volume has gotten this is more than below 50%. We've staffed up the fire department in anticipation of increased usage. We haven't really needed to use it. We're fortunate that we have because it takes time to get a call firefighters trained to be regular firefighters. So we're really happy to have done that. Water is down as Sonia said because our two biggest users are our University of Massachusetts obviously in Amherst College and they have emptied out and they don't have their offices being operational anymore. And sewer gets affected because the the water is the sewer rates are based on water rates. And water usage. We've also had some additional expenditures for PPE. We've again I mentioned the staff for the fire department. We've had to buy technology to help people get set up. And then we've had some public health expenditures as well. So one thing I forgot Paul that I mentioned this morning is for the rest of this fiscal year, we're going to have a deficit. How much it is depends on a couple of invoices do from some of the educational places but we should have enough returned appropriations. We're spending money on PPE but we're not spending money on our normal and in our normal way with all our operating budget so there'll be some offset there so I think we'll be fine for fiscal year 20. Yeah. Okay, you know the next slide. So we are we are highly dependent on we're not highly we have a state aid constitutes a relatively large percentage of our budgets. We're in, you know, 20, almost 20% of our budget comes from state aid so what happens at the state level matters a lot. So, we're on Sonya was more attentive than I was on a call to this morning with with the Division of local services and got some good information out of them. But basically, and you should add to this, they basically were saying, we don't know, we don't know when we will know. And we can't give you any guidance on on your budget other than to be conservative. It really wasn't good information it was just the same information we have is that they don't know when they'll have information or what cuts might happen. When a pause for a second Dorothy do you have a question you want to ask now about the drop in the ambulance and EMT. I'm wondering if it somehow allows those who are good with formulas to look at the formula that we have now with the educational institutions, and to see whether in fact, there should be a readjustment. It's a question. Do you want me to answer that. Yeah. That that's actually was in progress before this whole COVID started so we are looking at that. Okay. Thank you.  Yeah, it's on the same topic but I think so and you're looking at it I saw you didn't mention police but it looks like the calls for police or way down based on a hamster gazette story way down so it's a similar thing that we may have a natural crisis oriented experiment on what when the universities and colleges are in what does it do to the volume at the police level and and fire EMT just it's for it's a we'll see a use impact the same way we're seeing on water and sewer but it's worth tracking as those numbers emerge. Okay, I was concentrating on revenues police department don't really bring in revenues. It was more the ambulance revenue. I didn't. I didn't intentionally leave out the police. But it is it is kind of an interesting experiment although you know in the paper today there's an article about how just hospital admissions at emergency rooms are down and people are saying are people not having as many heart attacks what's going on are people choosing not to go to the emergency department. So I think there's a lot of their other variables other than just the university being out of session that could impact that so it's a piece of information but it may not be the complete picture. I can give you a little bit a little bad background. And again I'll race through this piece because I think half of you already heard this. So these this is information that the Mass Municipal Association, but put together. Bless you. There are no clear answers as we said the serious recession hitting mass. It's worldwide obviously the know how we come back from it is going to be insignificant because as Lynn has mentioned we know this is a state that's dependent on educational medical institutions and to meds the the at the state level their revenues are collapsing capital gains are falling income tax will fall due to the nearly 20% unemployment gaming and sales taxes drop is dropped off. The only purchase are being done on pretty much online sales taxes are falling gaming gaming lotteries. The local option meals tax and lodging taxes which we benefit from are pretty much non existent at this point. Another thing that's been significant is that while the state has received some federal aid is not not allowed to be used to backfill any lost revenues for the current fiscal year. So, you know the next slide. So on this for the FY 21 legislative process has been delayed they don't know when how they're going to make a decision they don't know when they're going to make a decision. They have received testimony at the state level where at the hearing last week that many people were on that there'd be about a 14.1% decline in revenue based on research done by about a four or five different research organizations, which is about a $35 billion hit on a $31 billion budget. And that will be that will necessitate the state to cut its budgets. Local aid isn't as a giant portion of the state's budgets. The legislature again they don't know how to meet that legislature. They don't have a process for meeting remotely like we have now. One of the good news is that the state does have $3.5 billion in the rainy day fund. But that will only be a part of the answer and I think they'll be looking at the same way we do which is, you don't want to use all that up right up upfront. You need to expect this to last for several years and so you want to use your savings in a very cautious way. There's federal money coming in from the other to the state from the CARES Act and the disturbing thing on that has been that, you know, at the state level, the Senate majority leader at the federal level has said that he doesn't believe there should be money going to states or localities, especially if they're in danger of declaring bankruptcy, they should because they've taken on over, they've over committed their resources by giving out lucrative pensions and things like that. Well, so the next slide. So, you know, as I mentioned this morning there's several people who've been part of this and remember 10 years ago when we had a similar. But in a way a lot easier problem when there was the great recession because there was a momentary collapse of revenues but we were able to sort of dig out from under that. Back then, state revenues dropped by 10%. In response, the state cut unrestricted government distance to the local cities and towns. Education aid was held somewhat harmless because federal money from the ARRA money came into the state. They introduced new local option meals and lodging taxes which helped to offset some of the cuts in local aid. That money is not there for us because those industries have stopped supporting, throwing off any revenue to cities and towns. There is, and again, this is at the federal level. There is a call for additional local aid and I think there's no, that'll be a pretty large battle at the federal level between the House and the Senate. The next slide. So, I think actually I'll stop there to see if there are any questions about that piece before we start talking about the calendar piece. See if anybody. Dorothy was your, you never took your hand down. You're right. Thank you. Let me do that. So there's, I don't see anyone's hand up then. Okay, I'll keep rolling then. So again, we're looking at a calendar that has a one month calendar and FY 21 calendar for the remainder of FY 21. We have this regional school budget, which we have to deal and then the capital improvement program. So, next slide. So this is what, when we were young and innocent, we thought this was going to be our budget schedule and we were right on schedule, maybe a little ahead of schedule. We had things locked in it was going to be a great budget year we were going to get a bias for action or good stuff that we're going to be able to present. People had initiatives that they wanted to present. That's all gone. It doesn't exist anymore. And so we're basically starting over. And, you know, initially that was really demoralizing to a lot of us because so much work, especially at Sonya's level, and, you know, the school department and library had done so much work to get their budgets prepared and they were, they were there. And now it's like everything has changed and but we're back up. We're ready to take this on this new challenge on and it's kind of, it's actually kind of exciting and something different. I mean, it's not a green, it's exciting, but yeah. So here to the next slide. So this is a proposed budget process. And this is where the finance committee will come in and have to make a recommendation to the full town council. So the starts on April 23, which is today, the budget coordinating group met this morning, and then the finance committee, which is the second, the second row is meeting right now. And we'll be asking finance committee to extend the deadlines for the school and library to submit their budgets, and also to extend the deadlines for the town manager to submit its his budgets, the operating capital budgets to the council. So we hope we'll consider those on Monday, April 27. And then that, then that can be put into effect right now under the current action by the council, the library and the schools are submit supposed to submit their budgets a week from tomorrow. That's not going to happen. And Monday, May 11, at 630 p.m. Sonya and I will make a presentation, and possibly our new finance director if he's available will participate in that as well. The FY 20 revenues and expenditures and FY 21 revenues and expenditures. That's where we'll be talking about numbers. This presentation to BCG and to finance committee we're not talking about real numbers. On May 11, we'll talk about real numbers and what the actual impact is. We kind of have categorized the different scenarios that we're building is bad worse and worse with bad being the best, because that is where we are. We don't have any good looking scenarios to present to anybody. We probably won't. After we make that presentation on Monday night, the finance committee. Andy has will call meeting of the finance committee on May 12, in which we, the finance committee will talk in more detail about the numbers that we presented on Monday night. In this, in this calendar that Andy really put together. He has color coded these things is black is the operating budget. It's a regional school budget. And blue is the library schools, the one month budget basically. So we did not put dates in for the regional budgets because that's a whole different conversation and after the meeting the BCG meeting this morning, Andy and I had a conversation with Mike Morris dig a little deeper into that and Andy can will update that I'll run through this entire budget that we can come back and talk about it a little bit. So June 1 is when we're asking the council to approve the submission of budgets by the school and library to the manager. And it's where the J, we would ask JCPC to make a recommendation on probably a very bare bones capital plan to the manager. I would submit a one month budget to the council, which would get automatic referral to the, to the finance committee. And then the finance committee would have until June 22 to make a referral, make a recommendation to the full council. I would try to get my budget ready by June 29 and the capital plan to the to the council. June 29 would wouldn't be when the council would approve the one month budget. And then we would have until the end of July just for the council to approve the rest of the FY 21 budget. And so that's our race through that calendar because most of you have seen it once but Andy is there anything that I went over too quickly. No, not at all. Thank you very much for the presentation. And actually what I wanted to explain to the committee was at our last committee meeting, you asked me to give thought to the budget process for FY 21, and I did so. That's what resulted in these two pages of chart that you see. It was not an easy process and took a lot of coordinated effort. Working with both Lynn and Paul and as well as Sonya to make sure that it was a realistic proposal as it was being developed and then it ended up being presented to two different meetings today, the BCG meeting this morning and then now. There are a couple of things that I wanted to note about it when you look at that original schedule and I'm not suggesting we go back to it because we're all familiar with it. It was the traditional schedule that was built into the charter as well tracks what we've been used to with some modifications, because of the change to inform of government. What is different from 2008 2009, which was the period of the so called great recession that Paul is referring to is that if you recall. The recession really hit in the fall of 2008, and we went through a long period of time of uncertainty because of the recession, but the budget process could run fairly much along the schedule that it traditionally followed for cities and towns. This year was different as the crisis that provoked that didn't happen and the same part of the year has happened in 2008. As you know, and as a consequence, we have to really redo the schedule in a whole different way. Additionally, there's a couple of things. One is the legislature has been understanding of that. And the second is, because we are now a city we no longer operate under the same rules. We operate under budget provisions in chapter 44 of best choose general law section 32, which provides that cities can do one month budgets, if there's cause to do so. And that and after talking with Paul and Sonya about it. It seemed unrealistic to construct a schedule that would get us to a 12 month budget on the usual time frame and the wiser thing to propose. Which is something that we haven't discussed as a finance committee is to have a one month budget for July and then have the annual budget be adopted a month later. And that's why we have really sort of these layered processes of the one month budget and the annual budget. And then of course the regional school budget which is always under slightly different time frame anyway. And that's where the context of these changes are. But I'm really looking forward because this is a major agenda item for today is the comments that you may have about the budget schedule and questions you may have about the budget schedule. So with that I'll turn to the two people who've raised hands and asked to be recognized questions. Kathy and then Dorothy. Kathy. Okay, I have a question or comment, a couple different ones. When we were speaking about agendas for upcoming council meetings so Lynn will know the schedule we, I think we decided we would have a day and my memory is May 1 to talk about the enterprise fund separately we had rescheduled that from March. I thought it might be something that the finance committee members would want to have on their calendar as a whole. So it's, it's just checking on that date in the middle of all of that as a separate discussion. Then I raised Kathy I want to correct something. It's a discussion with consultants. It's not the actual meeting to set sewer and water rates. Yeah, I didn't mean rates I meant more like what's the picture look like and what we can do or what I just didn't know whether people should might want to have that date on their calendar so it wasn't it wasn't a decision making. And it's made first at 10 o'clock. Okay, and I just like to add on it's about talking about block rates in particular. So that's really talking about how we set rates, not about rates for FY 21. And then the second thing I raised it earlier today at the BCG meeting but we, we have a policy goal rather than fixed in stone of 10% of our general revenues of our property tax for capital. And I didn't know whether we needed to officially change that and whether that would be a recommendation from Paul to be more of a bottom up what do we have to spend on capital like paying of debt service that it's no longer set as a percentage it would be more derivative. In my mind that we would see what our operating budget looks like and what can we spend on capital so this would be a year where we're relaxing a goal. And it was set as a guideline. When we first came in so just some point at which we actually visit that. And my last comment was on scheduling. You've got it on the next slide CPAC, I know has been put on hold for bringing their recommendations for spending my, my thinking is that they've got money. And I think that's one of their share of the surcharge that was dedicated to them. So, at some point we have to schedule a meeting with them which I assume is first a meeting where they have a meeting with you Paul and Sonya to try to figure out what they're doing. So I would have questions about some of the things that they committed to last year that haven't been spent that are might be triggered in FY 21 like the $500,000 for 132 North Hampton Road, that would be our share of this moves forward. I just don't know when there, there usually was a time scheduled on the finance committee's budget where CPAC would come in. So I don't know what the sequencing of that is it's a question rather than I have an idea of what to do. So, taking the last two questions in order that you presented them I'm going to stay a little bit on the Capitol and then turn it over to Paul or Sonya if they want to say more and then ask Sonya to pick up on the CPAC question immediately so that doesn't have to come back to me. And I did see some other hands up so I'm recognizing who does want to be recognized. So we established as the current town financial policies. It was a process that I was involved in so I'm very aware of it. 10% was a goal. This was the year we were going to achieve the 10% goal. And sadly, something got in our way and we're not going to achieve the 10% goal. Again, this year, it was less than 5% when we started the process, and we recognize the importance of capital and the consequences of underinvestment in capital. And that's how that 10% goal was established. I have been assuming all along that as has happened every other year in the meeting that happens in the fall that the town manager always put forward a budget plan that came with the original projections. And that included the question of the amount for capital and that we would hear more about that on May 11. And then taken up as a finance committee, as we take up everything that comes out of those projection meetings in the fall, it has to be taken up after May 11 in the same fashion. Paul, do you have anything to add to that before we go on to the CPAC? No, I don't think so. I think that's pretty much captures it. And the anything else on that, Kathy, or can we, if you don't unmute, we'll go on. That's fine. That is what I assumed would happen, but it's, and I also thought it's a goal. It's not set in stone, but this year particularly it feels derivative rather than trying to set aside a piece of money. We see what we can set aside. And I'm going to, I'm leaving it to Paul to make the determination of what he recommends, and then we'll act off of his recommendation. Sonya, the CPAC question. The CPAC funds is based on estimates just like the operating budget is. So we start off with an estimated year and balance for June 30 of 2020, and then we add an estimate of what we're going to collect for surcharge and then what we think the state's going to put in, they'll tell us a percentage and that's what we use for estimate. So that's going to change. I don't know what this year is going to end. It's probably going to be the same for this fiscal year. It might be less depending on whether people are paying their tax bills on time by June 30. We might, we'll collect it, but we might not collect it until, until the next fiscal year. The state, I don't feel comfortable with the number in there for state right now. So I would, I would probably eliminate that. But when I was looking at the proposals that were recommended by CPAC, there was a pretty good chunk of money that was going to be budgeted as a reserve. So I really don't think they need to change anything. I think once we take out the state and everything there might still be money for reserve in there. So I think that we might be all set to move forward after one more meeting just to explain where we're at with it and reduce the amount that's going into budgeted reserve, but that was just me looking at it quickly yesterday so. I think that we need to settle on where we are as a town in terms of our entire financial picture before we start moving forward on some of these other revenue streams, because we need to really understand how conservative we need to be going forward. Before we, you know, these are both important revenue streams and there's most of them there are there's no urgency to act on them. Right. There is no urgency to act on CPAC, we could do that a couple months down the road. Dorothy, and then I see Sharon will come after Dorothy. No. Sometimes I don't remember where money comes from. So when it comes to the Kendrick Park playground the town has voted some of money. Isn't that from CPAC. It's borrowing authorization so. I'm not surprised to borrow the debt service when coming to play for a year or two. Okay, all right, because we know that that has that June 1 deadline. My question was on capital. My memory is that we have two kinds of capital. We have the four capital projects, which we're going to have to talk about, and then we have like capital that's involved with running the town like fixing things repairing new vehicles and whatever. And I guess I wanted to have some idea of where we were on the capital that's tied in with running the town, as opposed to the four projects. How that gets affected. Well, our capital plan basically consists of debt service. Previous authorizations. And then, so we take 10% of the tax levy, we pay our debt service from there and whatever is left is what we consider cash capital that gets allocated out to the schools, the library in the town. The normal things that we give them every year, not to do with anything new. Okay. But Dorothy, just to add on to what Sonya if we can't give 10% then once you take death debt services about 1.4 million. So then it's, then it's, what can we do so it's not going to be a return to normal for roads and repairs it's going to be something after we figure out the operating budget side. So it's not a simple take 10% put it over here. We're going to be post got into context of a whole budget. I thought 10% was for money we'd already borrowed and already committed that debt service. That service. Yes. Yeah, there wasn't going to be for new stuff it was going to be for old stuff we already but we don't have we have we may not have received all of that money I guess that's what you're saying we borrowed money, but we haven't spent all of it. And we pull it down bit by bit. This has nothing to do with borrowed money we borrow that we get an authorization to borrow money to do a project like that when that project is completely we borrow temporarily for cash flow for those but when that project is completely done, then we go out to a bond and have permanent bond and then we pay like a mortgage payment for 10 years on that. Well, okay, from I have to admit that's confusing for me, but there was just one line on that schedule that said capital and I just thought aren't there a lot of things to talk about.  I think what we're saying is that the capital budget at this point in time is going to be very only the absolute things we have to buy right now. And then that's what I wanted to hear about is what I'm saying we can revisit that at any time you know with the form of government you can revisit this anytime during the course of the year. And as we get a better sense of things we may come back and say hey, we think it looks better, we can actually loosen up some money to buy this, whatever it is that we want to buy. We're kidding. Basically what it amounts to us is that we set aside 10% for capital and the rest for operating budgets essentially. And that's sort of a global way of looking at it, but then the capital itself gets divided into pieces with the one piece being what it is that we use for paying back the debt that we've already incurred from prior year's commitment well it's a legal obligation to do that. And then the remainder gets divided up for various for whatever other purposes we have. And I think that that's so it's really how the amount to allocate to capital and how you use it or two different questions. The other thing that we have to recognize is that there's going to be a lot of stress on the operating budgets this year, and that's what puts the pressure on, because the capital is tied to a fairly inflexible amount and the amount that we're losing is really coming out of other areas since it's 10% of taxation. It's a fixed number that's based upon our tax levy, which by two and a half percent doesn't go down with those things that were talked about to go down or all of the other categories that support the budget. And if we held to 10% the decrease in operating budgets would be even greater. And Sonya can demonstrate that at some point if there's a need to do so. I want to move on Sharon, you've been very patient I see Pat is with us now participating it also wants to be recognized but Sharon. So I just wanted to briefly go back to something. Paul you said. So my understanding is that we're not doing month to month, month budget we're going to do a budget for July and then we're going to work on a budget for the rest of FY 21. And you said, you're preparing for a bad, a worst. No, bad, a more bad and the worst. So I just want to understand that, I mean, so you're preparing for like, you know, school starting or school not starting and the state defaulting is that is that kind of the, just wanted to hear a little bit more about what your, what those three things are. So we're not looking at the state defaulting. We're looking at either level funded state aid reduction of state aid by 10 or 15% reduction of state aid by 25%. We're looking at reductions of our economic income from hotel motel, maybe a 25% reduction of 50% reduction of 75% reduction, you know, different strategies. And so we want to put those all together and you can sort of mix and match how these all fit together. We do, you know, I think the school feels very strongly that they would like to know sooner than later. If we are, you know, we don't want to go in month to month because every time you extend out a month it makes it harder to catch up if you're actually making cuts. So sooner we can let everybody know this town and the school department know what their budget is. We're going to be able to know what kind of response we have to those to that, whatever the revenue is that we're able to provide to our, to ourselves.  But isn't the flip side of that also, I mean, how are you going to account for the possibility of, you know, if you mass and Amherst College aren't opening in the fall. And, you know, like the impact of that, because that's not just those students that's people working here at those jobs that are going to have, you know, all that kind of stuff. So it's, it's like the flip side of the state aid it's the Right. So when we talk about we look at those the revenue that is impacted by that. So suppose we would say 50% we were going to lose the first six months of the fiscal year revenue from any hotel or meals tax. So that would be one assumption. And that says that says we're going to be back up and running it on January one. Maybe that's too liberal a projection maybe it should be 75% reduction who know we're going to look at different scenarios like that and do our best guess as to what what we think it might happen where it might land. Okay, thank you. Yeah, thank you. So that just a quick apology I fell asleep in the other room reading a book. Apologies for jealous for jealous. I'm looking on stable internet connection on my computer. Can you hear me. Yes. All right. He has her hand up again. Dorothy, do you have another question. Yes. I guess what I was thinking about, we made decisions to spend money, but that money doesn't come out of the budget because we're borrowing it, but when we do like Centennial water plant or some of those other things we said we're going to do most of time. That money is going to be borrowed. So my question was, do we still go ahead and borrow the way we thought we were going to, or are we going to reconsider some of those things. So the borrowing authorization is there. And what that allows the manager to do to move forward on these projects doesn't require the manager or anybody for us to move forward on these projects. And we're going to make judgments on each one of those projects whether it makes sense to move forward with them or not. Sometimes it'll make sense because prices might be particularly attractive right now. Other times it might say, we just don't need whatever it is that we decided to purchase and we shouldn't be moving forward on that. So it doesn't, you don't need to reconsider it because you, it's just, it's not a requirement. Okay. That's what I was worried about. Okay. So thank you. Yeah, the other one that's there and I've thought about is that I don't know where we are with Pomeroy Lane and the land from the golf course. But I sort of assume that that's in that same category we've authorized that judgments will be made as appropriate. Looks like Paul's nodding. That's true. And that's again, a very complicated negotiations still going on. So. So there's, there's no resolution to that at this point in time. Thank you. I don't see anybody else wants to be recognized. The only other thing I was going to just point out, then we need to see if there are any questions about the dates that are being proposed. And then move it along. So the point that I just wanted to make clear is that chapter 44 section 32 says very clearly it doesn't use the term 112 budget. It uses one month budget. And when those are proposed to us the one year in the, in the one month budget. It doesn't necessarily have to be one 12th and the as has been pointed out to me on several occasions. There are expenses that we incur in July at the beginning of the fiscal year that may change that figure and but it's really about coming up with an amount to authorize not a budget this one 12th of what we anticipate the annual budget to be. And so are there any, any feelings that the dates that are at least now listed to the extent that you've been able to if you need to look through them again. We can go back and show it and just quickly scroll through that screen one more time so that you get a chance to look at it. If you have any thoughts about the dates that are being proposed. I don't see any hands up as we got after we show the second page for a moment. I see that I see one hand up now. Kathy. I think the schedule looks great. And, but what I also think is it looks like a lot of work is going on in between each of these meetings. So this, the good the bad the worse and the worse or whatever we, it's not really good bad and ugly in Eastwood this the sooner those kinds of numbers with any level of confidence and I understand why you don't want to put any number out until you get some better sense for state, but the later the state uncertainty goes. The more this becomes a flexible set of schedules because we've got to know something about the state money for you to be able to do your, is it five to 10% is it 20% you know what happens to that chunk of money. Sharon said you know if you mess and embers don't open up or they do open up that makes a big difference. So some of these things may be right up to into June that we're still getting that information. So I think what I heard this morning is this is our best guess of all these dates right now but some might have to move a bit depending on what we know, and how much more certain we can be about things we do or don't know. So if I can respond to that Andy. So the state is in the same predicament that we are. They don't have any better information than we do. And they're doing the exact same thing we are doing making the best guess and they don't want to go out, you know, too far without having they understand that if the more conservative they get on their revenue, the bigger cuts they have to make. So if they are being super conservative they're going to tell us cut more. So I think they're just the nature of the beast. There's three different entities there the Senate the House and the administration that are all have that conversation happening about what should our revenues really look like. And that and I think we're not going to know much from the state to really inform our decisions. So we're just going to have to make our best guess though. And the longer we wait the better off we are in terms of getting better information but at some point we need to make some decisions and that's why this calendar is there to help us make some decisions. We do feel it's responsible to ask for one additional month for the entire budget but not. I don't think I don't anticipate us coming for another month after that I think we're going to have to make some judgments and just go with that at this point. And just commenting for a second that I see Bob chances up about this on the regional school side of things. There was a reference made to it earlier. Paul and I talked with like Morris earlier today, sort of at right at shortly after the BCG meeting. And he doesn't really have an answer to some key questions because Department of elementary and secondary education desi is having a meeting with superintendents and regional districts and chairs of the regional school committees from the regional districts. Next week I believe he said on Tuesday and until they have that meeting which will be another virtual meeting as I understand that we he won't be able to give us any significant information back though. It's his understanding from conversations with people. It does see that they seem to be leaning towards pressing districts to not adopt a budget on July for for full year on July 1 but to do a one 12 budget, which they're now permitted to do by that special one of the pieces of special legislation. That was passed by the legislature. And to give them more districts more time, encouraging the districts to take more time to develop the budget. He has to weigh that against his own needs for stability managing stability within his district. And that's why in the end, the dates don't exist for the regional school budget. And we were waiting for him to come forward with proposals and he's not ready because he at least has to get through next week's meeting before he does that. And so we really don't have anything to discuss on the regional schools it's not anything we can do anything about right now. Bob. Yeah, I just wanted to to make sure I understood the kind of the what you're going to do Paul with the bad ugly and really ugly or whatever budgets is I. I assume or am I assuming correctly that if you have a series of assumptions of X percent cut in state aid or, you know, whatever, then the budget implications of that will be part of that discussion. You know, in other words, this is where we have to not spend money or go to the rainy day fund or something like that. No, we will identify this X dollars gap between what our revenue is and what our existing budget is. And we will say, OK, we've got to close that gap. How do we do that? We can't close it with revenues. We've already established what revenue streams are in three different scenarios. And so how are we going to do that? Are we and then we look at all the tools we have for for reducing our expenditures. And it can be, you know, we're a heavily people dependent organization as is the schools. So putting a number out there will have direct impact on everybody's lives as soon as we put a number out there, people are going to start saying how does that impact us. So we want to be really careful about putting that out there because that in that same context, we there are collective bargaining requirements we have for a lot of our unions, both the school and the townside. So as we start talking about things, we have to make sure that all of our partners, you know, the employees and everybody understands where we are. There are going to be really difficult decisions to be made. People are going to be disappointed. We're not going to be able to do things that we want to do. And we're not going to be able to do things that we have always done. And we're all going to have something that we wish we could have done. And there's going to be competing interests at play in this. That's why it's going to be a difficult conversation with the council and with the finance committee, because people will have different priorities in terms of like, don't cut here, cut here, there. And why are you doing this and not that we obviously will take through, you know, get through the easiest things first, the things that don't make sense to be spending money on at this point in time. But, you know, that's why we're, we don't want to put a number out there until we, because the logical questions like, okay, you've got this gap. How are you going to meet it. And that's a logical questions for somebody to ask the word that we don't want to be just saying, we don't know. They have some ideas on these are the categories of things that we can, we can, you know, attach to. Does that make sense. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, I think we're just, it's going to be a lot of uncertainty and we're just going to have to, as you say, kind of make some assumptions and move forward. And the key. Yeah, the key is going to be about being the guidance we will need especially is how conservative does the count want to be. So are we projecting this to be a multi year event. How do you want to use our reserves that we have put in what we put away which was really smart over the years. And, and do we do or do we want to hold on to them because we still, you know, there's just so many questions to be discussed. One last one question from Dorothy and then I want to move on to the next piece that we need to address Dorothy. One more question. Yes. In listening to this, I'm thinking that we really need to think using a cliche outside of the box. There are many things we want to do. Many things that we're going to have to put off but some things cannot be put off and that is kids in their education. And just in the article I was reading about what is New York City going to do with absolutely no summer programs for the kids. I think we have to run whether we do it remotely or whatever. We have to run educational and activity book clubs whatever programs over the summer or we're going to children in the town will be lose out forever. You know, like my grandkids are going to lose out because we're doing it, but a lot of kids are going to lose so much that they might not catch up. So I just want to throw that in there that I think we have to not just do the things the way we do but come up with some new stuff a way we haven't done it. When it comes to the kids. That's a good point and thank you. Lynn, could you put it up for a second the tab that's Charter section five that I sent to you earlier today and then I want to get it's going to be a segue to get back to Paul. There is two sections of the budget section of the Charter that set the April 1 and May 1 states and then section 5.9 immediately below that allows for the town manager to make a request to the town council to make exceptions. And we've already done that once and move the April 1 date to May 1 and the May 1 date to June 1. And the schedule we just looked at changes those dates yet again. And so the question is, are you making Paul, are you making a request now to the finance committee so the reason we have to do it this way is because if you sent it to the council and then it can't get back to committee and it'd be better to just let the committee act on recommendation if you have a recommendation. All you need to be your microphones to not on at the moment though. I can email some language to Lynn right now, but I can read it to you. If it's fairly simple, you could just go ahead and read it. I request that in accordance with section 5.9 of the Amherst Home Rule Charter, the town council modify the deadline established in Charter section 5.4a for the Amherst school committee, regional school committee and library trustees to submit their proposed budget for FY 21 to the town manager to June 1, 2020. Number two, I request that the town council modify the deadline established in Charter section 5.4b for the town managers to submit a proposed budget for FY 21 to the town council to June whatever that date is. I said June 15th in this might be different. And three, I request that in accordance with section 5.9 of the Amherst Home Rule Charter, the town council modify the deadline established in Charter section 5.7c to submit a capital inventory and five year capital improvement program to the town council from May 1 to whatever date we put in there. June 22nd, no. Submit one month budget to council on June 1. Recommend a one month budget to the council finance committee then on June 22nd and submit and manager submit an FY 21 budget to the council automatic referral to finance and a capital budget for FY 21, that's June 29. And the council reviews and approves a one month budget and that is July 20. Yeah, July 20. Yes, we approve the budget so call your question and we'll get the dates right. Basically, we're extending everything by a month. And your budget will come to the council with automatic referral. The one month will come to the council on June 1 and the 11 month, in other words, the rest of FY 21 will come to the council on the 29 June 29. Correct. Okay. Okay. It would be preferable if we could have the council act before May 1, since otherwise it puts the to the school committee and the library trustees in an odd place of not being able to meet a deadline. And so I would like to see if there's any discussion on this or a motion to change the dates as requested by the town manager. I move to accept the dates as proposed by the town manager and as Lynn just read out. Second. This motion has been made and seconded. Is there any further discussion on this and included in discussion if they're obviously as if we have any comments from the non voting members of the committee. I always want to be able to make sure that comments are offered before we get to voting. So I'll look to see if there's anybody is asking to speak. Hey, a question. I'm not sure. I've got this calendar in front of me. I'm not sure how the dates is read match that. So I would vote for this motion with the proviso that the dates get checked and matched. Okay. So I don't want to get stuck on the fact that maybe one of them is wrong, but we have to redo it again. The date is written in the proposal. Motion was to cones to make sure that the dates are as specified in the schedule is presented. Correct. Absolutely. That's good. So.  And that's a requirement for remote participation. I'm going to do my best to be alphabetical, but I'm not perfect on that. Please excuse me, but Pat. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And. Kathy Shane. Yes. And I am voting yes. So it's five to zero. So I want to go back to the agenda then. Let's see where we're at with that. I have my screen for a second. So we have talked as much as we can about the, about items two and three, the revenue categories and the budget discussion. That led to item four consideration of any requests from the town manager pursuant to section 5.9. I'm going to skip the agenda. I'm going to skip the. Pression to put that on the agenda. I said we were going to skip the. Part that. For scheduling next meeting until after public comment. So I want to go over to the list. And see if anybody, there's three people who are participating. Remotely. In the meeting and would like to be recognized for public comment. Okay. I see no request for public comments. So we can go back then to the agenda. And the. Question said, we need to determine our next meeting. If there's any, but any other unanticipated items people may have. So. The next meeting needs to fall in line with the. Work that we're seeing ahead of us. And I guess that the question I have is a very straightforward one. Is there any reason that we have to meet. Prior to. May 11. When we get the presentation. Of the. Revenue projections. The only thing that was brought up is what Kathy mentioned much earlier. Brought whether there's anything that we wanted to talk about with enterprise funds. Because we're going to have a lot of work to do later in the year. We're kind of throwing ourselves off schedule. So I'm going to go back to. I'm going to go back to the meeting to see if there's any. Buddy who wants to be recognized on this. Question, but I would propose. That unless somebody has a specific request. And then we can schedule an extra meeting accordingly. That. We try and schedule a meeting for the. The 11th is a Tuesday for the following day. I just want to correct you. It's the 12th. The 11th is the council meeting. It's the 12th that you ever written for finance. I just double check. May 11th is the date for the presentation. And then May 12th would be the date for the next finance committee meeting. Unless there's a specific request. To have a meeting earlier. We would not meet again until May 12th. So I've seen nothing now. If anybody has any other reason that they would like to meet. Then we certainly can always. Do so, but I think we're going to have a lot of work ahead of us. After we get the. Revenue projections and recommendations from the town manager. And. I think we're going to have a lot of work ahead of us. I think we might as well preserve our, our time and strength and our staff time. Until then. And that ties Sunday up and doing anything for us. The only other thing that's coming up. And I just want to mention is that. Sonia will have. At some point. Third quarter. Budget report. And she's already given us a little bit of a preview of the discussion. But I think one of the best suggestions would be to have her. Send the third quarter budget report to the finance committee. That a point when she feels that she's ready to do so. But we not schedule a meeting necessarily just for that purpose.  Yeah, I have a comment and. I think we're going to have a little bit of a discussion. I think we're going to have a little bit of a discussion. I don't know if that's already, but. At one point last year, we were, began a discussion of appropriated, but not spent funds. Some of it was capital. You know, when we came up and bought the school bus. So I'm just going to assume that we're scrubbing budgets by looking at where there are pockets of money. Where it may be that there is a plan to spend it, but where they're not spent out and they're not going to spend it. So I'm just trying to figure out whether they can just close them. That they're actually finished. But to the extent we can be freeing up funds, because people have just been holding on to them. This might be the year to do it. So it's just a, it's a comment rather than a question. Because I'm assuming that's one of the internal things that's going on. I'm just looking to see if either son, Paul of any comments, if not, then we'll just go on to the last item on the agenda. Because we've scheduled the next meeting. And so for the last item, I think what I need to get up is, I sent a set of minutes to. You Lynn that had something highlighted. In green on 10th page. Well, Mark draft. As you're looking for the 10th page and the green section on the 10th page, what this is about had to do with the appointment of the three members last year, who are the non voting members. As you recall, it happened in the summertime. And there was an appointment to some staggering of terms with one term. We lose term to expire. Earlier than the other terms. We're expiring. It has just happened that. That was what was recommended by the committee that. At that point was in the position to review. The committee. That was a recommendation. That was an appointment to the finance committee. That appointment is now. Recommendation. Has been changed from. The OCA. Committee, which is. Being phased out. To the GOL committee. Government. Outreach and legislation. If you look at the green section. There was a provision in there that the council was going to evaluate the finance. Committee process. You can read it for yourself. And. That. Was to happen before. They engaged in the process before the council appointed. For the next term. So the committee wants to go forward and. Advertise to the community that there is a position on the. Committee that will be. Up for reappointment. They've emphasized that Mary Lou. Certainly is eligible to. Apply for reappointment to that position. And they're just beginning the process, but they wanted to go ahead and. Have that evaluation done. Earlier and recommended to the, they have a recommendation that. Gets input from the finance committee. And. Then. Goes to. The. Committee and from G. O. L. To the council. And get that done in early as early as possible. So I don't have too much to say about that. I don't know that we're prepared to talk about that today. On the other hand, I feel like we're going to. Get into the discussion. It'll, it'll later date. It'll be harder. Pat, if you're still on the call, you were at the meeting yesterday. Do you have anything to add to what I just said? No, I think that's. Very good interpretation. I just wanted to encourage Mary Lou to think about. Reapplying. So. We will need to have presentation. I mean, I can give my judgment about it right now. But we will have to get there. So Kathy and then Dorothy. Okay. I mean, I would be prepared to say this is working extremely well, you know, in terms of when we would have that discussion and I, we're not meeting again till May 12th. I don't see how we meet on May 12th. Make a recommendation that GOL then decides to post or not post on May 18th. I think it's, it seems like if, if it's the term is expiring at the end of June. Doing something sooner than later. So it's a question about timing only, Andy, that if, if we think it's working well, are we telling the council that are we telling GOL that? And then how do we proceed? Because may, if we don't meet till May 12th, then it would go to the council on May 18th. They would be at the council meeting on May 16th. And then on May 18th, we would be talking about the events and the times we're meeting and posting, posting an opening. Presumably as contingent on us thinking this is working fine or not. We hear from Dorothy. And then I went to go back to Pat and see how you want to respond to that. Cause you're on the committee, I'll committee two. Dorothy. Ms. Dorothy were not hearing you. Okay. I think it's okay. First of all, the idea that a committee that from the outside would ask would evaluate us without asking us how it's working and asking the members how it's working seems strange to me. I didn't see the full report. I only saw the half of the sentence that said blah blah blah and not added dissenting opinions. So I don't even know what the problem is or why they're doing it. I would think that if you want to know how it's working that you would ask the finance committee or ask the finance chair who should talk to the non-voting members and ask them what they think and then separately talk to the finance committee members. So I'm just totally confused by this and maybe Pat can clarify. I think let me take a crack at it first and then we'll get the minutes back up maybe to so you can read it again. That was the motion that was passed by the council when it did the appointments said yes let's go forward with the appointments but before we do it again let's just try and do an evaluation process and the other thing to get back to the sort of tie in the circle is that I think GOL wanted the first take on getting comments to be from us as a finance committee. Do we think it's working and do we recommend that the process continue if to remember that the charter says that the council may appoint non-voting resident members it doesn't say it will appoint and so the motion was essentially saying we should see how it works and because no other committee has members honored who are not council members no other standing committee is in that has that and therefore we ought to take a look at it and so it was and I think GOL is correct in wanting to start with the finance committee offering comments to GOL and then GOL taking it to the council getting a council decision saying yes let's go forward and continue this because it's working well if that's what the determination is and take it from there. Pat? Andy, it's Lynn. I can't raise my hand and also do slides so I have to do this. Okay. Lynn, something. To all of you I think this is the way it occurred came up yesterday at GOL and they immediately said finance committee would you please evaluate this and come back to us and at that point several finance committees in fact there are three of us at myself and Andy we're at that meeting and we all proceeded to say we thought it was working very well but we would take it to the committee and that's why it appeared in the under 48 hour block because it wasn't able to be posted so I just want to reiterate having said that I feel it has worked very well I personally have appreciated the wisdom of the addition of the people who have been on the finance committee before and the perspective of somebody who comes to this totally from the private sector in a very new way so that's where I am. So has anyone spoken to the members because I guess I had thought they were going to play a more active role and I sometimes suspect that they feel that maybe they're not supposed to say very much because I've often feel that they could add give us additional information that would be very useful and interesting so I think it's I'm just wondering if the role is that clear to the non-voting members.  Yes in response to Dorothy I think it was a first year for the three of us also in knowing just how much we were involved or how much we should say and you know it was new for you to have three of us too so I think over time that that would change I think we probably would have more to comment on so I hear what you're saying but I think it was very new for all of us okay and I do think that what we had to say you listen to you respected our input so I feel very positive about it so I hope you would continue having non-voting members I've told people the nice part about non-voting is that you don't have to defend your vote that probably sounds strange but really I know we make some difficult decisions and so I can go away feeling well I've given you my input if you want to use it you can or you don't have to so that's where I stand. I have to say for my own perspective the nice even days to hear from Sharon all three of you have raised very good questions many times through our processes and some of them are questions that the rest of us didn't think to ask and but we learned from both of your questions and the answers to them and that was another that has been another benefit of because I think that all of you are really working hard to think about what we are doing and what we need to do and bringing that outside perspective into the council process Sharon. So it seems to me that the process is the voting members need to kind of analyze whether this is working for them so the five of you need to determine that and then as you know a separate thing if you want to ask the three non-voting members if we feel like it's valuable I guess that's a separate question and I'm happy to answer that too. In terms of I think Pam you asked doesn't seem like perhaps we talk very much I think probably I've talked the least and I generally kind of reserve my comments and meetings to if if I if I think something is unclear or if I think something is not in line with how I'm viewing it I'm not generally one to just take up time in a meeting reiterating something else so those are my those are my thoughts. Thank you Bob. Yeah I want to echo what Sharon just said too and maybe add a little bit that you know as someone who is coming in with no experience in the town this has been a very steep learning curve there's a lot of elements to the town finances that are not obvious until you have time to you know get involved and and and see what's going on and listen to the conversations so for me it's been very valuable for me to learn more about how things are working or how things do work I hope I've been helpful in to to the five council members in asking questions and in you know kind of bringing the perspective that I have to the table so I agree with Sharon that you know I'd be happy to answer questions or have a conversation with you all if that's what you would prefer. So we need to think through very quickly the process Kathy raised an issue earlier in this discussion that probably is the right one if we had given given a little bit more notice I think that what we would probably do is when they have some sort of way to hear from the three of you who are in the position of being non-voting members about whether you think that it has been useful for you and to get in positive experience and even if it goes forward we might could learn from you about what we might do better and as far as the hearing from the other from the five of us who are counselors our perspective on it but to do that we need time and we're getting into what's going to looks like it's going to be the really hectic season so we're kind of caught in a calendar that I don't think was anticipated way back at the beginning when this was first voted in that green language was included so it just is there any feeling that that anybody would be opposed to Kathy and I trying to together as chair and vice chair write something up for GOL and then circulated to the committee before the next meeting with that being acceptable Lynn my only question is do you want to vote from the finance committee now that was that was why my hand was up Andy where we just could take a vote and you could just then make your recommendation that we as a committee think this is working well and we want to keep it okay I'm echoing Kathy and Lynn I think that we can vote now um on this and make the recommendation to GOL to go forward Dorothy you need to unmute Dorothy sorry okay I want to echo them and Andy what he said something at the very beginning that it's there's a very steep learning curve so I think quick you know rapid change over doesn't really have much benefit because it takes as we've said it takes at least a year to get up to speed um so I would I don't know if we want all these overlapping terms but I would strongly recommend that we Mary Lou be reappointed because otherwise you know it's just kind of a waste so but yes I would I would vote to I agree that we're ready to vote in favor of the non-voting members yeah I think that we are not being asked to comment on the who at this stage we're being asked to just comment on whether we think that this has gone well and we would like to see it continue and then in another round as happened last year they'll ask if there's anything we want to change about what we see as being the criteria to consider in the next appointment round and then go forward um with the a lot that committee to go forward with to do its work Andy that's our hand up too that's fine go ahead Andy sorry no god I'm finished but so I'd like to make a motion that from the perspective of the finance committee members we have evaluated and continue to see the value of having non non-voting residents on the finance committee second so this has been a motion made and seconded any further discussion from any members all members of the committee any requests if not then I don't want it as part of the motion that we have a conversation with non-residents to see if there are ways they might make additional contributions to the discussion and the deliberation of the committee but that's not part of the motion I have to be because that's not what we were asked to do by the uh you're saying that term limits does not belong in this discussion correct okay all right it was it's simply limited to what was in the motion from the council meeting that's on your screen just the green section the yellow section is serves a different purpose so I think we all know what it is and I think we can go ahead and vote um so um there's again by roll call is required because we're meeting remotely pet danceless um yes Dorothy uh Lynn Grieser yes Dorothy Pam yes Kathy Shane yes and I vote yes so it's the unanimous vote so I think that takes care of what we have in the way of activities we have totally gone through the agenda as of right now we will not again meet until May 12th after we've received the council has received the report on projections for revenue for 12th and any other recommendations that may come from the town manager I encourage the public at large but I encourage and I encourage the members of this committee who are not council members to attend the meeting which I presume um and to May at the beginning um we may still be doing remotely but I have no idea whether that's going to be a remote or an in-person meeting at this point unless Lynn has something to say on that subject we'll just leave it as unknown I think there's two meetings you're encouraging people if they want is to come to the May 1st meeting at 10 which is about water and sewer rates but not setting those rates we do have a council meeting this Monday night the 27th it's it's 30 we have a council meeting on the 4th at 7 at I'm sorry 6 30 and then the one that I believe Andy is encouraging people to attend is the one on May 11th which is at 6 30 and that will be much like the meeting that we had back in the fall when all three committees were together and we looked at some financial forecasting the thing that will be different is the numbers in as far as I'm aware the only reason that this committee is other issue this committee has to deal with is if we hear anything from the regional school discussion that precipitates need to have a discussion of the committee otherwise I think that we're pretty well set but I think that's very helpful to know what those meetings are to remember that there is the one about how rates are set for enterprise funds and as noted that's when they first at 10 o'clock I assume that that's going to be a remote meeting but we don't know but keep your eye out the time and date have been set and May 11th is the big meeting for the financial projections and I don't know if there'll be much of financing but there's always something I think there's a big stack of things for the May 4th agenda as it is so anything else from the committee otherwise I think we can adjourn I just want to say a big thanks to Sonya and the team that I know is working with Paul working behind the scenes with much what must be very difficult so thank you very much so with that I will declare the meeting adjourned at 445 thank you very much and and I want to also thank Angela for being with us and taking care of our minutes so thank you and see you all soon


Oh, sorry about your dead human friend, Phillip.   Maybe.  So I'm pretty sure that you tuned into this video because you wanted my opinion of the movie and I'm more than happy to give it to you as long as you don't ask me to pull out my. Weena. My name is Brandon Keith Avery. And this is just my opinion. Boom. Hey, what's going on everyone? Thank you so much for tuning in to my opinion slash review for the happy time murders. I really do appreciate him. Now, I remember this film not being on my radar at all, but the trailer came out and I reacted to it and I thought it was freaking hilarious. I thought this was possibly going to be one of the funniest movies of the year. Possibly could be one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.  I mean, that's just the type of person that I am. And that's just my personality.  I like spoofs. I like over the top crazy over exaggerated entertainment. I mean, that's just like what I'm into. And when I'm talking about this review right here for this film, I'm going to bring up some other films that I do find fascinating. I'm not pretty sure if they still hold up today because I saw a number of them 10 years ago and 20 years ago, but we're going to have a discussion about that. Now, if it wasn't obvious to you already, this film kind of tailors around the Muppets and Sesame Street from back in the 60s and 70s and things like that. The director of the film is actually Brian Henson. He is the son of Jim Henson. If you know Jim Henson, he is behind the Muppet show and Sesame Street and all that good stuff. And just actually just a little tidbit behind the scenes. The film, the production company for this film was actually sued by the Muppet company because they didn't like the tagline like no Sesame, no Street. They thought that that was like putting a shadow over the brand and just making them look bad. But you know, it got dismissed. They didn't win, but I just kind of thought that was interest and didn't really see that it was necessary. But as far as this film, The Habit Time Murders, you know, I was, you know, I don't want to just say I was just super duper excited about it. I was when the trailer first came out, but you know, when it was coming up to go see the film, you know, I was trying to keep my expectations in check. I didn't check out any reviews. I just wanted to go on with an open mind and you know, an open heart. And I just really did want to enjoy it. And you know, for the most part, I did. I mean, they're, I mean, this is a comedy to me. And I was laughing throughout a majority of this movie, especially at the very beginning. You know, there were a lot of laugh out loud moments and then just other moments throughout the film sprickled in and there that I just kind of just chuckled here and there and just didn't think it was funny as the rest, but still got some type of entertainment. This is kind of a mix between puppets and live action characters, mainly between Melissa McCarthy. I am a big fan of hers. I have not seen all of her films, but for the most part, she is very funny to me if she is attached to a film that is one of the reasons why I would go see it. But I cannot say that to, you know, for this particular film here. How she did in this film is she's not as funny as she was in all of her other films.  You know, she is a larger woman and a lot of her films, as of late, I've noticed that she kind of makes fun of herself about being large and she's always, you know, falling down or getting beat up or just bumbling over herself, fumbling over herself. And that can be funny, you know, that can only be funny for so long before it gets exhausting and tired. It's like, okay, please bring me some more material, some more type of entertainment. But I'm proud to say that I'm glad to say that that's not really the case here. You know, Melissa McCarthy's performance and her personality in this film was toned back a whole ton from what I've seen with her in the past. Now, I'm not saying that she stood out great in this film and, you know, you need to go see this film because of her. So while I did enjoy Melissa McCarthy's performance, not saying that it's great, you know, at the same time, it wasn't the selling point of this film. Now, this next character I'm gonna talk about isn't the selling point either, but in my opinion, he is the character that saves the film. And that is Bill Beretta. I am not too familiar with him, but he is the voice actor that voiced the puppet in this film by the name of Phil, who is an ex-cop and now a detective. For this movie, this movie is over the top, it's extremely raunchy and silly. It is not anything to take seriously, but this is the only character in this film that I actually did take seriously. And if it wasn't for this actual puppet's involvement, this film would have been like an epic failure to me. He is the only person that I actually really cared about and I really didn't care how about him much. He just, I really liked him the most out of everybody. He was very serious, you know, down on his look, you know, just kind of really counting the days that, you know, until he died or he got blown away or something like that. But, you know, he saved the film for me.  I know I just talked about Melissa McCarthy. There's another gentleman in this film as well by the name of, he was a black dude, Leslie David Baker. He played a character by the name of Lieutenant Banny. And he was just a joke to me. As soon as he came on screen for the first time, his acting was just trash. He's been on a lot of TV. I hate to say that, you know, about a brother especially, but I just didn't enjoy it.  The budget was $10 million and they didn't go to the cast, you know, casting great actors. It went to another part of the film, which I'm going to talk about later. But, you know, Melissa McCarthy, she was okay. This gentleman here, Leslie David Baker, I was not a fan of his at all. And then the puppet played by Bill Beretta.  Now, what this film is about is that you have this happy time gang of puppets that were really popular back in the day in the 80s, but someone now is going around executing all the puppets, just killing them one by one by one. And Melissa McCarthy and Bill Beretta or the character Phil, they're trying to investigate and get to the bottom of this mystery and seeing who is going around and murdering everybody.  But just speaking more about the puppets, that is something that I really did like about the film. I'm kind of going back and forth with my likes and dislikes. You know, they wasn't just really stagnant. I mean, they had a nice flow of motion to them. I haven't seen every puppet movie that has came out in film history, but you will notice that most of the time you can only see half of their body because they're not a real person. There's a puppet and they have a hand up their body with someone moving around. But when this film here, you actually get four body shots of puppets moving around and walking and jumping up and down and stomping and kicking their feet. And it's just something that I've never seen before. It stood out to me and when I saw it, it was a highlight. I was like, okay, I like how they did that. I have no idea how they did it, but I like it and it's something that I've never seen before. If you do decide to see the film, make sure you stay for the outtakes because that is pretty much the funniest part of the film to me. And then they also do kind of showcase and illustrate to you how they were able to do all the behind the scenes mechanics with showing the puppets moving around with CGI elements here and there. And it was quite fascinating to me and I kind of understand that's where a majority of the budget went. Me as a black man, you know, growing up in America, of course we know that we deal with racism and discrimination all the time. We deal with it today. We've dealt with it since the very beginning of this country or whatever. And in this film, the puppets are second class citizens and they do deal with, you know, racism, well, not racism, it's not, I mean, you get what I'm trying to say, they're discriminated against. You know, there is a strong prejudice in this movie. And especially in the very beginning of the film, I'm like, wow, is this really, you know, what the whole film is going to be about? And they kind of tailor it out later. But that's just kind of something that I kind of noticed.  But the two things that are, I guess they're just my biggest compliances.  But in this film here, it was just a little bit too much for me to where I was just like, okay, this is just freaking ridiculous. You know, they went overboard. I mean, they actually have a scene in this movie and they may even be in the trailers. I didn't watch all the trailers.  And they mean that's crazy.      But I was curious.    That's crazy. But some of you are after, y'all know what I'm talking about.  Y'all seen a number of those videos of Beastie Addie. And it's like, wow. You're probably never watched it again, but you at least watched it at one point in time, you know, because you was curious, you know what I'm saying?  This in this movie was even more disgusting than that. And it was puppets.  They like over four widescreen.  I'm going like this. I only have two arms. So imagine the octopus with a arm. Just, I was just like, whoa. And this was just like at the very beginning of the film when they were just like a little too much for me. Now there is another scene that's in the trailers to where one of the field, the main puppet here, he's having sex with somebody in his office.  Here I go, here I go, here I go, here I go, here I go.   And when I reacted to it in the trailer, I was laughing in the trailer as I'm laughing now. And the only reason I'm laughing now is because I'm just really thinking about it. But when I reacted to it in the trailer, it was funny, but when I saw it in the theater, I was like, there is just absolutely no context to this at all. There is no reason at all in the story or has to do with Phil, the puppet's character, to why he would need to ejaculate that much. And I just really didn't laugh at that point in the film. I was kind of like, okay, this is just kind of dumb. You know, but I don't know, I mean, because I don't know if just because I'm more mature now or because they just did a bad job of executing in the film because one of the funniest movies to me, guys, is a Team America World Police. Got that right there on DVD. I think this film came out in, I think in like 2004. Oh, Dirkadirkadurka. If you've seen the film, you know what I'm talking about. I haven't watched that film in at least five or six years, I wonder if it'll still hold up.  Or I remember when I was in high school, 14 or 15 years old, scary movie came out. I think it was like 98, 99. And you know the scene to where they're having sex at the end and the guy ejaculates his girlfriend into the, ejaculates Cindy into the ceiling. Who's it, Bobby? Who's is it?  That is literally in the top five best film experiences I've had in my entire life. I was literally on the floor in the theater laughing so hard like at that scene that I just showed you. Now, I mean, that's just how I am. I find things like that funny. Now, I don't know if I would still find that funny today or if I just found it funny 20 years ago because I was a teenager and I'm more mature now, but you know, I think it's really has to do with execution because I'm pretty confident that that material in scary movie or Team America, World Police is still funny to me, but in this film here, it did, there was just no context for the most part too.  I mean, it just, I kind of feel like as it was right in the script, okay, we just want to be nasty to be nasty. And we're just going to put the nasty scenes in here for no matter what. And it did not work for me in this film. And one of the reasons why that was funny and scary movie is he had, even though it was a spoof comedy, in that film he had a reason to why he ejaculated so much. It was over exaggerated, but it was part of his character. It was part of the story. She wasn't giving him sex the whole movie. He was pretty much a virgin. So he had a lot built up. So that was a plot point that actually made sense for him to ejaculate her into the ceiling. There was no plot or anything or character development or anything for him to just to spray down his old office. So that's just why I didn't enjoy it so much. And it's funny because of all the crew things, this film was in development for like over 10 years, and it just wouldn't get approved, but they finally got the financing. So, and really, when they're trying to find out the mystery of who murdered all the puppets and things like that, I was fascinated with the effects of puppets dying and their heads getting blown off and puppet cotton is flying everywhere. I thought that was cool too, especially with the mechanics of them moving the puppets around. But in the end, about 45 minutes into this movie, I just did not care about the story. There was just really no characters that I cared about, that I wanted to see succeed. I didn't care if the mystery was solved or not. And it is solved and that's fine there, but the film is only about an hour and 25 minutes long and I was ready to go. I was just really ready to leave about an hour into it. I'm not saying that the film is horrible. I mean, I did enjoy it, but it's not anything that I can recommend to say that you have to just go wash out and see, but this is something that easily that you can rent or if this was on Netflix or something like that, that would be perfectly fine. If I had to rate the happy time murders out of a one out of 10, I would give it a 6.5 out of 10. Yes, a 6.5 out of 10. I bet you were just still positive.   But guys, that is just my opinion. Have you seen the happy time murders or do you wanna see it? Have I turned you on? Have I turned you off? Do you agree with me or do you disagree with me? Let me know down in the comment section below. Let's get this conversation going and keep it flowing. If you liked this video, go ahead and give me the thumbs up. And if you don't, that's fine, but you can still look me up on social media, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. It's right there at the bottom of the screen and I'm providing links to all that good stuff down in the pinned comments. So if you wanna help me grow, please subscribe to the channel, share the video and also follow me on social media. But guys, I just wanna thank you again for tuning in to my opinion slash review for the happy time murders. And before you go, don't forget, that my name is Brandon Keith Avery and that's just my opinion. Peace.