The Finance Committee meeting will come to order at 7-12. Welcome to the November 1st Finance Committee meeting in the community room of the Amherst Police Station. Since this will be the last meeting of the solely appointed Finance Committee under the Old Town Charter, we wish to thank Amherst media for all the years they have faithfully recorded and played the Finance Committee meetings. Many people have commented that they have watched the meetings and find them informative. So thank you Amherst media and all the staff that have contributed their time to recording us. Under the new charter there will be a subcommittee of the counselors who will make up a Finance Committee and further information on that will be provided when they've been sworn in December 2nd and organized themselves. We wish them the best. So on tonight's agenda we have the budget guidelines and what what we've done is we've drafted a set of guidelines. We will review, comment, edit so that they can be sent out this week to the select board, the manager, the superintendent, school committee, the library trustees, and the library director. So why don't we start then on the first page. You see in red I have vinyl because I wasn't sure if this is the final because we do say along the way that there could be changes so I wouldn't want this to be misinterpreted that it can't be changed but in a sense it's our final. So what do people think? Should we scratch that or leave it in? I think you should leave it in since the projections are projected. Okay. Any disagreement with that? All right good. All right then at the bottom of the page we talked about the revenues and then this is a comment that was added this preliminary estimate of new growth. So you can read that and would you like to incorporate that under the bullets? Yes. That was my suggestion just to make it well that really would be there and if we don't do that longer paragraph that you guys put in later that's just a short little addition to say the same thing so I think if you go with the longer paragraph later would you want it there? Would you say if we went with either one of these longer paragraphs later? So then we can wait on this till we get down. We have gone over these many times. The content is what we agreed upon the last time and there's additional information added that was asked for but nothing has been deleted so this has seen a number of revisions in terms of wording and placement and so forth so it reads well for an incoming well after the the three groups read it then for the counselors. Okay so then under under revenue yes. Second to last bullet the budget again provides a $100,000 I don't think you need the A. Oh okay I didn't see that. My copy has a scripted out A. I didn't take it out. Oh you didn't. I probably you know turned everything from red into black print and that just got missed. Okay so then under revenue Tim had some thoughts his was the first thought in red underneath and then I surmise what he was trying to get at and I then rewarded that so you have a choice the only thing that we haven't updated either is the these new developments and their names so we need to know what those names are. So the one in North Amherst is the North Square at the middle district. What's it called? It's called the North Square at the middle district. Is that the district or is that the building? It's complex. You could just say but it identifies where it is I think so that's good. Yeah the middle district is that area North Square. All right so we'll put that in there. What at University Drive? That's the one that's going up right to the south of the Newark and Square. Oh so what do we have a name for that? Do you know Sonya? That's Barry Roberts development. I think they're just calling University Drive a moment. Okay. So in lieu of that I would suggest Sharon's suggestion regarding maybe we're talking locations University Drive Spring Street maybe we don't need the official name. You could just say the middle district. We could say yeah in the middle district or something like that. Okay. That would be close enough. You could say either the middle district or North Amherst. In the North Amherst middle district or something like that. Oh that's good. Spring Street etc. Okay so now you have a choice between what Tim wrote. Obviously the sentence in black stays but then you have a choice of the second one. If you're past it man make a suggestion. Can you say the finance committee strongly suggests that town management revisits the projection included in this. Where are you? In the first fair. Right after this fair. That's my word. Oh I was just going over for the essay we take strongly out. Can I just comment on that? Sure. That's the normal process with your growth. That is really certified by the Department of Revenue. Once David submits all the construction that's going on and everything. So they will actually give us the final number. We always look at new growth. New growth is being worked on constantly. So it's a process. We always start off with $600,000. That's the 10-year average. We've had some outlier years but... Okay. Then with the second would the edit that I put in be more in keeping with what Sonia just said? Well can I talk? Sure. My draft was just a quick first blush draft because I was bothered by the placekeeper in the budget of the $600,000. Because I thought that A is unrealistic. B I think this is both a financial document and a political document. And we as a finance committee I think should strongly but should inform folks that we feel there should be a reflection of new growth because of positive development. And that was what I was trying to get across. That I did not feel comfortable putting the $600,000 in there. And that we ought to ask management to do something about it. So my first blush was my words. Mary Luz, I could live with it, sort of says the same thing. But I think we needed some kind of a statement. And that was what I said. Is that consistent with what Sonia is saying? Sonia is saying we already look at it anyway. But unless we had one of these two paragraphs we never say that. We just sort of matter of fact say the figure is $600,000. But we don't tell anybody that that is a, well we do say it's a 10 year average. I think we should put in, if it's a budget document we should put in more. Because I think we are going to read more than just the 10 year average this year because of the new development. And that's what I, so that's what I said. And I think Mary Luz sort of said, she said the projection should be revisited and included in the preliminary budget to reflect the positive impact of the actual development process and plan rather than basing the projection on it and start continuing. That basically says the same thing differently than I said. So I could loop that. Can I just make a comment on that? It's not that the projection should be, it's that they will be, right? Isn't that what you're saying? Yes. So maybe that's even more informative to tell people that they will be revisited as we go along. It's not that we're not saying that they should be. We always start off with a trend. I agree with that. So your suggestion in Mary Luz draft, changing the word should to will. That's what I'm hearing. That's what you're saying. Yeah, a lot of these numbers, even on the expense side, other than an increase of two and a half percent with the operating budgets, are just to estimate. And as we start getting more definite numbers from the retirement floor. Yeah, that makes sense. It will be revisited. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. That's fine. That's out of this budget. We update them. Okay, so then it becomes the one I suggested for Janice up at the top. We had three choices basically. Oh. She said this preliminary estimate of new growth may increase during the budget process, but it doesn't say anything about the 100,000. I'm sorry, where are we? At the bottom of one beginning of two. 100,000? It's 600,000. It doesn't mention that. I'm sorry. So that's a shorter version. Yeah, the shorter is better. Because people, you know, the longer it becomes, it becomes harder for people to actually read and retain all the information. I have a suggestion. If we want to go a shorter and we want to put it where Janice has hers, we can just use the same language. This preliminary estimate of new growth will be revisited and included in the blah, blah, blah, blah process. And that pretty much gets to the meat of the matter. That's tight. Okay. Yes. No, I agree. I think what we're trying to say here, though, that there was a significant increase in those revenues, I think part of this is to educate the new council. And some are aware, some have no clue. And that's okay. I'm not, you know, putting that down. I think while I agree with Honorog that for the most part, the shorter the better as people read it. I do think that the question, at least at some of the forums and candidates nights, were around finances. And I think people need to be informed. I think some of these councils will take this very seriously and read all six pages and the attachments. So that's where I'm coming from. So I would agree with that. I would suggest scratching the wording in the boards and going with your paragraph. Because otherwise there could be- Where it is under revenue. That's what I think. That's what I would propose. Others feel differently. I'm okay either way. Fine. This is good. You mind, Jasper? Okay. All right. We'll leave it where it is then, which follows you up. So we're getting rid of Tim's. We're going with yours and we're putting will. Yeah. And this is all going to be under revenue. Okay. And then at the last meeting, we talked about trying to differentiate ceilings and overrides and tax rates. And so we included this note about proposition two and a half. Because again, it's interesting how many people really don't understand it. Can I go back to page two? Sure. So we're keeping yours. Yes. So in the first line, total revenue budget, could you say what that means? Where is that? The largest revenue source is the property tax representing the percent of the total budget. Right. Or operating budget. Right. Not revenue budget. Is it revenue or operating budget? It could be. They have to be balanced. I don't know what revenue budget means. So do you think operating would be better? I would just take out. I would just say total budget. Yeah. Total budget. Okay. Scratch revenue. Thank you. We don't want to confuse people. Anything you see is confusing. Well, please bring that out. I'm thinking about it. Okay. It is 65 because it is revenue because tax is a revenue source. It is revenue. Yeah. So it's not operating budget. Don't use revenue and budget at the same time. One or the other. Yeah. Don't use budget. How about saying the largest revenue source, parentheses, 65 percent is the property tax period. Okay. Would that do it? It already says the largest revenue source is property tax. It's already saying revenue. The beginning of that? Yeah. The largest revenue source is 65 percent of the total budget. That's fine. Of the total budget. That's fine. Because revenue is already in there. Okay. Yeah. All right. So we get rid of revenue. We can do it twice. I don't know why. Seven. Double L. Well, but if it sounds confusing, we want to get rid of it. That's fine. I think the less confusing, the better. So we're going to take out revenue. Yes, we are. I think I'm becoming more and more confused about revenue. Okay. So let me just clarify. Is 65 percent of the operating budget, or is it 65 percent of the total budget? Because the total budget is more than the operating budget. Or is it 65 percent of the property tax? You know those pies and the indicator reports? The pies. The revenue pie and the expenditure pie. Yeah. And the revenue pie tax levy is 65 percent of that revenue. Yeah. But the revenue pie equals expenditure pie. Right? They have a balance. The budget equals, it's a level budget. But there's the revenue side and the expense side. So if you're doing percentages of revenue. It's the same as percent of expenses. No, because school, the town, school are each about 30 percent of the budget. And region is about 20 percent. The rest are all 20 percent. So you're talking about two different, totally different things. Two totally different pies. It amounts to the same, but they're cut up differently. Okay. Onto prop two and a half. So this we put in here. And I had David Burgess look at that. And that was okay. That's what it means. So then we get down to in 2010 where I compare the tax rate of 2010 to 2018. In eight years it shows the increase over an eight year period. And then we talk about it does fluctuate over time, but overall it steadily increases. So in this morning's paper, there was an article and the select board just approved of the tax rate. And it said the projected tax rate for 2019 is $21.80. And then they also point out that the commercial property is 11 percent of the taxable property in town. And 30 percent of the town's total of valuation is tax exempt. Now I put that in there. You may want to word it a little differently, but I think it's important information. People asked. Should we put anything in there as to why that increases occurred? No, we don't know why. We don't know why. We don't know why the tax rate has gone from 24 percent in the last eight years.  Inflation. There are other reasons too. If people read that, would they be interested in just another sense that says why that's occurred? Yeah, there's many factors that can affect the tax rate. It would be very broad. I was told that once they get this, that they do meet. And I think David Burgess would be one of the first people to speak with them. I thought when he came and spoke with us, it was really very informative. So I think he could explain more of this. He's the Irish guy, Scotch guy. Yeah, he's cool. Irish. Okay, so would, I mean, is this okay the way it's written? Or you could say further instead of in addition. For example, the projected rate for 2019 is 2180. Further commercial property owners are instead of in addition. The only comment I would make is for the residents, I think saying residential property owners represent 90% of the tax rather than saying the commercial property is 11%. And that's the same way of saying the same thing. But I think it makes more growth. I don't know. We can put both in. Or you could put both in. But I think people want, you know, we talk about expanding the tax rate or getting more taxes. Right. Oh, I understand. We need to do commercial. Well, here we see it's 11. But maybe we could, we will never go above 11. I'm not sure. I mean, I thought a big point is just a different way of saying the same thing. Well, it kind of says that the residents are heavily responsible for the taxes. That's what it's saying. But that's saying more than the way this is said. So that's what suggested to put that around. So what this basically says, the mail to your point that you mentioned in the recent email is 21.8. So the numerator is property taxes and denominator is valuation. Essentially, that's what it is. So our property taxes are rising at a faster rate than the valuations in town are at. So the valuations, if we ran into a deep recession and the valuations fell, we will not be able to cut our expenses that quickly. So your property tax rate might actually go closer to 25. So it's really, it's really loud. It's driven a lot normally by the expenses, but also the valuations are. Right.  So I don't know how you explain that in this one sentence. You're wrong. I think we leave David Burgess to explain. That's a good point. I would second that. See David Burgess. I would say, I would put your comment about in addition, how about like note or something like that? How about further? Further. That's fine. Do we need to say for example or could we just say that? No, we can get rid of for example. I just, this was one of those quick things I put together this morning. Okay. So the projected rate for 2019. All right. Just as a curiosity, my understanding that 30% of the town's total valuations tax is exempt. That does not include the properties that the town is like in the only spaces it does. Includes that in? I don't think so. I think if you include that, it's more like 40% or not able to be taxed. What do you think so? Do you know? I don't know. David Burgess. That's interesting because we also have. It's a big number. Well conservation. I think 30 is too long. Okay. So when we get that number, how would you word it? We'll plug it in. Whatever the right number is, total is not taxed. That is non-taxable or something. Whatever the right phrase might be. Well, we need to know if the 30% includes conservation land. Well, I would assume that the tax exempt would also be the religious. Right. It would be the religious, the UMass, Amherst College, all that stuff, tax exempt. But in addition, we've set aside town loan properties. A lot. A lot. And the more we preserve open space, the more or less we have an ability to tax. I mean, that's a whole other issue. Or built. Or built. So I think we need to be careful what we say about number. That is what I have in question. This is what I gleaned from the paper. Right. There was no explanation as to how much was taxed. At one point, I did have the acreage that was held by the town and conservation. It's a sizable amount. So this makes a difference if it's just town on land or if it's all on other exempt land. Maybe wrong, but I think that's true. I think I've heard like 40%. A town on land. A town on land. Not a town on land. A town on land. A town on land. Total. Total. Total. Total. That includes town on land. So we're. You're phone different. Phone different. Okay. So let's leave a question mark there to see what information we get then. Okay. So these are the next. Oh, before you go, the other paragraph has to have the same wording as that total revenue budget that we just built in the first one. So we say the second large source of revenue is 20% of the total revenue. We should say total budget. Right. So now these, there were no further edits, but take a look at those. This is where you got the only from. Oh, only for FY 20. Right. And that's me. I'm restricted general government. That's the only thing we increased 2.5% in our projection. But. And they had only for FY 20. So in other words, you're not seeing that go forward. He said he didn't read the article. What? He said he didn't read that article. He wasn't coming from there. Worded. David Burgess in the land. I can, I can tell you, I think it's. So roughly 15.7% of those spaces institutionally. 42% partially or permanently protected land. So right there, that tells us that that 30% isn't accurate. Well, this has 30% of total valuation. That's a different thing. Yeah, you're right. I think that's by accurate then. So. Because here, because remember that. That land that isn't built on is taxed at a lower rate. So it may well be that somebody gave those figures at the select board meeting, but I'm not sure. So most of the remaining land is residential. About 25%. Wow. So your numbers come up to more like 60%, right? Well, but. It's valuation. Not valuation, but acreage. Acreage, yeah. So it's the valuation. Yeah. I'm not sure we need to get into all that. Yeah, I know. I think, well, let's ask if that's accurate. So what is here is all of the land owned by the town, the university and the other institutions and the religious organizations. If that is 30% is correct in terms of the valuation. Okay. I mean, it's not. It just shows that. Okay. I'm just curious. So we don't have an easy answer. Okay. All right. So then the next paragraph. What's your comment about only in there? This is not my wording. Okay. Your wording there. No, you left only in it. I put only in there because if you look at the projections in here, we conservatively increased data. The only portion that we increased was the agai at 2.5%. So basically I'm only saying we only increased the agai line. Right. Okay. So that's why that sentence is here. Right. Remember, we took a lot of this from previous. I do know what you're saying. I think only for FY20 means not for any other year. That's right. That's what it means. I would just take out FY20 because I think that's confusing. Not only for FY20, we raise it. We don't do this only for FY20. So take it out. I would take out. I would leave it only. I've got only. I just get rid of FY20. So put a period after only. That's your suggestion. Yes. I would kill. Thank you. That's the period after only and cross out FY20. How do you define your definition of the answer? Right. Check them out. Check them out. Check them out. Check them out. Check them out. Check them out. The only and cross out FY20. How do you define your definition of the answer? Right. Check them out. Make sure. Name the phrase. I think here. Only. I've got only. And we're taking out for FY20. Okay. We're all set on that. We're taking that out for FY20. Yes. Just for FY20. Okay. Wow. Okay. Or you could say the second-large service. What's more accurate is second-large service. 20% of the total. But, you know, the other way to make it less wordy, the second-large source of revenue, then if you put parentheses 20% and parentheses as state A, period, then you could say it is conservatively projected at no increase except for 2.5% for Aga. I think that's more wordy. Yeah. I think it's pretty simple as written, but we're taking out for FY20. But I like your part about the no, there is as no increase projected as no increase. Which is conservatively projected at no increase except for 2.5% for Aga. Except. I would say. Or. And increase for, okay. Does that make sense? Yes. It does. That's a little more accurate. Right. Correct. Yeah. Okay. So it is 20% of the total budget which is conservatively projected at no increase except for an increase of 2.5% for unrestricted A only. Okay. Because everything in here should reflect the predictions that were handed out. Right. Okay. Are we okay with that? Any other place? On page three, anything else? We did include UMass, Amherst and Hampshire. We did get those figures in terms of their contribution. People ask that now they know anything else. All right. On to page four. We updated the free catch numbers. The rest is pretty much from previous years with updated numbers and requests. So can I just clarify at the bottom of page four? Okay. OPEB, bottom of the first paragraph. Beginning in the year FY15. Funds have been included in the operating budget. That's a little bit confusing. Which funds? OPEB funds. You mean the allocations or? I'm not sure you. Oh, I see. How about funding has? Does that say the same thing? I mean, I don't know. Right. That makes more sense. You mean $500,000? That's always been the operating budget. Right. Which funds have been? I don't understand that. Starting in FY15, funding has been included in the operating budget. It should be funding. We started in FY15, I believe. Yeah. So I think that's what's kind of confusing about it. It kind of just certainly shows up. This annual contributions to the OPEB fund have been included in the operating budget since 2015. This annual, I'm sorry, this annual funding? This annual funding amount. This annual funding. Or appropriation. This annual appropriation? This annual appropriation. No, we're talking, that's what it's under. This annual appropriation for OPEB have been included in the annual operating budget since FY15. Prior to that, how did we allocate? And I would not put, you know, OPEB is not really debt. Debt is usually interest paying obligations. OPEB doesn't have interest paying obligations. So I would not equate OPEB with debt. So you take as a town recognizer. I would just take that sentence out. That sentence out, okay. Everyone agree? Sure. Yes. Well, the only thing is, do you want to say that we recognize as the obligation to do that so that they? It's a discretionary, it's a town's choice to do that. We don't really have to do it. Right. But I think, let's think about this. One of the things that I've heard, you know, at town meeting, I think we've all heard is, well, we could spend that money for other things, just as they speak about reserves. And I guess this committee is hoping that they will continue this to bring that debt down and to begin to accumulate that money. So would something make sense to be left in there or a sentence that basically sends that so that they don't think, well, I mean, that's 500,000. That can go through a lot of things, like roads. I don't know. Yeah, so what is the reason we're doing this? I think the reason we're talking about the debt and the reason I would have something in there that the town should assume the responsibility of continuing this, because we owe that. Okay, so here's my thought on that. First of all, it's not debt. I would not call it debt. We call it obligation or whatever you want to call it. Second of all, we are doing this, we are doing this out of choice, not by law. We are not required to do this by law. In the town council, can we encourage to do that, because they may have their own thinking about it, and they may decide to stop funding the OPED altogether. It's also good for our bond rating. Sure. But bond rating, I don't think if we allocated 400,000 versus 500,000, bond rating is going to be affected by it. If you don't allocate anything, I think it would be. It doesn't have to be $500,000. So that's an arbitrary number. We are just doing it because we want to do it. We have to make a choice as a finance committee in the town that we're going to keep ramping it up from 100 to 200 to 300 to 500. But that's by choice. And the town council may make a different choice altogether. It was part of the funding plan that Mr. Buller left in place. Sure. Where any Medicare Part D money would be reallocated into the OPED fund and that we would start off with 100,000 a year allocating, and every year we raise it 100,000. And his funding plan was intended to go up 100,000 every year, even past the 500. But we have a lot of large capital projects that everybody wants to start working on. So the town manager wants to keep it at 500 for a while. Once the retirement is paid off or our retirement obligation is paid off, which is 33 or 35, I'm not sure, a white year, then we would reallocate that money towards the OPED. I'm not disputing any of that. I understand and agree with all of that. All I'm saying is after this meeting, December 2, the town council takes over, they will have their own thinking. Right? And they may not choose to do that anymore. So if we want to leave them some kind of message that it has a rationale for appropriating money for OPED, then at least they will know the rationale, but they will still do whatever they want to do. So you wouldn't want anything in there, even something like the town recognizes... Assume responsibility. ...recognizes this responsibility for something, and allocates funds for it. You don't have to say the number. It could be $2. We said it in the first sentence. No, I know, but this last sentence doesn't have to say that. We just say allocate funds for it. That could be any of them. Are you on Iraq's saying they may decide one year that 100,000 is sufficient. They want to put 400,000 into roads. You know, and that should be their choice. But I think what we just like to say, the town has assumed this responsibility. Yeah, the town had assumed this. The town has been appropriating these money on the premise that contributions to the OPEB are financially prudent. Okay, the town has been appropriating this... The town has chosen to appropriate... On this premise. The town has chosen to appropriate monies for contributions to OPEB on the premise that doing so is financially prudent. When you say the town, what entity, or who in particular? All of us. All of us in this room? All of us. The whole town? Yeah. The officials of the town. You're talking about the officials of the town. Yeah, that's what I mean. They are making most of the financial decisions. The town meeting is kind of going along with it. Every time the town meeting was said, yes, fine, do it, right? So that's the town. So who was recommending this? Who was recommending this? Poole. Poole had a plan in place, and as Sonia just explained, and we accepted, the finance committee accepted that, and we put that forward to the town meeting, and the town meeting accepted that. So what you're saying, the point you're trying to make is that Poole or whoever they replace as the finance director is not going to be making that decision. It's going to be the new town council. Is that what you're saying? On a recommendation from a new finance director. Which is, so is that, that's different than what it was before. The financial director said, it wasn't a recommendation. The financial director said, this is right. So that's my, I understand what you're saying, but what you're getting at seems to be pointing that there's a control change. Is that what you're saying? And if there's not a control change, then it doesn't make any sense to say anything different. Because there's still going to have a finance committee, and it's still going to be this like, it's like if everybody on this finance committee got replaced, if there was still town meeting, and everybody on this finance committee got replaced by a different group of finance committee people, would you still be saying the same thing? Janice. But this is part of the budget. So it becomes, it's the manager's budget to start. That's what it is. It's not like, it's the, it's part of the budget, and it started out being suggested by the finance director, but then people thought it was a good idea. Because the town meeting could have said, no, don't do that. Right. But they didn't do it. They didn't say that. So here's the sentence. Yeah. Okay. Here's the sentence from Don Rock. I tried to get it so it works. The town has been appropriating funding for OPEV on the premise that doing so is financially prudent. That's it. And it means a lot of different things. Right. But it's kind of covered a lot of bases, and people can then dig into it if they want to. Right. They can do the amount we've been doing. They can do less. Tim. I was just, as you were talking, I was just rewording things. We sort of say that in the first sentence. And here's the suggestion. We could say something like, based on prudent fiscal management, the finance committee once again recommends an allocation of $500,000, a little bit of trust fund, and FY20 budget barrier, or something like that. I think that sort of says it right off the bat based on his data. I don't know. That's one fund. Sure. Many of this is going to happen. Okay. Where do we want it? Because I'm going to have to work this up. Well, my suggestion is, let's start at the bottom, where it says, town is allocated 4.9 million to OPEV. I put a period then, and scratch the sentence beginning with beginning. But then, start the paragraph with, based on prudent fiscal management, the finance committee once again recommends an allocation of $500,000, a little bit of trust fund, and FY20 budget. But that gets away from what he's saying. It does. I think it's... Is that what you're saying, Honorary? It's close. It's providing... It's saying the finance committee is more efficient, and you are saying fiscal prudence, right off the bat. With $500,000 though. And you're saying they may not want to do that. But that's our record. They may not want to have a guideline of 2.5. Right. Yeah, they might not want to do any of this. Right. And if you're elected, what do you think? What do you think? We'll talk about the record. Okay, based... So I would say, based on prudent fiscal management, the finance committee, now you could either say once again, let me put that in, we can debate it. Once again, it recommends an allocation of $500,000 to the open trust fund and the FY20 budget. The reason I would use once again is it tells people that this isn't the first year of doing it. So then I could just use the rest of that sentence. Yeah. Okay, so now that's fine. So when we get to the... Because I've written it out here and can have followed what you're saying. So then we get to the last sentence here, which beginning in... See, that's kind of repetitive to what the first sentence is. Except that we began funding this. Where would we put that? That's just information. Yeah. Beginning in... Maybe that's it. Ended with a period after budget. Beginning in... Have been appropriated in the operating budget. Funding has been included in the operating budget. Makes sense. Inception in FY15, the tenors allocated $4.99. There you go. I would put a period after that. Where are you? See the sentence saying beginning in FY15? I don't know how crucial saying beginning in FY15 is. Right. We just want to say that's when it began. So where do you want to put that? I don't. I want to scratch that whole last sentence. That's fine with me, but I think we need to tell them when we began this. That's a while. Well, Sonya mentioned it's inception FY15. Can you say it's its inception in FY15? The tenors allocated $4.99. $4.99 on the bottom. Is that what you just said? Yes, Sonya said that. You can rewind the tapes. Great. Oh, it says this inception in FY15. Okay, that's great. The tenors allocated $4.99. Great. All right. Good thought. Good. Okay. Anything else under OPEV? No, but I hate to do this, but can we go back up to the top of the page? Sure. Top of page four? Yeah. It's part of previous pages says however other financing sources will decrease including evidence receipts. Other financing sources can sometimes be free cash, civilization, fund, overlay. All we really wanted to highlight here is that new list receipts have gone down. We lost about $450,000 in the revenue when had they signed an independent contract. Right. And that is, they paid us $140,000 a year for the town of B and then about $300,000 came from user fees. So, we don't really want to say $450,000 in here because if we're looking at the projection it's only about a $335,000 decrease because we also, you know, there's more growth if fees go up or we also are using Comstar now to do collections and the theory is that's going to bring in more revenue. We don't have enough trend yet for me to even get into that yet. So we didn't reduce the ambulance by the full $450,000. We only reduced it in the projection by $330,000. Yes, approximately $450,000 of revenue was lost but we didn't reduce the rejection by $430,000. I hear what you're saying but you are losing $450,000 from that even though the other things will be less. But that's not what this project decreased by. I don't know why. What's the difference? Why did you choose the $330,000 or $450,000? Because we're looking at trend as the ambulance runs increased. We take out the handling and we're still up a little. Oh, I thought $450,000 was an actual contract with Hadley. She said the contract was $140,000. $140,000. $300,000 was the user. What was the user? About $300,000 in Ryder fees. Okay. And you're suggesting, okay. And that's what she makes, obviously. And you're also saying that you're using a different service to billing bills. Yes, billing is going is a third party billing company. Which have an effective March 1st, I think. March 1st. But it's a cost to use a billing company, isn't it? It is, but it's supposed to be a lower cost and having a full-time employee with benefits. So, how about just saying including amperage receipts of over $300,000 due to the top hat would that say? Yep. Then you know, and if you want to get more specific you can go and read the ambulance receipts and just avoid the 450 number. That's still big numbers. That number is out there. It's in the financial indicators that we lost 450. We're not trying to hide 450. I'm just saying you need to put you're going to put a number in here. You need to put 335 because that is the difference in the rejection. I hear that. So, in other words though we want to say however other funding sources will decrease by how much that's overall. Other funding sources will decrease by how much? 335. 335,000. And then we say including ambulance receipts get rid of by approximately 450. It just says including those. I would say due to. And then due to the top hat. Due to the ambulance receipts declining. Declining ambulance receipts. Due to. You're also not getting the contract money for penalties. Is that part of this? That's an addition. We're talking two things here. We're talking about revenue that comes into the ambulance fund that we then take from the ambulance fund as a funding source for the operating budget. So, less money is going into the ambulance fund so we're taking less money for the operating budget. But we're not hitting the difference between this year's operating budget ambulance fees and for 20 that we're projecting is only 335. It's not the whole $450,000. So, where does that $120,000 from the contract cost? It used to go into the ambulance fund and then we would appropriate from the ambulance fund as another financing source to support the public safety budget. So, that's another $140,000 that we're not getting. But this is all about the projections. This is all about the projections and if you look at the projections of how much ambulance funds were used last year and how much we're using this year, the difference is 335. Somebody like I won't mention her name in the room would look at that number and say how come it doesn't match what's on it and then they have to end the verse. So, I'm saying about $335,000. Yeah, I don't know what you're saying. Ambulance receipts due to what? Due to the town of Hadley establishing its own paramedic service, is that okay? Or due to, what did you say, receipts and something? Declining. Due to? Declining ambulance receipts. Declining receipts. And not the contract? That is the contract and the ridership. That's all receipts. All receipts, okay. Due to the plenty ambulance receipts as Hadley has established its own paramedic service? I just want my number coming up. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's fine. That does it. Just say that that's one of them, but it isn't all of them. Okay? All right. Anything else on that? I will send this out to everybody again so you can look at the changes in wording and make sure it's correct. Are we going to have another meeting? No. By email. We could have another meeting, but I said this was our final meeting, everybody. So, okay. So then we're on to reserve funds and Sonia filled in those numbers, so we should be correct with that. Information we've think we read that the last time we were here for comment there. And none of that was changed since our last meeting. The only thing was the schedule and where I have C attached town of Amherst, FY 2020 draft budget development calendar. That's what the council will be working with. Do you want FY 2020 or just FY 2020? Can I? Are we moving on? Well, I moved along because we did this the last time. Page five? Sure. The request budget information, there's a question in there at the very last part. Oh. In the parentheses. Oh, that's a mistake. It's a weird one. No, where? In the parentheses. Oh, no, it's EG up above with... I know, but there's parentheses in front of that. Where? In front of the EG. Yes, that's where it's supposed to be. And it goes all the way to the end. It goes all the way to the end. Those are examples. We don't need that. We don't need parentheses there. And the last one is a question. How does that affect current budgetary needs? Question. But it could be a period. I'm not wedded to either. So... We're trying to give them examples of what? So it seemed to me that the parentheses were appropriate there. To separate it out. Maybe not. I'm willing to go either way. I would take out the parentheses. Okay. You want to get rid of it? Kind of weird. Okay. I will get rid of it. I just wanted to separate it out so they could see the examples. You can certainly... If you make the less, it's not a question. Just make a period? Okay. That's fine. I should tell you when I was at Illinois they sent high school essays out to ten English faculty. And the results came back. They ranged from A to Fs depending on who read it. So I kind of feel like that here with periods, commas, parentheses, italics. Well, you're going to be precise, that's all. Well, but there's a little difference of opinion about precise. But this is very good because we do want people to understand it, to read it, and as you say, to be correct. Okay. And then our conclusion is I did ask the manager. He gave us the answer, but I am going to stick with how we've done this in the past. I'd ask about the council and he thought we should see the select board and the council. These letters have always gone to the select board, the school community, Jones trustees, with the manager, superintendent, and library directors after those. But I do agree that the council should be CC'd at the end of our document. So everybody gets it. Yeah. And we read up front to the Future Town Council rather than CC'd. Because... No. They're not on till... They're not sworn in until December 2nd. But part of our tent is... Okay. Technical, I suppose, I think, goes to the select board. Will that be passed on to the town council? Well, that sounds good. We're going to make a list of things we like in the packet to the council today. But by the time they get this, the manager will be well on his way to establishing and the select board. They're in place till December 2nd, right? Right. So they are going to give the guidelines. So the manager can put his budget together. So that's the kind of... We're caught between this, in this time frame. So is everybody okay, or is there more comments to be made? We're good. So the comments is one on this, that this side of the community is going to think in a better way. Are you on the... Page 8. Okay. We can do that. Go ahead. So the FY20 projected at the very bottom. So we've got a 2.789 increase from last year. We're meeting the budget. Is that it again? It's right in the bottom. Total budget plan. Total budget plan. So it's 2 million. It's up 2.789 million from last year. So maybe just under the total budget plan, say a year where you change. Yeah. Look at those shortfalls as we move forward. Remember, these are really... These are the beginning preliminary estimates. This is historically... We've all started off with a 600,000 year growth. Very conservative in all our estimates until we start getting some more concrete numbers and expenditures and revenues. So everything is estimated at 600 new growth. Okay. If we get more new growth, then tax levy will actually be higher. And these will come down. And these will come down. Oh. But the total budget plan is going down. Is that because the debt is going down? Debt's going down. The total budget plan is going down. If you look above the red, the budget is going down. That's the year-to-year increase is going down. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. So the budget is going up. Okay. This budget says we're going to generate 2.1% increase in revenues and 3.5% in expenses. They're ergo, the million-dollar deficit. That's what it says right now. Yeah. Any other comments on any of this? Okay. Then the question I also have is welcoming the new council items that we would suggest go in packet to them. I suggested when we did the Orange Finance Committee report that we set aside 13 of those for the new council. A copy of the Joint Capital Planning Committee's report has a lot of information in terms of their projection. Now, I fully understand that they can ignore all of this. It's not a problem. But I think a little history is helpful. As they come on. So those were two things. We put that budget calendar together. We did something else. Anything else you think would be nice in a packet with welcome award? Do we have our financial policies in the document? Oh, okay. Yes, we have those. All of this is online. Okay. But I think our copy would be nice. We'll look at that. What else did we have? Oh, I thought the other thing that would be helpful, although the cost figure, the costs have changed. But we did the four documents for school, fire, DPW, and library. And we just talk about, we gave the history of them with when they were built and their ADA compliance and a number of other things. And in the library when we did the renovation. So I think even though the cost of them will certainly not be the same, but that background information I think would be helpful if those four documents went out. And we might need a cover sheet to explain some of that. Okay. We can work on that. We have those December 2nd. We can do this by email to each other. So that would be one, what's the other one? Oh, and our final statement to town meeting which we read but didn't print. So, and we can send those around. You can look at them. What else do you think would be helpful? A nice letter. Welcome aboard. It would be fun. And anything else you think that would be helpful in the document? Or in the packet? Okay, if I do, I'll let you know. What? I wasn't even going to go there, but I was going to say some balloons or something. Yeah. Welcome aboard. The other thing I'm hoping, I don't think they're required to have Amherst Media film their finance committee meetings. No transparency. But I think I would make a very strong recommendation that be done. Are they going to have a separate clerk? For what? To take minutes, you mean? Do I read that somewhere? You have to talk to the town manager. I think one of the things, one of the issues that I would see with having equipment, because I've thought in the past since I've been on the plane, that would be a great thing to have. But unless you have one person who's committed to staying, their eyes will blast over. Because if you don't understand what we're doing, it's hard to write minutes. Would you agree? I think the charter calls for a clerk. Oh. Yeah, that's what I thought. I think so. Calls for a clerk. Yeah. But not necessarily in the finance committee subcommittee. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was. But don't you think it's hard for people to come in and take minutes on some of this stuff that's really technical and to write it up? I mean, it took me, you know, the first year to get used to the jargon and how to write minutes and so forth. And I think unless you have one person that's assigned all the time, you just, I'm not sure how the minutes will go out. See, I don't know how other committees like the planning board, or the planning committee, how those committees record minutes. Do they circulate around like us? They rotate based on, I don't know. I'm not sure we need to make a recommendation. No, no. But I'm thinking, I just wonder how that will be done. Okay. Do you think it would be nice to have a finance committee when you have televised? Yes. Well, that's probably an overmeading requirement. They're not going to have a... They're not televised. If they don't have a quorum... Oh, not televised. No. If they don't have a quorum, they don't have to do that. Unless a subcommittee, you have a quorum of the subcommittee. Yeah, we'd have to check on. Okay. So that's where that is. Any... Are we through with this? Are we through with the guidelines? And I will make the changes and get them out to everyone. All right. Any final committee reports, liaison reports? Joe, got anything for us? Have you gone to a... Hold on. Hold on.  No. There has been no DPW meeting. Okay. But the DPW... What I just know that is a concern about where we're going to put this new DPW. They're still looking, right? Yeah, they're still looking. So I'm just going to put down Joe James and nothing. Yeah. So can we talk... Can we talk about my minutes? Yes.  Yes. I owe you three minutes. I got nothing for you right now. But can I just tell you my excuses? Your excuses? Well, I don't know if we'll accept them, but... I know. No, no, no, they're not good. So the minutes that I owe you, one of them is from May, a meeting we had in May. Okay. So... I know. Sorry about this. I told you before, that my computer... So my computer... You need a camera. Yeah. So my computer did get a bug. It got wiped out. So it was my work computer and it totally got wiped out. And it was... This happened in June. So all of that... Is that the set? No. Hold on. No, no, no. Hold on. No, no, we have. So hold on. Hold on. So these May minutes, right? So I would try to work in the minutes. But Amherst Media, right, they usually post the... So in other words, I got nothing to go on and wiped off my computer. But so you go to Amherst Media, their website, and you can find the meeting. But they do not have that May meeting posted there yet. So I have to contact Amherst Media and find out where, why hasn't it been posted on their website. So once I see that, then I could do that set. It may not have been filmed. Yeah, I think that... No, no, it was filmed. Yeah, it was there. I remember that. Yeah, it was filmed. No, this was not before. This was after town meeting. I mean... This was a meeting we had, I think, in June. Well, there was one that was not filmed. Yeah, it was. Because they didn't have anyone to do it. No, because the other two were filmed. The one in the art room, which I owe you, which I'm almost done with. And then the other little one where we huddled together out in front of town meeting, that little brief one. Okay. I have those notes too and I'm almost done with that one. But there's another meeting that we went to in town hall and it's not on Amherst Media. It was not filmed. Well, there was... There was one that was not filmed. There was one that was not filmed. Because... Well, let me at least call Amherst Media and find out. Okay, it may not have been filmed. Well, in that case, I'm kind of screwed because that was wiped off when all my notes were completely deleted and destroyed. Okay, we might be able to find something if we can remember what I'll have to look on the agenda. Yeah. Because it can be very... It was, I think, a very brief meeting. But... Well, it was longer than the other two. Okay. April 30th, May 16th. I think it was May 16th. July 6th. Or it might have been... It might have been the July meeting. Okay. Okay. Sorry about your computer. So... That was really well... I know. If you use pencil and pencil, you don't have a problem. I was... I swear to God... And not only that, all the work stuff got wiped out of the Tarsha. Oh, okay. They had to clean... They had to wipe my whole computer. The Russians want to steal the pencil. Well, I've learned my lesson. I should have just done it. I should have just done it on my phone. I should have just done it. I should have just done it on my computer. I should have just done it on my phone. I should have stopped with the phone. I should have stopped with the phone. I should have stopped with the phone. I should have stopped with the phone. I should have stopped with the phone. Okay. And on a rug, you have an update for us. Oh, my God. I do. You... On the finance director, you're on that committee. Oh, Sonia knows that too. Oh, yeah. How's that circle? I'm a liaison.  Yes. Have you found something? Well, although I was not appointed to the liaison, but... Yeah. You were appointed. You were on this committee. Yeah. That's right. I think it was... We had all together four... You know, Deb was running the meeting. Deb ran away. And... We... In the end, ended up inviting four... people in for interviews. And... Were there five, really? Yeah. And... There was some discussion about that. All of those candidates have strengthened weaknesses. And nobody, though, could really stand up to standing. Standing. That's right. So I think... So it was not... It was... So there was some discussion about what to do, what to do. And then it became evident that the finance department also needed some help with the treasury function. So the idea was, initially the thought was that the finance director would do the, you know, the outward facing interacting with the, you know, public and council and stuff like that. And that role of providing overall guidance to the finance department and the finances of the town, but also they helped out with the treasury function. And so the hope was that there would be somebody who could do both. And the candidates that came in, the general feeling was pretty unanimous that none of the candidates who came in would probably be able to do both. And so then the question became, okay, how do you move forward? And of the two roles, they're both important roles. The one which is really urgent, though, is the treasury function. Because the department had to be, for the department to be whole and functioned as a well-oiled machine as it is right now. They need the treasury function there. So the last I heard, I think Paul just mentioned that to me in a sidebar after the budget meeting was that there was some, there appears to be leaning towards just taking care of the treasury function first and then see what happens after that. No, Tony, did that correct you or am I missing something? I think it's a work in progress. I think they're still trying to figure out exactly what they're going to do. And I think they are looking for options for treasury. So there's going to be two positions. What would you position to find is the treasury function? Well, the money. Yeah, borrowing, debt statements. All that kind of accounting and auditing function but the more kind of money flows. Where we invest too, right? I mean, she was good at investing and how you can shift from banks and CDs and all of that. Yeah, that's a big draw. Right. There has to be separation of duties with that. I could help out to some degree. There's too much. There's a lot going on. So work in progress. Okay. So are there going to be two positions created? We don't know. We don't know. I think we're still looking for that perfect position. To walk in our door and say I want to work for you and I can do this. And I think the finance director position is a leadership position. He works very closely with the town manager because the town manager has the overall security sense of the town and the finance director basically just makes that possible for the numbers. So it's a really important position. So I think my personal sense is take your time because... Open the search. I don't know if they're going to reopen the search or not. I don't know what's going on about that. I'm not privy to that. So that's not... And Bernie has been working on some kind of bylaws from the old charter to the new. Do you know anything about that? Any updates? I know they're very frequently across the hall from my office. They've just gone through every bylaw one by one and writing them up to be city bylaws. But that's pretty much all I know about it. I hear they're doing a great job from Hall. Well, Bernie is an administrator, so... He's Jeff Kravitz and then Barbara Jean. Barbara Jean. Oh, okay. So that's a good team. I'm trying to generalize this one. I have no idea. He was a town attorney. He was a town lawyer at one time. What's up? Any other news from any other group? Okay, so we're going to close soon. So I'm going to say in closing... We can use Tim's minutes. What's that? Oh, we have minutes? There were minutes that I submitted back in. September 27th. Oh, okay. We have an official meeting. I'm going to approve it. Okay. All in favor of Tim's minutes of September...  I got a little idea. I'm not lost. All right. Six. Everybody with one absent. Any other minutes? Anything outstanding? I think it's time for me to close in. Yeah. I'll move the rest of the minutes. Sorry to interrupt. What was the dates of your minutes? September 27th. All right. I think what we will do with the rest of the minutes is when you get them ready to submit them, we will put draft across the front of them, and we will submit them to the website. Because if we had another meeting, then we'd have to approve the minutes of that meeting, and we could be on a long time. So I think that's going to be the easiest way. We could submit the new finance committee. No. Right. And when they go to vote, there will be no one there unless you get elected. So, okay. So in closing, we're going to say good night and goodbye. And we're going to go around the table and you can say good night and goodbye. Do I start? Sure. Well, I have to say this has been a real pleasure to serve the town in this capacity. I really enjoy not so much the work, but I really enjoyed getting to know the people in the town hall and getting to know my colleagues on the finance committee, wonderful people, I have to say. Thank you. Joe Jane, yes, and I second that motion. This has been a fantastic experience for myself and I hope to stay very involved in the town in some way, shape, or form. And this is just a fantastic group of people and I'm so glad that I know them and the other folks that I've met through my time on the finance committee that work in town hall. It's actually fantastic and my taxes keep going up and I love this town and I'm going to keep paying those taxes and my parking tickets too. God bless Amherst, Massachusetts, I love this place. I have to say, he's going to pay my parking tickets too. I'm going to pay his too. Thank you Amherst Media too. Thank you Amherst Media. Thank you Amherst Media. I'll just say that in the beginning so I don't forget. I feel as though I have only got to serve a year on this committee but it's been really eye opening and you're right, it's been a lot of work. I've actually enjoyed that. Sorry Amherst. Maybe if I had been on here as long as you I would have a difference. Seven and a half years. Seven and a half years. And I also look forward to keeping my finger on the town, the pulse of the town. Thank you. I'm done. Unless I think of something else. Which is going to happen. I'm Janice Ratner and this is actually my second stint on the finance committee and I always felt it was an honor to be on this committee and working with a lot of very good people who are very interested in do their homework and we learn an awful lot about the town and how it works and what's really in the budget and it's been really, really good and I've had a lot of very positive comments from people I run into and I appreciate them and thank you Amherst Media as well as they. Yeah, Tim Neil. I'd echo all the comments and my only addition would be the time I've spent on this committee I think it really goes to show we are a serious committee we really do debate the issues and we certainly are not a rubber stamp committee. We have disagreements and I think we collegially solve or work out those disagreements and I think that's been healthy and very good. Especially about punctuation. About punctuation, absolutely. We can go from the nitpicky to the big picture, right? But I think it's been that the colleagues on the committee have been great and I think it also has been a testament to us in terms of the quality of the town and the town folks who work here and I think that's been evident in terms of the materials we've had and the seriousness that everybody has paid attention to the fiscal management and the prudence of this town so I think that's been a very good addition not only to us while we're cheers but to the professional staff who has helped us as we've been. And, you know, Bernie is not here and he is not authorized to say anything on its behalf but if he was here I'm quite sure he would say the same things. Well, I want to say it's been a real honor working with everyone. I've made me laugh a lot. Yes, I've cried a few times too. But I've had a great time. I was really scared coming into this committee when Mr. Fuller left.  CPA, we're looking for it. And those were, by the way, those were tears of joy. Yes, of course. And thank you Amherst Media. Yes. And thank you Amherst Media. I can echo everything everyone said. It's been a terrific group of people to work with. But I want to make, you know, a real strong statement about how competent this town is run. It's very efficient, it runs well, it spends its money wisely and the Town Hall staff is just incredible. They work hard, they produce for us and I have not seen any group of town folks who are so dedicated to the town. So I really appreciate everything they do and I know that members of our community do too. So with that we part and we wish the new council well and we will be probably looking in to see what they're doing. We will be watching. We will be watching. And I would say that good night for Bernie Kubiak too. Unfortunately he couldn't be here. So onward and upward. Thank you. Thank you.


So, next up is Simo with his talk, Tour of Scientific Computing Skills and Tools. Yes, let's see if I get the share going on. Yes, are you ready? There you go. So yeah, Simo is one of my colleagues at Alto. He's been here longer than I have and, well, he's sort of a wizard on software and stuff like that. Yeah, I can quickly give an introduction. So, hi everybody. Simo Tuomista already been here for a few talks, but mainly. Yeah, so as Rich said, I've been here in Alto for a long time already. I basically, like I did my masters in physics, computational physics, but I chose this kind of a, this kind of a route instead of going towards like academic route because I felt like this kind of a crafting atmosphere that the scientific computing has is better suited to my skills and interests. But at the same time I completely, well, I'm very interested in what people are actually using these things for. But mainly there's like, yeah, I'm more of the spectrum of I like to do the things, but not necessarily do the writing of the paper and stuff like that. But so, but let's start with the talk. And I will want to go through a quick journey of like scientific computing, and what kind of tools do you need throughout this way. So, so the journey for scientific computing is, is winding one, like we had in the previous talk of one off and run before that. That typical scientific computing workflow might look something like this. So you have some experiment and then you do some models and, and then you do some raw data and you have lots of different things that you need to handle throughout your process. So, so it's usually a good idea to take some best practices or like take some tools that you know are good and reuse those tools, because if you have bad tools, you might reuse them. So there's this quote by this, this sociologist sociologist, I think, Abraham Maslow, who said that I suppose it's tempting if, if the only tool you have is a hammer to treat everything as it were a nail. So basically, because you're learning constantly while you're doing, and you're, you're doing stuff and you're learning because, well, you're doing stuff. You immediately start to learn some tools. And if those tools happen to be the wrong tools, you might end up in a situation where you start using the same hammer for every nail. And in scientific computing, it's usually better to be a bit more flexible with your tools and, and just like go with the flow and use the tools that are good for the situation. This means that you won't end up in this kind of situation, like in this XKCD comic, where you try to fix problems that you created and so forth.   Like I often feel like that. And if you get that kind of a feeling that usually tells you that you're not using the correct tool, like it's you yourself telling yourself that like something is wrong with this situation. And it's good to recognize that feeling because then you know that okay, it's probably a good idea to, to at least not necessarily switch completely if you're already halfway through your paper, paper and you want to get stuff done. You cannot necessarily have the luxury of switching completely, but it might be a good idea to like recognize this feeling. So, okay, but let's go to actual good examples. Can I ask you a question quick? Yes. So what tools have you ever been in a situation where you, you change from the hammer to the, I don't know, the better tool, but your collaboration, your collaborators are not excited about they have to change to the better tool. Well, yeah, yes, like we have the software building environment like this is ongoing hammer that is hammering nails that we have that I have built for us in internally, and it's currently I think in this fifth iteration. It's been rebuilt, at least about five times because like the nails turned to screws and then you need a different tool and, and it's unfortunate that many people usually often have to like look at them okay what has been changed how to deal with it. But at the same time that that is usually also a good idea when you have like, you have something you have created.  So, yes, this, this has happened to me multiple times and it's, it's not something you can learn out of immediately, but you can try and usually, if you try to meet like make it simpler, like, this is saying keep it simple stupid. If you try to make it simpler and simpler, usually you end up towards like the correct solution. But, of course, it is there's no guarantee that you will ever get something that is finished, but it's better to be critical about your flaws than like and it's better to be done with something that you always try to aim for like perfect because then you might end up also not doing anything. You still need to get stuff done. So it's this balancing act with between trying for perfection but falling and catching at least some, some, some nugget of gold. Okay, but let's go through a few situations where you might what you might want to like do when you're doing scientific computing.  So what should you pack for this kind of how should you like start working on this kind of a project. These are completely arbitrary chosen by me, but I would say that the few things that really help a lot of our users is that they pick like a scientific programming language that can do like more than one thing. They pick an editor or IDE with some syntax highlighting. And then they use an interactive ID that allows you to write your like the ideas as scripts. So, quickly, make this a bit bigger. So let's first go through the first point so what are scientific programming languages. So, this is my definition, but I would say that scientific programming languages are languages that you can do some general stuff with, but also you can do scientific calculations. So, first off, you want easy file input output, because like if you ever written like in CEO Fortran, you try to read data in or out. It's not fun. It's not fun. It's not, you have lots of CSV tables and it's, it's not fun. It's not something you want to do like writing wrappers for like creating your input output. You need a language that can do that. That makes it a lot simpler. Like you don't have to start writing like printf statements and stuff like that. It should have some mathematical functions such as linear algebra, cosine, cosine, typical stuff, but also like integration and stuff like that, like stuff you need. So, easy plotting features so you don't have to go above like you don't have to go around like and search for something higher and other things like this. So what are options. You can look at the rest of the things later but options that are nowadays more popular, most popular a Python, which is like, it's a general programming language but there's so many scientific packages. The most popular currently but of course it probably won't stand there for millennia. Somebody will go and replace it eventually but currently is the most popular language for scientific computations. Then there's Matlab, which is a commercial product. So that's a minus in my book immediately because you have to pay for it or somebody has to pay for it. But at the same time it already has a good idea and it's easy to use and in many fields it's like in signal processing. It's very popular. Then there's Julia, which is like an upcoming newcomer to the competition, but it has the benefit that it's been designed from ground up to be a scientific computation language. So it's been designed to be this kind of a language that you can use for scientific computation. So it's fast, it's designed for these kind of problems, but at the same time it's newer. So there's you need to like, it's maybe for a bit more for the programming oriented, but if you feel like it's a great language. And then there's R, which is very popular in bioinformatics, statistics, stuff like that. It's an old language, but at the same time it has huge amount of different packages for these users. So it's very popular as well.  Like, I personally use non graphical ones, I use Veeam or Neo Veeam, actually, but, but like it doesn't matter what I use. Everybody should use what they feel like is the best tool for them, like choose one one of the good these are some of the popular ones they might be a lot of missing. So you can even point in the HackMD, which is your favorite. But it will help you a lot because you don't have to like if you see if you have an IDE or an editor that can provide you syntax highlighting that will tell you okay I made a typo there. You don't like that that will already save you a lot of time debugging the code when you when you're writing. Then another thing is that you want something that you can write as a script, like you can of course type stuff into like interactive terminal in R or Matlab or Python or Julia. But that's not something that will fly in long term so it's better to start already writing a script. So, because that will mean that you have like the whole story in one file, like you have the start from the top and you read to the end and you, the whole adventure is gone through the whole. Well, it doesn't have to be the whole pipeline the whole workflow, but some stuff is done throughout the script. And that means that you don't have this kind of idea, like, well, you have everything recorded there, and you can run it as a whole. And that is much better because, like, if you run some simple commands, one at a time, you have this, you might have this situation where you next time you want to run these commands you don't remember what commands you run. So it's better to write a script because then you don't have to remember that it's all written in the script, and that will help you. Now there's also notebooks are very popular. So, especially like in Python, but there's also other, like you can use notebooks in all kinds of places but basically notebooks are this type of a document where you have this these cells that contain code or documentation and it's like one file contains both the code and the documentation and the script and you can run it cell by cell, and it's very easy to start using it and to do like quick data analysis. So these are something you might want to use for like you just want to check if something works. Okay, what if you want to like graduate from this. Like, you want to start a project, you want to start the project you don't know how what kind of project is going to be but you want to start a project that will eventually produce something for you. What should you pack for that but what kind of things you should keep in mind when you start a project. Well, the number one thing is that use version control. So, like, version control is amazing, like if you ever used it, because like you don't have to anymore wonder, like, did I have to correct like source dot back back dot one dot something like you don't have to have these kinds of like incremental backups of your like version one dot something, nothing like that you don't have to anymore like copy the whole source code folder to another and then you have a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. Like that kind of structure. Should we say what that is. Yeah, that's. Yeah, I'll go through. Yeah, let's go. I'll go through the rest of the points and then we can look into it. So, yeah, that's the first thing. And the next thing is that you start documenting early because it's much easier to document early than later because you have less stuff to do them. Like if you constantly document then you don't have this kind of like, okay, I need to document everything. The next thing is that you should keep track of what kind of requirements your process, your project has, and last you should use existing packages. So let's return to the version control. Sorry if the talk is with goes one way and goes another way but so version control rather than ask a good question so how, how would you describe actually, how would you describe version control. We save snapshots of the project as we go along I mean it can be called it can be a script text, we save, we record, we recall all the changes as we as we develop so that we can go back and that we can compare. So how does version control manage these differences how does it recognize difference between if something has been changed. So we can think of it as really recording like a snapshot at specific moments, and then then it has a way to compare them. Yeah, and the comparison is actually like line by line, when it when it comes to like text files. So, these kind of version control systems they can handle binary files as well. They can handle an image, but usually they are handled when you have text, let's say you have lines of text like this can be file over here, this is under version control as well, like, I've put it into kids. So, so every line of text can be like stored. Whenever you add a line, you can see that okay now that line has changed and you can make a, you can add it to the version control so that okay now this is a new version. And nowadays, like, vastly the most popular version of control system is kids, like, they are alternatives, but it is the most popular. Some people will say, well, I'm not really programming, so is this something for me? Yeah, that's it. And I would say yes. Yes, yes. And why is the problem, I mean they can, I think this is also if you want to record your workflow, you are a reproducible workflow, doesn't have to be sort of programming programming. And also that is really good to version. Yeah, I personally have like under version control my like, like environment files that like, if I need to like, do you use a different system I can just like get those from my git repository I have my notes, like if I make notes of, of talks of, of meetings I mean I keep them under version control and stuff like that. I try to document as much as the, like code I've written and, and keep that as a version control like instructions how to use stuff and. And whenever I usually start a new project, if I know that it's going to be something, it's going to be something I will put it on the version control. Of course, like if you have let's say a data set or something that is actually not changing, it's immutable like it's only files. That's something that version control doesn't handle. Well, it's mainly for like that. Those ideas that you write yourself. That is the main idea of version control of course like some, some data files can fit there as well but, but mainly for like your ideas if you have written them. You want them to be able to be transferred easily you want them to be like more, you can keep the history of it control Z won't work if the, if the computer computer crashes. And I think we have four minutes left so let's. Okay, let's. Yeah, let's. So, commenting, documenting. I'll quickly note, there's few tools that help you with it. So in version control you have, by the way, like this amazing systems where you can push the stuff. You can read more in the documentation here and good courses there as well. Yeah, commenting. There's easy, like markdown, which this can be documented markdown or common mark as it's on the standard. It's easy to write like these documents use, I would recommend trying to learn how to use that it's very easy to write documentation. And then there's the, if you want to like, make your, you don't want to like, you want to know how to comment properly, you can look into some style guides from various organizations like how they suggest you write your comments so you don't have to think about yourself, how do I formulate my comments. That's basically like if you have a diary and it's prefield like fields, you can like, think of it like that. Like you just feel whatever you want in the prefield fields instead of like, trying to start from a blank page. Similarly, you have these linters that can automatically recognize that okay, there's a missing comment, put a comment here like they can help you look through your code and keep it in check the style and check. Then keeping track of requirements. So you should write, it can be instructions, it can be a script, it can be whatever. You should have one some way of writing down what you have done to make this end of like this coding environment work. What does it need the system, because often you end up in a situation where you're far from starting board and then if something breaks. You need to do it all over again and you do or your collaborator needs to do it, and they don't know how to do it. So it's good idea to keep track of the requirements. But this is like when it comes to starting a new project, this is probably the most well, they're all the most important things but but this is one of the most important things is that use existing packages and frameworks. So there's this quote by Isaac Newton that if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. And it's been theorized that it's probably not as honest as it, the quote has it said here but but the idea is that like, if you start based like if you use already existing information, you don't have to like recreate it. And basically, there are lots of people who are doing the same thing as you are. And if you have this kind of feeling like, like I mentioned like this, there has to be a better way. Usually somebody has to product and compare to like these infomercial products is actually a working product, like somebody has written somebody who's like I, I don't say that I understand everything about computing but I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of people who are a lot better in or or there's a lot of organizations like Google or something that have a lot of money on the line that their products are good. And those people usually like they provide the code available to you and a lot of the frameworks for you. So why not use those instead of trying to create created your own. Like I know how let's say Newton's Newton's method works but I don't want to code it myself like I would rather use already existing packets that I know that it works. The algorithm already works. I mean, it's not only about using standard packages but also standard way of setting up a project we have a couple of questions on the chat on the, I can be about like how to structure a project and I think many people struggle with that. And, and also there I think reach out to the community reach out to your colleagues. Yeah, do what they do. I would recommend taking the code refiner a lessons there's excellent material on how to start a project. And this, this last topic. This is basically about that question. And it's, it's mainly like this very hand wavy this last section, but I would, I would say that, like for lasting project. You need to like work together with other people, because you're going to be doing. You're going to be working with code that somebody else has created, you're going to be using doing stuff that somebody else has to read at some point. And especially if you need help with it. At some point you need to publish research and stuff like that so you need to make the code presentable. And when you're doing this, you, you're constantly working in an ecosystem with other people so it's usually good idea to involve them as much as possible throughout the whole project. And it doesn't mean that you need to like constantly better them and poke them in the in the shoulder like okay what's your opinion on this, but mainly like if you have a problem. Ask other people like rather one had a great talk on on how to ask people.  Check, check what the community around the framework is talking about it, like what kind of issues they have used that as a like a strength. Check what other projects that you feel like you aspire to be like if you see already existing like amazing machine learning model from, let's say, deep mind or something like I often go to just to read deep mind blog to see what what people in AI are doing, and not because I would necessarily do it myself the same thing, but to just to see what kind of things that people at the forefront of the science are doing. And trying to gather like okay what kind of learnings would be gathered from them. It doesn't have to be that it's like, like okay I need to be as good as like the team of engineers at Google, like that's not possible really and and you shouldn't put that kind of a burden for yourself, but at the same time. It's good idea to be like motivated by, like nice things that you see around it and think that okay maybe I might try to do similar kinds of things. So learning from other people, I think we are running slightly over time, we will take a break soon, but after the break my understanding is that we will have a Q&A and pen discussion and there we can pick up some of these questions and some of these topics and discuss them more in detail. Yeah, so that would be the perfect time for many of these practical things will have a lot of people here and can see that there's not always one answer.


A massive winter storm is sweeping across the northern U.S., with blinding snow in some places, freezing rain in others, and whipping winds in bitter cold temperatures across several states.At the Double Cross Cattle Company, a ranch south of Roberts, Montana, Tyson Ropp used an axe on Friday morning to chop through inches of ice covering a trough so that his bulls could get to their water. The sun cast a weak light across the snow-covered landscape as he worked and the Beartooth Mountains. Could be seen in the distance, Ropp used a feed truck to spread extra hay for his cows, about 75 pounds per animal and planned to do so again later in the day, with temperatures forecasted to drop overnight to minus 28 and wind chills as low as minus 50 that he planned to spread straw on the ground somewhere out of the wind where the cattle could lie down to stay dry and conserve heat. It's going to get pretty chilly tonight, he said. We've got a couple hidey holes they can get into and bed down and hunker down together and stay warm. Cold snaps like this, it'll last a few days and then it'll warm up, it happens every winter. I believe it's supposed to get down in the mid-negative 20s, but with the wind chill that could be anywhere from 40 to 60 below. It's going to get pretty chilly tonight, we've got a couple hidey holes they can get into and bed down and hunker down together and stay warm, pretty good. Just playing ahead, keep everything plugged in and that's it, that's just Montana.


What's going on guys, today I am here with this massive news round up for Destiny 2 and what we've learned over the past week, including leaks of the vault, the raid, secret areas, engrams and much much more. But before we get into the video guys, I am giving away a Rockstar Destiny 2 in game gear code. To win, simply drop a like on this video and leave a comment down below. Ok so let's get into it and let's start with something from earlier this week. You can now pre-install Destiny 2 on your Xbox One consoles ready for the release of the game. Playstation users will have to wait until the 31st of August, the end of the month before you will be able to install. I've actually put a guide on this which you will find linked in the video description if you want to check it out. We also found out earlier this week that the Taken King subclasses will be obtainable within Destiny 2. Now for a while it's kind of been obvious but now we know it's 100% as seen in recent European dead zone gameplay. We have seen the retrieval of quests from I believe Lost Sector Chests which triggered the start of your ability recovery. Seen on screen now are those very quests obtained. We see for the hunt add a fractured arrow hunter relic. Notice the void icon next to the text. We also see this one right here for the Warlock, cracked talisman. Also notice the arc symbol there too. We also saw this image leak too of a Warlock arc subclass. Now as far as I know I don't think we have any image of the Titan subclass relic but I'm pretty certain it's left us to work towards upon release. So third subclasses are available via quests and most people are speculating these will be the Taken King subclasses but that hasn't been confirmed yet but it makes more sense looking at what we have so far. Ok so we're going to move on and Bungie's new clan features are now live via Bungie.net and the Bungie companion app. There you can create your very own unique clan emblem, organise your clan as well as a few other new features. I've actually made a video discussing the new clan options which I will link within the video description if you do want to check it out. Next up I want to talk about planetary scout vendors. Now we know there is a vendor scout on a European dead zone, we have seen enough of him. His name is Devrim Kay. The real question is though and I believe it will be the case. The question is will there be planetary vendors on every other planet within Destiny 2? I actually think there will. These vendors we level up just like a faction but by trading materials for reputation. Under European dead zone we use planetary materials called dusk light shards as well as EDZ tokens, collect them, head to the vendor and trade them for a rep which in turn ranks him up and can reward you a faction package in the form of a legendary engram which opens up into three different rewards. Now until recently we didn't know what came from these ranked up packages but now we do. On screen now we see the entire loophole for Devrim Kay of the EDZ. We can see he has his very own set of armor and weapons as well as a set of gear which does rotate. Now I have a more detailed video going over all this gear which can be found in the video description if you do want to check that out also. Ok so about three days ago the trophies for Destiny 2 on PS4 were released. On screen now we are seeing them very trophies. There were 14 in total, some very interesting ones to say the least which we will discuss with corresponding topics later in the video.  Now the quality of these pictures is really poor but we can still make out what they are. The first interesting one is this picture of Destiny 2's inventory. Now many people have covered this topic but almost all have missed one defining factor and that is the icons on the left hand side. The very bottom one is actually a organised button so we can arrange our inventory which is a real great addition. Also this image leaked of our vaults. Notice we have 200 spaces and again we can see the organised tab on the left, epic. The second page within our vaults is the collections page I believe. Now we also have this leaked image which I believe is the first time we have seen a ghost shell with a shade that applied to it which looks pretty cool. Now the final image from this leak I want to show you guys is this one right here. It shows a titan with low health in third person. This is no doubt just after our light has been taken and before we find the farm within the European dead zone. We know we will play a short bit of the story in this section of the game in third person where we will struggle through a kind of forest sort of thing where we are using the mantle to jump over the lugs etc etc. So I'm guessing this is that instance. Ok so next up I want to talk about this tweet by Mark Nosworthy. He states indeed to its no longer advantageous to equip your most powerful gear when equipped in engrams we check for your best possible loadout now. This is a big but great great change and I think we all can agree on that. Basically what he is saying is the game automatically checks your loadout and inventory and gives you loot based on that. And in matter of times I have decrypted a bunch of engrams only to realise my best gear wasn't applied. Now that don't matter which is great. This all moving on and next up I want to talk about the confirmation of Three of Coins being absent from Destiny 2. This was confirmed by PC Gamer when they stated the following talking about exotics they saw. The character I played didn't find any exotics on patrol and in the absence of the Three of Coins buff from the first game we aren't likely to. But I was able to bring a couple into the EDZ playing as a warlock who are essentially the battle mages of Destiny. I was wearing an exotic helmet called Eye of another World which you guys can see on screen now. In addition to giving priority targets a glow in red outline it also speeds up the charge rate of your grenade, melee and rift abilities. More impactful was my exotic pulse rifle the Gravitonal Lance which was a thing of absolute joy which you guys can also see on screen now. It fires three burst shots the third of which has higher recoil and damage.  Oh and when you pull the trigger it makes a bzzzz sound like a guitar amp being flickered on. To fire the Gravitonal Lance is to know true love. You guys can hear that now in the background. So they stayed in the absence of Three of Coins and because they were invited to bungee to play this game early and review it it's safe to say what they mention here is legit info. But for how long will this last? Now Three of Coins within Destiny 1 is a iffy situation, some people enjoy them and some people don't. We won't get into that here but if you have an opinion on them you like them you don't like them let me know the reason behind it down below in that comments section. Ok so we just saw two new exotics the pulse rifle the Gravitonal Lance and the Warlock helmet the Eye of another World. But confirmed that are also old exotics from Destiny returning to Destiny 2. We know of the Starfire Protocol Warlock Chess piece, we also know of the Taken Out Titan helmet. Those were revealed weeks back but this past week we have seen two more one being the Titans ACD Slash Zero Feedback Fence Gauntlets and we also saw the Hardlight Auto Rifle. Now the Hardlight returns with a twist it now offers Void Burn. Let's hope they get it right this time with this weapon as it was garbage in the first game. Talking of exotics this week we also saw this new Osiris weapon. Now many people thought and still think this is a trials weapon, I actually made a video on this weapon stating reasons behind why I don't think this is a trials weapon and that video can be found linked within the video description. Basically I believe this 5 burst pulse rifle will be a quest leading up to or from the first DLC expansion for Destiny 2 come the end of the year which is confirmed to be Osiris themed. Now whether I'm right or wrong we can all agree this thing looks incredible. Let me give you that exotic impression by design. So moving on and it was revealed via a Rolling Stones article on Destiny 2 that there will be secret elusive areas we visit throughout the game. The place in question today is a dark forest. After travelling through a taken light teleport we end up here, a place very reminiscent of something out of a Tim Burton movie. We adventure deep into this very eerie looking forest in search of the psionic source which is a power element. Now details are scarce here and to be honest I'm actually glad of the fact I want to experience this for myself, spoiler free to see the outcome and story behind this mysterious place. But I love the idea of otherworldly dimensions and this is up that street, I cannot wait to learn more. Ok so talking about mystery, over the past few days info has been gathered and put together to try and figure out further details on Destiny 2's first raid. Now there has been in my opinion many hints dropped by Bungie and I spoke about them all in a video yesterday where I went into true details on all surrounding this raid which you guys will find, linked in the video description if you do want a more in depth actual look at the details surrounding it. But to keep it short and sweet for this video but to fill in you guys who do not know basically loots me for a while back at the Destiny 2 reveal event or this hoodie repping a random logo. During the beta of Destiny 2 concept art was seen that being this on screen yet since being updated and shows a ship flying down to this planet that seems to be being sucked in to whatever that thing is. The PS4 Trophy's release revealed the name of Destiny 2's first raid calling it the Leviathan. Leviathan is a term used to describe enormous deep sea creatures but it's also commonly used in naming spacecrafts of short too. The logo on Luke Smith's hoodie is the same shape as this thing with the circle being represented by that ball of light on top of this enormous craft if that's what it is. Also noticed the bright stars to these things are left. They actually form a constellation, the constellation is called Cetus which in Greek mythology means sea monster. Also seeing was this image here which looks as though guardians are preparing to enter the structure we see and believe to be the Leviathan. Notice the orbiting rocks too. Also it's important to remember the actual name of the Leviathan raid trophy it's called Belied Beast. So we enter the beast and take it on the raid. That's basically where we've gotten 205 order clues bunches have dropped. It's all speculation but it's also very interesting at the same time and some of it makes serious sense. And on that note guys I am ending the video and if new drops in terms of news, leaks or so forth I will have you guys covered here on my channel. So subscribe if you're new around here, if you enjoyed the video leave a like it really does help me out and hopefully guys I will see you on that next one.