We are calling to order the meeting for the Arlington Select Board for Monday, January 25th, 2021. As a preliminary matter, this is John Hurd, Select Board Chair, permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Diane Mahan. Yes, thank you. Joe Carl. Yes. Steve DiCorsi. Yes. And Len Diggins. Yes. In staff, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Adam Chapelling. Yes. Douglas Heim. Yes. And for the first time, we get to call on our board administrator. Board administrator Ashley Maher. Yes. All right. Good evening. This meeting of the Arlington Select Board is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020, due to the current state of emergency in the Commonwealth. Given the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, in order to mitigate the transmission of the virus and reduce risk of COVID-19 illness, we have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings. And as such, the governor's order suspends the requirements of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of the public, public bodies are allowed in encourage to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with the agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment, even if members of the public do not provide comment participants are advised that people may be able, maybe listening who'd not provide comment and those persons are not required to identify themselves. For this meeting the select board is convening by zoom as posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly please be aware that other folks may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. Please also take care to adjust your screen or device name if you would like to speak in order for us to recognize speakers appropriately and develop accurate minutes it is helpful for our participants to see your full first and last name when calling upon you rather than a nickname. All of the materials for this meeting except any executive session materials are available on the novice agenda dashboard and we recommend the members in the public follow the agenda as posted on novice and lesson share notes otherwise. We're now turning to the first item on the agenda before we do so permit me to cover some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate meeting minutes. I will introduce each speaker on the agenda after they conclude their remarks the chair will go down the line of members inviting each by name to provide any comment question or motions. Please hold into your name is called further please remember to mute your phone or computer when you're not speaking please remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes for any response please wait until the chair yields the floor to you and state your name before speaking. If members wish to engage and colloquy with other members please do so through the chair taking care to identify yourself. This meeting will feature opportunities for public comment on certain agenda items. After members have spoken I as the chair will afford the public comment opportunities as follows. I will first ask members of the public who wish to speak to identify their names in addresses only. Once the chair has the list of all public commentators, I will call on each by name and afford three minutes for any comments. Please keep in mind that all participants and members of the public must be recognized by the chair before speaking. Finally, each vote tonight will be taken by roll call vote. All right, so we're going to take first. We have an emergency addendum that was posted. Right. And this is. Actually, so turn your time the emergency then this was item was added to the consent agenda can we take this with the rest of the consent agenda. Yes. Okay. All right so with that. Let's take that up when we go to our consent agenda on the next few items down. So the first item is our fiscal year 2021 quarterly budget update. Sandy pool or I deputy town manager and eat a Cody our comptroller. And he should be joining. I don't see either was either joining tonight as well. No, she had a family thing that she had to go out of town so she's not able to attend. Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to 2021 is finance director, I've already been in fiscal year 2021 for seven months so it's not so new to me but welcome the opportunity to give you an update as we are six months through our fiscal year. Just to give you a general sense over all the fiscal year I think has been going well. Our spending and our revenue are generally in line with revised estimates that we put forward. Many of which were down because of COVID. And some of which are still starting to come in at a pace that was somewhat delayed because of the delay in the state government passing its budget they didn't pass a budget until October. So it means that some of the state revenue that we usually count on has been a little late and coming in. This report is 50% through the year will be not reports I've issued in the past, just because there aren't that many accounts that are far off from their 50% target. And the ones that are it's really mostly because of timing issues. So I think the overall good news is that are we don't have any extraordinary expenditures because of COVID or any other reasons that have thrown our budget out of whack. There are COVID expenses that are covered by the cares act. Many of those expenses are still in the departmental budgets you'll see them in the extended printouts with with line items that show them there. Eventually they will move out of the departmental budgets as we get the money to us through the cares act. But again, cares act process has been pushed back and delayed somewhat originally it was all going to run out. They had to happen by the end of last December. They have pushed that back a year and if to December of 2021. They have also pushed back the reporting dates which means pushing back the dates by which we'll get some of that money. Originally, it was going to be this month but they have pushed it back until next month. So I feel confident that we will get the money. We're just not getting it as fast as we originally thought we're going to. So with that overview, I just want to go through the memo and highlight the departments, any department that had a variance of 10% or more. And really there are only a few of them, and they are all either related to having paid some of their bills up front, such as information technology where they encumbered most of their software licensing fees at the beginning of the year. They also had covered expenses that are still in their expense budgets and will be allocated out later. Elections is high because they basically paid for their two elections so far this year. So we'd expect that to be the case. Facilities, as is usually the case, is high because they encumber a lot of their expenses and again they had COVID related expenses. In public works, same thing they've encumbered all their solid waste collection and have encumbered a lot of their snow and ice control budget. To some extent they have COVID expenses all not as much as some of the other departments on a percentage basis. Health Department encumbered things like their mosquito control expenses at the beginning of the year. They also have substantial COVID related expenses because of hiring contact tracers and doing a lot of the other COVID protection work. But other than that, all the other departments I think really are on track in their spending. We have a second category called other, which is debt. We've paid most of our debt so far this year. That's because in the past we've sold most of our debt in November's. And so the payments came due this November. Minuteman we've paid entirely upfront as we did with our pension expenses and our liability insurance. We've paid 96% of. We do pay those upfront. We get a discount on that. To move right into revenue because that is an area that has been something we've watched very carefully. So our tax collection rate is at 50%, which is good. Our revenue for the year has been coming in. Exactly where we expected to during the second half of the year that will bump up a little bit just because we will include in the second half of the year that will reset the actual tax bills to people's bills in that third and fourth quarters. And those tend to be a little higher for people. Our motor vehicle excise tax collection rate is at 12%. Again, that's consistent with where we'd expect it to be. In February, we will get information from the Department of Revenue on our third quarter bills. And I'm very curious to see how they come in. Originally we thought motor vehicle excise taxes would be coming in lower this year than other years. There was some information we heard at the MMA conference last week about how car sales are actually running ahead of previous years. In part because some people have moved out of cities and therefore had to buy cars. And fewer people are taking mass transit. So we're keeping our eyes on that. Penalties and interest are penalties for people who pay their taxes late.  And so that number is up. Interestingly, other departmental revenue is up. Our collection rate is 61%. That's largely due to municipal lien certificates, which are things that people have to take out either when they sell their houses, or when they refinance. And I think because of continued low interest rates, people can continue to do that. Licenses and permits are still coming in at a healthy rate. I've been slightly less than the last couple of years, but not significantly off. And again, penalties and interest. This represented a, excuse me, payments, lieu of taxes. This is penalties and loom taxes. That's, that's a typo. And that's my fault. I apologize. This represents payments for the housing authority for multiple years of past pilots all coming in. So that that's been strong. The other thing on the next page that I think has been interesting is the hotel tax has come in way over estimates, we substantially lowered our estimates this year. We lowered them down to about $50,000. So those have come in much higher than we originally anticipated. Same thing with the meals tax. Again, we lowered those very substantially. They had been originally $425,000. So the good news is they're coming in over estimates, which means we will generate some free cash because of this. They are still substantially below what we've collected in previous years. And so, you know, we just need to be aware of that. Interest on investments is coming in strongly. That continues to be good. And fines and forfeitures, those are again mostly moving violations. And we have, we have adjusted though we continue to try to adjust those. But they do continue to come in a little low because changes in police behavior. Right into the enterprise funds unless people want to ask questions about the general fund. Right. Thank you. I will keep going then. The enterprise funds water and sewer has been doing well, both because we had timely water rate increases and because this summer there was a drought. So people use more water. Also more people are home than going into Boston. So they are using more water in Arlington. So I feel very good about water and sewer. AYCC. They are expending consistent with continued demand for services. Our revenue is behind and that's mostly because of the delay in the passage of the state budget, whereby the state has not yet paid us most of the revenue that they owe us during the year. We have been told by asking them that they do intend to send that soon. So I think we will see that catching up in the next month or so. I am not worried about that. COI transportation has been down all year because of construction at the senior center. And I think that just this year you'll see usage and revenue continue to stay low. The Ed Burns rink has expended most of its budget because they are substantially through most of their season. Their collection rate is substantially down. There have been many delays affecting hockey in general and skating in general. Joe Conley has done a lot of work to try to fill in and rent space out more as cancellations come in. But when you have things like a COVID quarantine on say the hockey, the high school hockey team. We can and sometimes do get people in right away to fill that. But that's not always possible. We also will lose substantial revenue. Because the hockey team is not going to have tournaments this winter. And they're just playing the regular season games. Joe has some plans to reallocate some of the expenses, some of his staff expenses over to recreation just because he and others have spent less time doing rink work this year. And he has a plan that he thinks will bring rink in on budget by the end of the year. We will make those adjustments closer to the end of the year. But he does he has put together a plan and he and I have gone over that. Finally recreation has had substantially fewer expenditures this year just because of the many programs we have not run. Joe has talked to me about the anticipating that in the spring, we will be able to sign people up for things like the res and certain summer programs as COVID vaccination goes forward. And that remains to be seen exactly how much will happen, but because a lot of our expenses in recreation are for non staff teachers and trainers and so forth who come in and we just pay them for the courses they teach. Both our collections and our expenses have been down. Again, I think Joe has been doing an excellent job of monitoring that. At this point I'm not. I don't see a major problem with the recreation fund. It has a relatively good balance. But we do need to continue to watch it and see how they were able to sign people up in the fall in the excuse me in the spring. So I think we need to look at that for summer programs when they they take in a fair amount of revenue before the start of the summer. That is my report at this point. It is a lengthy their lengthy other documents summaries here of our revenue and expenses by department. By those other categories I talked about. By the warrant articles and by. At this point, I think I will conclude my remarks and would be happy to answer any questions members of the board have. Thank you, Mr cooler. And I did forget to mention this before the start of the meeting.  We are test we're piloting a new transcription service for this meeting that will help generate. Written minutes of the of what's said during the meeting so everyone speak clearly we get to see what really comes out of our mouths so so that will be available and Tom manager can speak later if you want to on how to access that. And with that, I will turn it to the board for any questions comments for Mr cooler, Mr curl. Thank you very much that this is this is always incredibly helpful so I really appreciate these reports every quarter. I just had one question I guess somehow I never realized that you're only in housing authority pays us a pilot. I know it's it's not it's not huge but how is that amount computed is it somehow match to a particular service that the town provides to. AHA or is it just just by by precedent. I don't I have not been involved in in those discussions with the housing board I can say generally, when my experience in other communities, it's a value based on the value of the property. But further than that, I don't have any details I'm sorry. No worries. Thank you very much. I have no further questions. Sorry, I thought I was on mute before I was clearing my throat. I apologize. I have just a few questions. I understand this is reporting as of the end of the second quarter of fiscal. 20 or 21 21. Meaning that we're sort of creeping into the third quarter. My several questions question through the chair. Last year we took a vote that I can't remember if it was property taxes, the water bill and or both that we took a vote that up until June 30. You sort of had a grace period. And as long as you paid your actual actual tax bill. You wouldn't be accrued the interest on that. Going forward, so hopefully someone's going to remember what what it is I'm talking about and my question is, is that something we need to re vote or did we vote that so it covers this year. And that was a one time thing that we did because of COVID and because of this, the massive disruptions to people's pocket books and checkbooks last spring. We generally had those payments and Frank most of them did come in on their usual schedule as it is. I would also say that my experience I have not heard of other communities trying to bringing that idea forward this year just for comparison. And people have been paying both their water and and tax bills on schedule this year we don't, we don't have huge delinquencies. So just to give you some perspective. I'm going to say that because while I did not attend, I do read the mass municipal association MMA weekly newsletters that come out where it says that communities may want to consider renewing do doing that, which I understand what deputy town manager said that people are not delinquent but what it was was saying you have up until June 30. And that's where our actual tax bill. Again I'm not clear if it was property and or water bill tax bill in the MMA was suggesting that that's something cities and towns, probably we should consider doing again. So I would ask the chairman Mr heard. Mr chapter lane has any comment on this. But that's where I read it was from the MMA saying that that's something that cities and towns should consider doing again so if nobody has a comment that's fine I'll move on to my next question but if the chair Mr chapter lane does. Yeah, I would just quickly I believe the legislature would need to act again to allow it I think it was a one time statutory allowance. So, I can, we can certainly verify that. And I, as Sandy mentioned, I've not heard that the legislature is considering such a measure again, but we can certainly look into it and if it seems appropriate bring it back before the board. That would be great thank you Mr chapter lane and if you can just look at it. There's nothing specific about the fourth quarter. When we did last other than the fact that that was the next quarter that came up from when the state of emergency was declared. That's true. That is correct. Okay, I just wanted to put on everyone's radar that we're going to do that again this year. It's the chair and the town managers seated. A legislative delegation and others need to redo that process from last year because I think we're still in the midst of COVID-19 of the other things that I have is in terms of the areas or revenue that are producing more than we lobald. I don't need to say that the bad way, like hotels meals and invest investment as well as our allocation to the school side of the budget. That's based on enrollment numbers. Am I correct that that is sort of being tracked and I missed the last meeting I had it January 14 that's being tracked by the long range planning committee, and my question is, are those areas being compiled, as well as being projected to either send funds back to the general fund or send funds back to general fund and reallocate to other areas. I mean, I don't know if Mr. DeCorsi, I believe you, I know your chair of long range planning or Mr. Hart, the chairman of the town manager all of the above can sort of speak to that support. I would just start by saying that we've had ongoing conversations around the school spending about what their spending rate is this year and what if any surpluses they will have. There are part of those ongoing questions are whether they will then return money back to the general fund at the end of the year. Or whether they will pre pay some of their expenses for next year such as such as they did this year with their, some of their sped expenses which they can pay before June 30. I have no decision about on either the school department side or with a long range planning side, as far as I'm aware of how those exactly will be finished this year. I do believe the school department from my conversations with them have been attracting their expenditures. They have been able to spend some areas where they have not been able to spend all their budget, because they haven't been able to hire as many people as they originally thought they were going to. And so, I think we're curious to see how those numbers come out. In terms of some of the other things that you asked about. The revenue coming in. I would just say yes we are keeping the long range planning committee aware of some of these surpluses. As I said both hotel tax and meals tax are right now the two big ones that we've been looking at. They've come in over revenue, but they're also hundreds of thousands of dollars short and will be hundreds of thousands of dollars short, where they usually come in. We have kept the committee aware of that so they understand what our financial position is. And if there are any other questions about that I'd be happy to answer. Um, Okay, I think. I'm a semester to course he has something that I guess this will be more discussed in long range planning but one of the. I'm looking back then. One of the things that has already been struck in my car or whatever you want to say it having had severely special needs daughter who is now 28 so on six years out of the system. The special education part of the school budget which we as members of the select board on don't have any direct involvement in that seems to sort of be the besides enrollment numbers which I concerns about. And the reason I have concerns is hearing about a 2025 override, which I think it's just something that most people I talked to in town I just really blown back by. Given the current situation so you need to look at other areas that's why I brought up about hotels meals investments. Projected producing more is that being reapplied to the general fund but the other issue I have is, I understand what the deputy town manager is reporting from what he's tearing from the school side reporting, but a large part of the school budget is special education, those truly severe children of special education that incur the most debt have not been receiving any of those services, which are in person. And so all that money is not being spent so I guess, unless I hear differently I should look to the long range planning committee for further joint discussions on that unless anyone has anything they can add to that. Anything from the January long range planning meeting that touches on this. Yes. Mr Chairman. Yes. Yeah, yeah, I just want to say a couple things to the, the questions that Mrs Mahan raised and I think some of this is going to be addressed in the town manager's budget presentation in terms of what some of the planning is being done for next year, particularly with respect to enrollment, and also addressing what the challenges are and the uncertainties and there certainly have been discussions at long range planning and their discussions taking place between the meetings but there's no clear path that could be presented this evening but I think in terms of some of the discussions between town and school and some of the budgeting considerations, I think that is going to be addressed by the manager in the next, in the next section. That is correct Mr Chair and Mr DeCorsi. Okay, thank you Mr Chair. All right. Mr Corsi. Thank you Mr Chairman and first of all thank you Mr cooler for the presentation. I did have on my list as well the real estate tax issue that Mrs Mahan raised and I realized that the legislature would have to take action and we were concerned last year about not extending the payment deadline date but but waving interest through June 30th and if we were able to pay by June 30th, then the interest waiver would go away and and I thought that worked well and I hope the legislature does offer that at least for the period between May 2nd and June 30th because we don't necessarily budget for the 14% interest that would incur for late payments of real estate tax and if we get the money by the end of the year. We're made whole on our real estate taxes and I think there is still remaining uncertainty so I think it's something we probably have to talk about with our delegation sounds like it has been discussed. It's limited across the state but I thought that program was was helpful as a compassionate program. So I hope it can be done again. On the page here that's on the screen Mr cooler. There's a line at 121,000 for tax lanes I may have missed it when you spoke about it earlier but what what is included there. That's, you know, we typically haven't seen in the past. It is an unbudgeted. First of all, it's, it's not a budgeted revenue source because year to year we don't know what leans are going to be redeemed because of sale of property or people paying off their taxes so I just want to say that's why you may not have seen it so much in the past or may not have been recorded in the past. That is just whatever leans. We have on property when, when people pay off their past taxes if there are other leans from the town that are associated with those properties, whether it be water sewer or other things. They, they come in in this category. Thank you. And on the revenues. And I don't know if it's still too early but are we starting to see some revenues from sales at apotheca. There has not been reported yet. Okay, I've been looking for them, but, and I've been asking about them but we have not had that revenue come into the general fund yet. Okay. And then just a question on the coven related expenses and I see that the discussion on the health department and it's great to see that there'll be reimbursements at the end of 2021. Are there other departments besides health. In particular that have had particular coven related expenses or is that more spread out across the town. Once you get past the health department. I would say in particular. The library has had expenses as has the facilities department. To some extent DPW. And to some extent police and a lesser extent fire. Those are, oh, and then through the election process. There's a lot of expenses related or related there. All the other departments pretty much have been just running. People have been working either working from home or coming into town hall. We have not had to incur a lot of major expenses through other departments for for COVID related things if there's been any PPE or barriers that we've put up those of all shown up in the facilities department budget. Thank you very much. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I agree with everyone else. I mean, it's a great report. Sandy and happy to have it just a couple of short questions. I mean, what is going to follow up on Mr. Kuro because I mean the AHA payment kind of caught my attention. So, so any explanation for why they were behind and why they need to do the multi year payment. I do know. I will have to say I tried to find that out myself and contacted AHA. I did not hear back. So, once I get further information, I'd be glad to pass up. I mean, I'm just more, more so curious than anything else. I mean, I'm happy to say in a sense that this, this, you know, select board has made me like more aware of AHA and the good work that they do. And so I, Mr. Kuro raised it and follow up on it a little bit more. That's the second one, because I'm a transit guy, transportation guy, the blue bikes, mean 100, what's going on with that. So, they are quite a bit above budget. It's like 22,000 versus 20,000 expenditure. You today. Actually, I have to say I did not pay that much attention to what that encumbrance is. I will inquire of the planning department in January, and I will follow up with an email to the board to let you know. Yeah, sure, sure, no problem. And just a general question. So, I know we pay attention usually stuff that is above budget, but the stuff that's coming in way below budget. Are you seeing any kind of like warning signs and things that are below budget mean a lot of stuff is COVID related but but are you like getting any sense of maybe some long term impairment or whatever it means from things that are lower than expected for a long period. Just, I would, I think the short answer is, no, I don't see anything. I mean, I, again, there are some areas, particularly in the revenue side like meal stacks that are just way lower than they've been in past years. And in our forecast, we knew that we lowered them and then we built them up over time and in the future, anticipating that they will not return immediately. And I think you can see just yourself that there are many restaurants in town that are not open now or have just closed permanently. And I think it will take several years for that to rebound. Other things have not really dropped off in a substantial way. I was worried at the beginning of the year about our licenses and permits but there's a lot of work going on in town. So that does not worry me. It is interesting that cemetery revenues down there are fewer burials. I don't know exactly why that is but I suspect to some extent that people may be putting off those ceremonies until they can reconvene again. So there, I don't think that is a fundamental change in behavior as much as it's a timing issue. So we are looking at those things and try to be aware. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. My main question, Mr. Corsi had already touched on this and got an answer but was more to the the apotheca revenue tax revenue that we're anticipating. Do you know when we'll see that? Or do you have any idea when that will stop being available to the public. I frankly don't know. I just see it when the state sends it to us and I've not been involved with apotheca directly. I just look at what the state sends us. Is that something that gets collected on an ongoing basis or is it at the end of the year? I believe and I assume that we will get quarterly payments as we do with some of our other, like our other taxes, but meal stacks and hotel motel tax that they're paid through the state and then come to us. But I don't know when we will actually start getting those from the state. I agree for the port. This is always very helpful to cut into the numbers and look at where we are with revenues. This is a great thing that we've been able to do over the past couple of years. I will say on Ed Burns things are looking up a little bit. They expanded the hours so men's hockey is back and back on the ice tomorrow. So we'll have a little bit more each week. Let's get that number up a little bit. All right. And so with that, I think, I don't think we have any more questions we have a motion to receive. So moved. Mr Carl seconded by. Second. Mr. D'Corsi. Turn you on. Mr. D'Corsi. Yes. Mrs mom. Yes, but I found one question that I failed to ask that I think is a quick answer. Mr chair. Yes. Under the three quarters approximately three quarters of million dollars under salaries or is that I think I know the answer so but I'm going to ask both questions. Is there something pro former that we put in there, or is that because of at least one union group contracts. That is an arbitration or a combination. It is because of the one contract that is unsettled we have set aside sufficient funds we think to be able to settle that contract under a reasonable arbitration award, and that's what that money is for. And it's my understanding that that is the patrolman's association, but I could be wrong on that and I'm not saying that that's something we will be awarding but I think that's the one that's outstanding right now. You're absolutely correct. We have briefs have gone into the arbitrator and there's a little back and forth now and we're waiting for a decision from the arbitrary. Okay, thank you. So, yes, thank you. You're still muted. Mr. Williams. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Cura. Yes. Yes. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. cooler. Thank you. Item number three on our agenda, fiscal year 2022 town managers budget presentation, Mr. Chaplin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If Sandy's willing, I'll ask him to stay since he might be able to assist me in answering some of the questions that may follow this presentation. I'll also say sort of in closing Sandy's presentation that Sandy reminded me this morning that he's actually celebrating his fifth year anniversary working for the town so gone by.  I'll continue praising Sandy and saying the FY 22 budget, which the board knows was provided to board members on January 15 per the requirement to the town manager act is the product of a great deal of work put forth really in a focused effort by Sandy pooler as deputy town manager and Julie wayman as management analyst, and then more broadly a lot of work on the part of all the department heads and their staff, providing Sandy and Julie myself all the data we need to be able to put together the budget on an annual basis. Normally, over the past few years I've put together a PowerPoint presentation that has followed a very similar format because the way we normally do budgeting here is a year over year basis that makes things easy to compare and think about in a year over year basis. This year, given the circumstances in the environment that we're operating under due to covert 19 is really a budget year unlike any that I've been in Arlington are really working anywhere for. So I wanted, I wanted to talk to you tonight about really the key points in regards to this budget, and highlight the fact that more than usually, this is a budget I think we'll continue to talk about this spring. As we learn more about both the governor's budget, the legislative budget and also what the economic outlook is, as we hope to be coming out of the pandemic as vaccinations roll out. So tonight I want to talk a little bit about that uncertainty. I want to frame up how we've been thinking about the school budget. I think I'll answer, at least partially hopefully mostly the questions that Miss Mahan asked about how we're thinking about school budgeting and Mr. The course he alluded to this as well. I want to talk about how we're viewing the town budget a little differently than we've viewed it in years past. And I do want to address the long range outlook that Miss Mahan asked about in terms of how we're thinking about, or at least when we're projecting when another override would need to be contemplated or considered. So to start with the uncertainty. As the board knows, we budget as part of a long range plan. Now we're now in the middle of the four year plan that was approved several years ago now with the override two years ago. Normally we budget very conservatively and we do well by doing that, meaning we beat our revenue benchmarks we do better on our expense bench benchmarks and like the last time around have stretched out the long range plan. This time because of the economic impacts of COVID-19 back in 2020. Those even though we had still budgeted conservatively, we've not beat those benchmarks in the same manner and we don't necessarily have that same upside that we've had in past past years as we look at our long range plan. Again, there's still a lot of uncertainty about what state aid will look like. We did get some good news coming out of the MMA annual meeting last week that unrestricted general government aid that we estimated to grow by 1% will grow by 3.5% in the governor's budget, which is about a benefit of approximately $200,000 in revenue that isn't part of the plan that I submitted to the board on January 15. The governor also stated that his administration would be planning to fully fund the first year of the student opportunity act. As a concept, that's a good thing. We'll know Wednesday what that fully means we don't exactly know what that means in terms of how they'll be viewing enrollments in various districts, Arlington's not alone and having its enrollment go down. So we're all very curious to see on Wednesday, how the governor will be treating that and that's a big question mark in terms of how we think about things going forward. And, broadly, I think we're rightly hopeful that we are on the way out of this pandemic, that people start to get vaccinated, the economy will start to move again, and that state revenues and local revenues will look up. Not at all to be pessimistic, but there is still a lot of uncertainty about that. We have time later tonight I'll talk a little bit about vaccinations but there is, as we've seen in the globe almost every day a lot of concern about how vaccinations are rolling out. So there is uncertainty about, you know, exactly whether or not we'll have the type of economic rebound and when we'll have that economic rebound that we're hoping for. So it's for that it's for these reasons of uncertainty and I guess the other layer of uncertainty that I add is about whether or not enrollment in the school department will rebound in September. As the board knows, we had projected for this current fiscal year to have school enrollment growth of 150 students. We actually went down by I believe, 280 278 students. So there was a really a tremendous swing in the enrollment of the district that was not expected. How many of those students come back in September of 2021 is certainly very uncertain. So that's a big question we have to, and all of that is painted how we've thought about the school budget. And it's painted how we've thought about the town budget. And then that all impacts how the long range of forecast looks for when the next override needs to be considered. So to start with the schools, working with Sandy, and then working with Charlie Foskett as chair of the finance committee, and Dean Carmen and Christine Deschler who he has appointed to help him in looking at the school budget, and to work with us looking at the school budget. We've put together sort of a conceptual framework for how to view both this current FY current fiscal year budget excuse me and next year's fiscal year budget. And that framework is in four parts. One, how are we thinking about the general education budget. Obviously, as I mentioned, there's less students in the district than what we had budgeted for. And what does that mean for how the schools will spend their money this year. Will there be a surplus. If there is, will they use it to pay down out of district tuition for special education costs, or will they turn it back to the general fund. Both would have a benefit on the town's bottom line, make no mistake. But those are issues that are actively being looked at by myself by Sandy, and most closely by Dean Carmen, as the finance committee representative working with the school committee's finance or budget subcommittee. The second piece of that framework is to look at special education. And to some degree we've cleared up this issue, but there was an important focus on determining whether or not budgeted special education costs were matching up with actual special special education costs, primarily from a three year five year historical basis, looking to see whether or not the 7% growth year over year is justified. We've done some work with Mike Mason, the school CFO, and has determined that there's only very little variance between what's been budgeted and what the schools have actually been expending. So justifying that there doesn't necessarily need to be any level resetting for special education. The third piece of that framework is the school's five year school committees, five year strategic plan, which was adopted or included as part of this board's override commitments. That was initially supposed to be funded at 600,000 600,000 800,000 and 800,000, one of one of those numbers for each of the four years of the long range plan. That was the override that 600,000 was funded this current fiscal year, because of uncertainty, budgetary and otherwise we reduced the 600 number down to 240. What the finance committee, and I know I certainly felt this way in Sandy as well, wanted to make sure is that we were, if possible, and if desired on the part of the schools, helping them catch up to continue to make those strategic investments that were committed to as part of the override. The third piece of the framework was to think about school enrollment growth for many years now school budgets have been driven by how many new students we expected, and we started funding a formula called growth factor many years ago at 25% of the State's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education per pupil expenditure costs multiplied by the number of new students and allocating that to the schools as a growth factor. Consider that was bumped up 35% and then as part of this current long range plan it was bumped up to 50% of DSE per pupil expenditures. However, since we're down in enrollment, and we don't know how many students are coming back next year. We certainly felt it wouldn't be prudent to put in that growth factor that had been programmed as part of the long range plan before we hit the pandemic and before this enrollment decrease came to be. So considering all of those things into consideration, the budget that I submitted on January 15 maintains the general education budget, plus three and a half percent per the plan, but makes clear that we want to continue that work with the finance committee and the school committee's budget subcommittee to look at what their surpluses are that year and make sure that their decisions are go forward in the best interest of the general fund and the town's bottom line. We mentioned how we're viewing special education we're continuing that number forward with the 7% growth has been that has been committed to as part of the long range plan. In terms of the strategic plan implementation. There was a $460,000 gap between what they were supposed to be receiving this year, and what they did not receive. We split that in half into two $230,000 chunks and are proposing that to be funded in this upcoming fiscal year for 22, and then the final piece in FY 23. So instead of $800,000 in each of those years, there would be a strategic plan implementation funding of $1,030,000 in each of those fiscal years. And then finally, and this is probably the most consequential piece of what we're recommending. What we're recommending is we're recommending to set aside the just over $1 million growth factor that had been previously budgeted and put it into a special finance committee reserve fund. So it won't be allocated per if our recommendation was to go forward, it wouldn't be allocated as part of the normal school budget process would be set aside. So that's very unique. It's been deeply discussed again internally between me and Sandy with the finance committee in the long range planning committee, and we feel like it's a prudent path forward to both make sure we're properly setting aside money for what could be a return of enrollment, but also not fully committing those funds until we know what the enrollment is. So that is how we're thinking about the school funding strategy. And as I've said, that is something you know normally we put a number in the sand or you put a number in the sand now and that's what it is. This year, because of the uncertainty, we're going to continue that work and hope to finalize a number soon before we get the town meeting. In terms of the town budget for all intents and purposes, this is really a level services budget. Again, as the board knows, town budgets are allowed to grow by three and a quarter percent as part of the long range plan. This year, we've submitted a budget at a percentage lower than that. I believe we submitted at two points, 2.6%. And again, most of that is representative of a level services budget. There's really only two things that I would say have been added to this budget per se. And then I want to describe how we've listed a set of priorities that we might still want to fund, depending on what the totality of the state budget is. As we learn more about revenues in the upcoming weeks. The two things I would say that have been legitimately added for this proposal for next year is a continuation of two health compliance officers that we hired as part of the CARES Act funding in this current fiscal year. We would be able to pay for those two health compliance officers for the first half of FY 22, but to keep them on after that the general fund would need to pick it up. Because we're still working our way out of this pandemic. And we're not exactly sure what the future holds. We think it's prudent to maintain that investment in public health, at least until the end of FY 22. So even though those people are on the payroll now, they show up as new in the FY 22 budget for that half year because we expect CARES Act to expire at the end of this calendar year. Next, as a continuation of our investment in diversity, equity and inclusion. I think the board knows that we've already established diversity, equity and inclusion as a division of the Health and Human Services Department. Marvie has been promoted to director of that division. We've hired her administrative help in the person of Christina Coleman. But in the FY 22 budget, we're also adding training money to the DEI budget, so that Jill and Christina working with the Human Rights Commission, Rainbow Commission and Disability Commission can really start to build out a robust training and education program for both internal and external stakeholders on the important issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. And then finally I'll say, as I'm sure the board members have seen in the budget proposal, we did set out for positions that we would consider asking to be funded depending exactly on how revenues come in again over the course of the next few weeks. I'll quickly list them, a permitting engineer in public works to help with tracking down mostly road opening permits to make sure that the utilities and contractors are coming back to maintain the patches they put into the road. It's a common complaint that we've received for years and have continued to work hard to try to keep up with but dedicating a resource to that has been something we've been trying to do for a long time. In the inspectional services department, we would consider adding a part time compliance officer. This would be a person whose sole responsibility would be the enforcement of the good neighbor agreement and some of the other bylaws that the inspectional services division, excuse me department is required to maintain compliance with. So this wouldn't be somebody doing building inspections or wire permits or gas permits this would be someone solely dedicated to making sure the good neighbor agreement was proactively enforced. This is based on community feedback and definitely something that the director of inspectional services would also like to see if possible. We're adding a part time public records request coordinator. We continue year over year to see more and more public records requests, and it's become over time quite administratively burdensome. If possible adding such a position would be something we've looked to do. And then finally, based on continued growth in teen services that need to be provided at the library based on the number of teens that are coming in and availing themselves to teen services, at least pre pandemic and assuming the post pandemic. We look at adding a part time teen services library. I'll have more to report to the board and finance committee in coming weeks in terms of how we're going to view that. But those are, those are the positions we'd be looking at. So to the last point of the long range plan. So all along. From the start, this was assumed to be a four year override. And such that in FY 24, it was presumed. Another override would need to be considered. We had certainly hoped, as I mentioned earlier that by budgeting revenues conservatively that we would be able to whittle down that deficit in FY 24 and make whatever override that could be considered something that would be in line with what previous overrides have been. That again, those revenues have not played out through the pandemic. So as is included in the budget that was sent to the board last week, you'll see that in FY 24. There is a projected $7.5 million deficit, increasing to $18 million the next year in $23 million the year after that. Without anything changing, passing an override to cover those three deficit years would be much, much larger than anything this town has ever considered or passed before, probably much larger than any community in the Commonwealth has passed before. So we are in a period of time where tightening our belts, making sure we're scrutinizing both revenues and expenses is as important as it's ever been to the town. So we're, we're focused on that through this budget cycle to see what we can do to make that number smaller in FY 24. And we'll certainly be looking at it in FY 23 as well, because it really only have these next two fiscal years to have that impact. So, with all that said, I just want to reemphasize the unique nature uncertainty of this budget as it's been put together and as it will be considered going forward. I want to reemphasize that four part school funding strategy that we've considered, again with the most consequential piece being holding back the growth factor until we know more about enrollment. The level services town budget, attempting to exercise fiscal responsibility while recognizing the importance of investing in both public health and diversity equity and inclusion. And again, the need for us to continue all of us collectively to work towards decreasing the deficit that's currently projected for FY 24. So I think that concludes everything I wanted to share with the board tonight. And of course I'd be happy to answer any questions board members might have. With that, I will turn to Ms. Maher. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First sort of a basic question. Not a sarcastic one. Normally I get the actual budget book by January 15. And for some reason I didn't am I the only one who didn't get that. Actually don't have one either. Normally by January 15 of every year. It's basically either we pick it up at the office, which we wouldn't do or be sent to our house. So I'm really kind of handicapped by my questions that I probably would ask if I was able to review that so I guess I would ask the town manager. And the reason why I didn't call you about this, Mr. Jacqueline was, I was just waiting and refreshing my novice agenda thinking maybe it would be there and then I would ask the office to get me a hard copy but I know definitely tell me I know I sent the full electronic copy to all board members on January 15. And in that email told board members that hard copies were being provided to the select board staff, and that they would be arranging to deliver those hard copies to the board. I physically witnessed Sandy bringing Sandy and Julie bringing those hard copies to the board's office so they are there. I can, I will talk with the board's office to figure out what happened there but they were provided on January. Okay, that's fine you can pass it on to the select board office but it's the town manager's responsibility to deliver them to us. I'm just trying to defend my office. That's really not fair to say that, because I have been asking the select board office for it and you all say you delivered them. So, I got something delivered on Friday from the select board office because I asked them to do a hard print, a print copy for me, because my print has been on the whack of the agenda materials and they've done that so. I'd ask you not to dump that onto the select board office it's not their responsibility. So with that I'm a little handicapped in my questions. Regarding the health compliance officers. Did you say they were two part time people. There are two full time positions to full time positions and approximately what for salary and then add in the incidentals. Approximately salary of about $62,000 a year each. There are people that are right now primarily working as contact tracers for for the spread of the virus. And that's just their base salary that's not insurance and longevity and everything else included. That that's their base salary correct. All right, so we can pretty much double that. And the reason I'm saying this is, you know, we're talking about the last long range planning committee I was at when we're talking about this exorbitant. So, you know, 2425 25 override, it really kind of shook me to the core and I know one of the first things is, you know, operate with that you have and hope to carry through. So, I would ask the town manager regarding the 62,000, which is 124,000 and pretty much half or three quarters that for. Benefits longevity retirement things like that. I'd like to see exactly what their activities and I don't know what the people aren't the people I know and interact with I apologize, but I'd like to exactly know exactly how that is beneficial. And something we can stand up and say that that we need to continue in terms of contact contact tracing. And I'll leave it at that. I know I have something I could say more than that but I won't. I understand the permanent permitting engineer for the inspectional services department. I believe again you said was part time what would the salary be so the permitting engineer position is the only one of those that we talked about being a full time position. It's approximately a $70,000 a year position. I would, I want to reiterate that is what we've sort of put on what I'm calling a waiting list it's not currently being proposed. It's something that if revenues from the state are better than what we're expecting we may consider proposing. But it's not something that is currently part of the recommendation. And again because I don't have the budget book, I would have been able to see this and have individual conversations so I apologize to my colleagues for going into that and again that override number that I heard at the long range planning committee really shook me to my core. And I think we need to really evaluate a lot of this and when I do get the budget book physically in my hands I will have a conversation, not here to select board meeting but with the town manager, and then, if appropriate, bring it to the full board. The public records part time public records position. What's that projected at the figure that we've placed on that was a 35,000. That's just based salary that's not any, anything added to it with that include health insurance and the like. It would likely be a position that we would keep under the hours that qualify for health insurance. That's again a position that with all due respect I would ask, you know, perhaps if we go sort of the per diem route, because I have been following the public records requests. As I don't want to say ambitious I don't know what the word is but they really have with COVID-19 sort of not been as much of an influx as I think perhaps when we were considering this so that's something that I don't know that we actually need a designated person, maybe if we could get per diem, maybe if the manager could look at adjuncting, providing an additional stipend to somebody on his staff that could handle that and then if it gets to a really heavy influx that we saw about a year, a year and a half ago, that we go out and hire someone per diem and not incur all of those other costs that would be something I'd ask you to consider. I understand the time team services librarian. Just a question on what that salary would be that's approximated at $26,000. To me that sounds like given the current circumstances. I'm in agreement with but not, I'm not anti adding positions it's just, I think I've made my point on that. And then I was wondering if am I correct. I think the manager Mr chapter lane that we do have a new facility director on board, or is that person not yet started. The new facilities director started I believe two weeks ago now Mr Greg Walters. So he has started. And that means that Jim Feeney will be coming back to the town manager's office actually start the first of next week. And perhaps with the. And I think Jim is exemplary, but perhaps with the public records requests that scenario laid out is somebody else picking that up and maybe the need to hire someone per diem if it's added to get heavy again, but I would just make a request. When appropriate recognizing Mr Walter has only been on the job for two weeks but in light of that it's not in our bellywick, which is in person learning that the schools, I'd be interested in what the facility directors could provide only after it's been provided to the superintendent of schools and the school committee, a report on what a safe learning of our schools here in Allington would look like I know Jim Feeney as the acting facilities director last summer, provided something to the superintendent school committee, and then I know I received a copy of it and I think it was still chair afforded to my colleagues if we could kind of get that sort of report again. So how do we open our schools safely, not saying when, but how do we do that, what needs to be done, and the implement implementation of that so, but I'm not making that as a request from us first. I'm assuming that that that's something that our colleagues in the school committee and the superintendent. I've already asked for, but if you could kind of put us in the pipeline to get that afterwards. That's very reasonable. And then, um, again, when I get the budget book, I'll definitely have conversations with you, Mr Chaplain. I'll just reiterate my point on the school side only because I live the special education journey with a severely disabled child. One of the frustrating points for me and other parents I used to think is because of my politics and who I was on the board and that my child wasn't receiving services they should I realized it wasn't me it was the circumstance that if you have a severely disabled child here in Ellington to get the services that under law, they say you should get you're gonna you have to hire an advocate and attorney and my husband and I did is we just pay tens of thousands of dollars out of our pockets and I just would ask reiterate my request that really look at special education, especially under transportation I've said this to lots of people one on one but, you know, for the 22 years, my child, who's six years out of the public schools for the 22 years. I've been in the system every year under the special education but budget there was $10,000 for transportation from my child, which I drove my child every day to Newton, other cities and towns Lexington, where they went. And there was no charge for that so if you just take 20, well, 20 years times 10,000. That's going to be looked at because I'm just saying this is someone who walked in those shoes that you know you have a child that you don't want to be in that group that you're in you don't want to be in that club that you're in. And the services because you have a child with high needs special needs that can help them be a better adult young adult adult and adult, and you just can't get that money and when you see it allocated and you see special education money being carried over, or reallocated somewhere else, it's really frustrating so whatever we can do through long range planning to kind of get a hand on that, and definitely under the transportation costs that's always been going to be in my bonnet so I look forward to I will contact the select board office tomorrow to make sure that they speak to the town manager's office to see how you all are going to expedite. I cannot print out that budget book. My printer went out about four months ago and just started working from home two weeks ago, but I can't justify buying a new printer right now. Thank you Mr chair I apologize for taking up so much time. Thank you Mr chair. Well, look at me, I appreciate all the uncertainties me when I used to watch this process me one of the big uncertainties was not knowing what the governor was going to do for budget. He didn't tell after this meeting me so there's lots of there means lots of me that can happen on the federal front. So, so a, you will give us an update, I'm sure at some point in the near the intermediate feature so I look forward to hearing that I just have a few minor questions mean a little quick just kind of more curiosities I'm going to keep them limited because I noticed some vacancies in DPW and police and and fire. Any chat or those going to remain vacant for a while or any plans to fill those. We had held positions across most departments, vacant positions, we held them vacant for the majority of 2020 just to be sure that we had some budgetary flexibility of things got worse than than maybe we even expected. We sense started to move to fill some of those vacancies we are moving to fill all of the police vacancies, and we're moving to fill the majority of the public works vacancies. So we were still being prudent and not, we don't want to leave ourselves with no room in case something bad you know there was a negative turn budgetarily, but we are now moving to fill the majority of the vacancies you see in the book. Great, great. And I don't know if this is the venue in which one can make me minor requests. He's growing up in a household that did not have a lot of money to say the least, you know, you know that when you don't have money, you don't really ask to spend stuff. I mean, one thing that I would like to see us try to do is a little more public outreach, and I can see that in a variety of venues I think it's one of those cases where you can get a lot of return on your investment being something that could maybe help us mean when we do need to ask the public to do hard things. I mean, so, so to an extent that maybe we could find a few a couple thousand dollars. Hey, to maybe throw at some public outreach through envision our own team or something like that. I think, I think we can make it work for us, but I understand that money's really tight and so I just toss it out as a idea, maybe when we have a little more we can, we can apply it there. Thank you. Thank you. Mr curl. And thank you to the manager for and Mr pooler and the whole team for the work and putting this together. I also just had a few questions. Firstly, the mechanism that's being proposed to reserve out funds around the potential enrollment growth. Is that similar to the mechanism that was used previously to to guard against fluctuations and special education spending I remember there was a special reserve fund that was under the finance committee's control and if so, are we going to have to have a warrant article to create the reserve fund for that purpose. So we're thinking of it as almost as we think about the current operating reserve so we're trying to not think about it as a stabilization fund but rather an operating reserve that would be encumbered and set aside specifically for this issue of enrollment. So we would attempt to do this through a vote on the operating budget, but then the funds could be accessed via a vote of the finance committee and not requiring a calling of a special time meeting. Okay, great. Thank you. Also I had a question on, you know that that gap between the 2.6% budgeted growth in the, in the town side expenses in the three and a quarter percent that's allowed under the under the formula. I mean, is that gap. I mean, I think Mr. Diggins actually started hinting towards part of my question. Is that gap strictly a gap around potential investment that's not being made or are there some costs that are being being held back to to restrain that growth. So it is, it is a level service budget. I mean, I guess what I was going to ask before Mr. Diggins asked his questions whether there were existing positions that were being held, held vacant. It sounds like your anticipation is that they will not be held vacant going into the next fiscal year. That's correct. Yes. Okay. Okay. So my last question is if the state funding comes in to allow you to go forward with, with the, some of the other proposed roles, are you anticipating that the compliance officer within inspectional services that even though they're recorded to be held in inspectional services would also have a coordination wall with Board of Health or other departments that may share some responsibility and enforcing the good neighbor agreement. Yes, that's a great point. Yes, they'd have to I think keep I think positioning them in inspectional services makes the most sense given their role in the good neighbor agreement but yes that we would have to make sure we had tight coordination. Fairly with the Board of Health and other departments as well. Engineering would make sense as well. Okay, thank you. I just asked because I know that we've all been pulled into constituent issues around these types of things and it does seem to be a multi departmental response that's required sometimes. Yes, it definitely is. Thank you very much. Welcome. Thank you, Mr Chairman and thank you Mr chapter lane for the presentation this evening and talking about the challenges that that that we face in this budget season and over the next several years and one of the difficulties here that that we have is is that our time manager act requires that a budget be produced on January 15 and so we're at a point now where there are so many unknowns that it's difficult to present a document that the manager is required to present the document and we attempted to start addressing that a year ago and I'm holding off on it by by trying to address the date, because it makes it very difficult and in here for some of these issues with the schools we're not going to know until next October 1 when enrollment numbers come in, what, what's going to happen with the enrollment growth figure and probably with the general budget number as well so I appreciate the challenges that the town manager Mr James Wayman in particular have have had to confront here and in the in the second to last paragraph of the the budget message. The manager did state that as the budget process evolves and more information becomes available, the estimates and recommendations will be adjusted as required and that's that's that's what's going to happen and and we have a meeting just half of February for the long range planning committee and we've got a couple different processes going on here and the individual budgets are developed and approved by the finance committee in long range planning works on the long range plan and and of course the goal here is to push out the period between the budget and the school provides as long as possible while while still providing services and we're difficult decisions have to be made they they will have to be made over the next two years. But I think it's, it's just really hard I mean we don't know what the governor we have an idea now what the governor is going to do but this this budget document didn't didn't reflect that we have a lot of unknowns we have a lot of discussions going on between the finance committee or school department in particular in terms of how you take a look at at budget numbers and if there are going to be any surpluses in certain areas, are they returned to the general fund and impact free cash or or not and we're going to know a little bit in the fall and we're going to have to continue here and you know there is going to have to be ongoing budget messaging and to Mrs. Mahon's point that you know there will be further discussions and we're going to we're going to need those further discussions and I think you know this document over the next two months before Tom meeting could change significantly or could change I mean I think the significant changes probably could be next fall and we get a better idea about things so I can see the difficulty that that you're going through here when I was on the finance committee I went through two recessions, and you have a lot of unknowns as you go through the, the budget season you try to do the best you can and I think the ultimate goal is to take that deficit in fiscal 24 and try to eliminate it so that you know our commitment that we made in the last override is that we wouldn't go back to the voters until fiscal 24 our history as a town has been that it's been much longer periods between and I hope we can it can achieve that net that stuff through looking at expenses it's it's looking at revenues and and frankly it's looking at growth in the community as well and there is some mention of that in the budget message that you can be between potential increases to the to the tax base. And while that's not something that that that you're going to drive every decision on that they're all related. Okay, and so I, I, this is more of a commentary tonight than any questions for the manager we we have had some discussions about the budget but I understand the difficulty that that that you have here and you know what what we're going to go forward with and maybe as we go through the season. Maybe we get another budget presentation or message in February, and maybe another one in March as as we have better information. Thank you Mr Chairman. Thank you. I was going to make a similar comment. I know we had taken that up last year and we had some pushback from the finance committee regarding the dates for the budget submission but in the next couple years more than ever. The uncertainty of state aid is going to be a key factor in our budget so I think it's definitely something to take another look at to. We have the presentation we have a little more clarity as to what our situation is, but I think Mr course he covered that very well. And then, just on the enrollment growth figure. So the million dollar set aside. So is that, and if not describing this correctly. Let me know. But so in the event that all the students that left last year came back and then we got back on track for normal growth factors is that million dollars going to be enough to cover that the additional growth factor funds that we need. And this that number is calculated on the assumption that they get, they get back to status quo. And they then go over that, and we calculated it based on what we had already been calculating as an anticipated number for FY 22. Yeah, I think is there a risk that it comes back all the way and even more than we expected in FY 22. Yes, I think that's a low probability risk, but there there is risk that that could happen but that actually that wouldn't be a unique difference for the school department because we've actually always funded their growth on a sort of a prospective or retrospective basis, where we give them the growth factor money based on what their growth was the year before. Yeah, so. So I think this puts us in a good position to be able to get to where they likely, you know, likely the ceiling would be in terms of a rebounded enrollment. And I think I just wanted to make sure that we had enough to anticipate at least all the students coming back, which it sounds like that's the case, because of the target. Well, I think so I just to be clear, our operating assumption is so that they not only didn't have the growth, but they're down almost 300 students. Right. So my assumption is that they, they have as much if not more money than they need this year based on the reduction in students, such that by maintaining that number and growing it by 3.5% that they automatically would be going into FY 22 with an adequate amount of funds, based on that, based on that premise. Yeah, and I only say that because, you know, I know a lot of people that have kids in schools right now, and I have a number of people that are outside the district, and just about everyone I know will is coming next year. But that's not to say, you know, it's unlikely that everyone comes back because some people to new school they like it there and they'll stay but I would anticipate a good amount of those people that left this year are going to be coming back next year. As long as we're prepared for that and sounds like we are. And I did just check my email I apologize and I must have checked out early for the long weekend so I did, I did see the budget email that you sent me. All right, so with that. I don't think we have any additional comments. Do we have a motion. Mr. Carl. Move to receive. Yes, and Mr. Corsi. All right, attorney. Hi, we have a motion by Mr. Carl second by Mr. Corsi. This is not. Yes, but I still like to get my copy budget book. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Kuro. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. All right. That brings us to our consent agenda. So the first item on the consent agenda tonight is meeting of minutes January 1 2021 we're going to take that one out separately. So, Mr. Carl. Yeah. So I'll take the meeting of minutes from January 4 2021. Are you just going to extend. I'm going to stand for my yeah I was. All right, Mr. Corsi. Yeah, move approval. All right, Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Carol. abstain. Mr. Hurd. Yes. All right. And then that takes us to the rest of our consent agenda. So adding one item to the consent agenda for approval. Black History Month banners. Crystal Haynes. All right. Human Rights Commission. Then we have reappointment, transportation, advisory committee. Three. Ray Jones. Term to expire at 1231 2024. Reappointment, zoning board of appeals. Sean O'Rourke. Term to expire. October 2023. Reappointments. Term to expire. January 31st, 2024. Board of Health. Marie Walsh. Condon. MD. Cemetery commission. Brian Hasbrook. William McCarthy. Conservation commission. David White. Constable. Roland Demers. Disability commission. Paul Rea. Darcy Devney. Equal opportunity advisory committee. Augusta Hayduck. Jack Jones. And Bob Rea. Darcy Devney. Equal opportunity advisory committee. Augusta Hayduck. Jack Jones. And Barbara Bolts. Historical commission. Diane Schaefer. Pam Meister. And Joanne Robinson. Human Rights Commission. Kristen Bauer. Library Board of Trustees. Adam Del Molino. And Amy Hampie. The LGBTQIA plus rainbow community. The LGBTQIA plus rainbow community. The LGBTQIA plus rainbow community. The LGBTQIA plus rainbow community. The LGBTQIA plus rainbow community. The LGBTQIA plus rainbow community. The LGBTQIA plus rainbow commission. Lisa Krinsky. Park and Recreation commission. Leslie Mayer. Veterans council. Jeff Bellton and Steven Sattel. If he have a motion from Mr. Dana's. I'm motion to approve this consent agenda. And Mr. Corsi. Second. All right. And any additional comments, Senate Carroll? No, I just, I was wondering are we including the other item that was on the emergency addendum on this consent agenda or several. So I read it. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry. Yep, no problem. And Miss Mon. Any comments. No, I would vote yes. I don't know if. I would vote yes. All right. Miss Chaplin, do you know if Chris wanted to present anything on this. Hi, good evening, everyone. Can you hear me? Thank you. If you could just explain a little bit more about what actually the request is and what it will look like. Of course. So I, I, I know it would be great. We were a little bit a couple hours late in submitting the, the actual images. We actually had a really exciting co-sponsorship with the commission on arts and culture here in Arlington, who helped us provide a stipend to the artist this year, which is super exciting. And so the artist. Rachel Demond is an actually is an East Army. Who is now based in Roxbury. We put out a statewide call and we ended up with Rachel's designs, which was super exciting. And basically the theme for this year's banners. Which we intend to hang along a mass, having East Arlington because last year we, we had the banners, the large, larger banners that go from Broadway square to town hall. The 16 banners there. So we wanted to make sure we had a presence in East Arlington as well, further a larger presence in East Arlington. And this year's theme was fighting for social justice. And so Rachel chose. Six particular, actually it's five individuals in a group. And one group. And they're all black female. Figures in, in history and modern history that are fighting for social justice, which includes Angela Davis. Ella Baker. Marielle Franco. Marsha P. Johnson. Santi Belair and the. Combahee River Collective. And these are all folks who, who are connected to the civil rights movement. And so she created six. We're going to, because the banners are kind of small, a mass of, we're going to repeat them. And so this is part of our black history month series that we, we are making annual on the HRC. You know, last year we, we had, we were able to have events in person. We had a lot of events in person. We had a lot of events in person. We had a lot of events in person. We had a lot of events in person. We had a lot of events in person. We had a lot of events in person at the HRC. You know, last year we, we had, we had, we were able to have events in person this year. We can't. So this will be in, in addition to the banner unveiling. We'll have a virtual meet the artist with Rachel. Where folks will be able to get to know her, her background in East Arlington. She was super excited about this project. Cause she felt like growing up as a black woman in East Arlington. She was super excited about this opportunity to be able to do, to put black women up in East Arlington and have other girls like her feel seen. This, there will also be a black history month read aloud with selected works with students from the high school. We were hoping to pull in some with help with some of the digs and stuff like that. Maybe some little kids, but can't manage that the high school kids have got it. They're very excited about being a part of this project. So we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're having our, having our webinar on having difficult conversations. And so we're in the process of secure, difficult conversations around race. And we're, we're in, you know, some, some negotiations with facilitators around that, including Dr. Amante Jackson, who's worked with several school districts around. In and around greater Boston and things like that. So we are, so we're, we're, we're in the negotiation process with them. Thank you. Turn to the board for any questions. Mr. Jenkins. Sorry about that muted myself. No, this is great. Miss Haines, you know, it was really, really great and living in the East. I look forward to seeing them. I looked at the pictures of banners and being there. They're impressive. I also liked that. It is educational because we, these are lesser known figures. And we've seen that everywhere. And I wanted to, I want to say that, I want to say that we are able to hear about the issues we're facing. And hopefully sometime we'll be able to do the East. And the center. And you know, I'm just thinking we don't have, I don't think we have any place to hang banners. In, in, in the heights. So maybe. We do not. Yes. Yes. We did. So I think we need some of those folks on the. All aton Heights. Neighborhood, action. Plan. Implantation committee. I think that got that right. We need to get to work on that. Ms. Haynes for doing this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. DeCorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you Ms. Haynes for the presentation tonight for all the work that you've been doing on the Human Rights Commission and with the community conversations. I think it's great that Rachel Demond is the artist. She went to the Hardy School and it's wonderful that she's been selected and I look forward to seeing the banners up on MassF. Thank you, Ms. Lohan. I just had one question if I could through the chair to Ms. Haynes. We have a color copy of the banners that will be placed in East Allington in the center. I'm just wondering, is there going to be any sort of identifying or other information on the banners in terms of if somebody drives by and says, oh, I know that's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but I'm not sure who that picture by Rachel Demond is. There going to be any sort of identifying markers or a website or something else? Are you anticipating that with your outreach program? That's where you'll disseminate that information. Yeah, so like last year, what we'll do is we'll put all the banners, including the ones from last year, up on the Human Rights website, where you'll be able to scroll over the, where you will click on the descriptions and have reading materials connected to them. Okay, thank you. I just want to thank you and everyone else that's been working on this in terms of really opening up our Allington community and not just educating them, but getting them interested in looking into something that they didn't really know about before. And I know they'll be really inspired that once they look to the information and get it, they'll appreciate more living here in the Allington community. So thank you, Ms. Haynes, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so much. Mr. Carroll. Oh, thank you very much. And thank you for all your work on this. I mean, I loved the Black History Month banners that we had hanging last year. These ones just really pop. They're beautiful and they're bright. And I love the fact that you partnered with the ACAC on this as well. I love to see that cooperation, I guess. To quote one of your banners, Lunion Fela Force, Unity's Strength. So thank you for all of the work on this. And I really look forward to seeing them go up. Right? And I also just want to thank you for all the work that you've done. And this is exciting. This is always a really nice event. And when we can see these each year, up and down Mass Ave, it's really a great thing to see. And this year is, you know, you talk to yourself. As generally happens. So I appreciate all the work. And while I have you here, congratulations, that was a great event on MLK Day. You know, it was, you know, that's an event that we look forward to it each year because it's fun and it's a great celebration and really important. And it's tough this year with COVID, but it really was a moving event. So you did an excellent job. So appreciate that as well, all the work you do. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you all so much for your support. Thank you. All right. So Attorney Hyme, we have a motion by Mr. Diggins, seconded by Mr. DeCorsi. Mrs. Mahon. I would vote yes and as Ms. Haynes for next year's MLK activities. If there's anything else, if the world gets back to semi-normal, that we should add to that. I'd kind of like to make you the purveyor of overseeing that. So yes, thank you. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Currow. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Take us through our consent agenda. It is now nine o'clock with the... Mr. Weister. That was my fault. I tried to have removed Crystal and I accidentally clicked on Mr. Hurd. I apologize. My back. That was not an attempted to on my part. All right. Sorry, Mr. Okay. All right. So it's now nine o'clock. We have a long agenda item coming up by a show of hands or comments to the board. Would anybody like to take a break at this point? I get like five minutes. I've got like three phone calls. Sure. Just five minutes. Is that okay? Yep. So it's nine o'clock now. We'll come back at nine o' seven. How about that? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All right. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Yes. It's an administrative matter. It's a board discussion. I have a very brief PowerPoint timeline with respect to the new GAR update. It's totally up to the board whether or not given the meeting, you'd like me to go through it, but I just wanted to put that out there for the chair's discussion. Yeah. I mean, I think it would be helpful. Yeah. Thank you. Coming back here. We are now at the public hearings. It is seven 15 p.m. So we have a CDBG performance update for program year 2020 to 2021 by Mallory Sullivan, our community development block grant administrator and CDBG requests for fiscal year 2021 to 2022 funding also by Mallory Sullivan, our community development block grant administrator. Mallory. Good evening. Yes, I'm Mallory Sullivan, the community development block grant administrator and the department of planning and community development. I haven't had a chance yet to present to the select board. So I'm, I welcome the opportunity to speak to you tonight. So I do have these two agenda items. The first is the mid-year report and this on the current year's program activities. And the second is an overview of program year 47. So if it's all right with you, I will speak to both of them. And we do have several sub-recipients who should be in attendance this evening who had requested they can speak to their programs afterwards about both of these. Thank you. So this is the town's 46th year receiving funding from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development as an entitlement community through the CDBG program. These funds are used to support a variety of activities that benefit Arlington residents, especially low to moderate income households for the purposes of housing, public facilities and parks, public services and economic development activities. So for some updates for our current year, which is the program year 46, currently the town is in the first of a five year consolidated planning period. And this year the town was awarded an allocation of just over $1.1 million, which we were able to supplement with program income and unappropriated funds from prior years for a total allocation of approximately $1.6 million. So I'd like to acknowledge that our sub-recipients have made impressive efforts toward their anticipated goals, which are the figures they stated in their applications of the numbers of individuals they anticipated serving, the number of housing units established or other measures and other metrics. And in particular, they provided these critical services to clients this year and continue to work on their capital projects despite the disruptions brought forth by the pandemic, which of course weren't anticipated when they submitted their applications over a year ago. In terms of housing and rehabilitation projects, the Housing Corporation of Arlington has used funds to support its capital improvement on HCA's affordable housing portfolio, improving 26 units or the buildings in which those units are located to date. And this work of course has a wide range of areas that it affects from roofing to furnace work, painting, siding, installation of hot water heaters and many other necessities to maintain housing portfolio. For our public facilities and improvements, there have been significant strides that have also been taken toward improving and building public facilities in terms of making spaces safer and more accessible and more resilient. The Wintermoor Park project, there have been some delays partly due to the pandemic. However, design services for phase two of this project, which is the CDBG funded portion are currently out to bid with design work as well as construction anticipated later this year. So CDBG is funding just the second phase and this is just part of the overarching three phase project. The Department of Public Works continues its curb cut ramps and this fall completed curb cuts at Eastern Ops at Situit Street and Newport Street. Now, because this funding request in particular was made after the normal application period, unappropriative funds were allocated through a substantial amendment and the CDBG funded work began later than it typically would in September. The Town Hall Plaza project is well underway as everyone who's been by Town Hall at any point and lately knows. The restoration of course is addressing the barriers at the main entry Plaza. And I believe they are taking a hiatus for the winter conditions but will commence again in the spring. And lastly in the area of public facilities and improvements, we have two nonprofit sub recipients, Arlington Eats and the Food Link, which have both been working on capital projects that have made significant progress this year. And I believe we have representatives from those two organizations. So I will let them speak to the details of their projects later on this evening. For our public service activities, many of these sub recipients are also joining us. So I'll provide a more generalized update for you. The public service activities are doing very well in terms of reaching their goals. Many have already achieved their metric goal or are nearly halfway there at this mid-year mark. In total, nearly 2000 individuals have been served through these programs, meaning that altogether public service programs have achieved about 75% of their collective goal for a number of individuals served. And this is just halfway through the program year with the providers continuing to serve existing clients and new ones for the remainder of the year. And I just want to spotlight that these agencies, of course, are responding to COVID-19 even if that wasn't the intention of the services. So just for one example is that the Council on Aging's Transportation Program is driving individuals to COVID-19 tests and delivering necessary items to those who are in quarantine. For economic development, this year $50,000 was originally programmed for a workforce development program which couldn't take place due to the pandemic. This money, this funding was reallocated, reprogrammed to the Arlington Small Business COVID-19 Relief Program in support of micro enterprises. An additional allocation, which was made possible through the CARES Act, was also allocated to this small business program and overall between the two sources, 25 businesses have been supported with grants of approximately $10,000 each. And finally, in planning and administration, our department has participated in a number of CDBG-funded projects, some of which I mentioned earlier. Notably though, I would like to mention that the annual Town Survey and Division of Arlington is currently open and will be open through March 1st. So I encourage anyone who has got to take that to hop onto the website and to interpreciate. If there aren't any questions now, I would like to move on to the program year 47 requests but I'm also happy to take any questions now. Let me just run through the board and just see if anyone has any questions about the update. Mr. Dagon? Thank you, no questions. Mr. Corsi? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Sullivan, no questions. Mr. Carroll? Thank you, no, that was very thorough, I appreciate it. Mrs. Mahan? Ms. Sullivan, touch on this. I just wanna make sure I understand. We have regular CDBG funding allocations. We also have the funding on the CARES Act too that provided relief to small businesses. I know the original CARES Act, the town started an effort with members of the planning department and some volunteers to reach out to small businesses that might not know how to get this information. Is the CARES Act too small business funding included in this? And if it is, has that been successful or do we need to relaunch that outreach program again? So the CARES Act funding was actually per HUD guidance it's programmed into the 2019-2020 program year annual action plan. So I believe the, we have a new program that the application period closed last week and that was a separate program from this one. It reaches a larger number of businesses because it has fewer restrictions in terms of various eligibility requirements. So that program did receive adequate applications. So does that answer your question? I think it does. I think when we originally started the program we didn't see the number of businesses for the allocation that was allotted come in. So we did that outreach program but from what I'm understanding you're saying is under the CARES Act too, the outreach or the knowledge is known and an adequate number of businesses for the allocation has been reached. That's correct, yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You're welcome. All right, Ms. Sullivan, you can move on. Thank you. So for our program year 47 requests, program year 47 of course begins on July 1st of this year. We expect an entitlement of approximately $1.1 million which is in following with allocations from recent years. And as you can see in the materials that were provided in tonight's meeting documents the CBBG program received 18 applications. One of those was from our department for planning and administrative purposes. There are also numerous returning applicants requesting funding for ongoing programs and new activities. I'd like to just briefly touch upon a few of the new requests and then turn things over to the sub-recipients in attendance. A few of the new applications include the house incorporation of Arlington which has submitted a proposal for CBBG funding. That would be HCA's equity for the acquisition of a building at 1021 Mass Ave for development of affordable housing units. Caritas Communities is a new applicant. It's an agency dedicated to preventing homelessness. And Caritas Communities has made a request for funding to improve two affordable housing residences in town. And a new economic development program that the Department of Planning and Community Development has made a request for is aimed at bringing technical assistance to small businesses in town. This program is modeled after the current technical assistance program that is set to begin soon as part of the pandemic response program but it will be open to more businesses in town providing different areas of technical assistance from e-commerce and live commerce website development bookkeeping and more depending upon the needs identified. So from here on out the next steps will be an application review including two meetings with the Select Board's CBBG subcommittee. These meetings will ideally take place over the course of the next month or so at which point we will hopefully have recommendations regarding which applications to fund. So I thank you for your time this meeting and I'm happy to take any questions at this point. All right. Does Board have any questions before we go to the individual applicants? No. All right, so I have a list here. I don't know if you know who's in attendance but the first person that I have here is Caritas Communities. Do we have a representative from Caritas here with us? Yeah, I think you just raise your hands. So there's two hands raised there. I see them. Hi, Mr. Neke, can you hear us? Good evening. Mr. Chairman, Select Board, thank you for hearing me tonight. Can you hear me? Yeah, can I just ask you a brief question because it is a Christine Shah who has her hand raised as well. Is she with you? She's the Council on Aging Director. Okay, yep, sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for hearing us tonight and having us an opportunity to present in front of you this evening. My name is Tom Ney, I'm a resident of Allington and I live at 76 River Street in Allington and I work for Caritas Communities where a nonprofit affordable housing company founded back in 1985 and we have two different buildings in Allington. We've owned one for 29 years and one for 23 years and we own and operate our properties to provide clean, decent, safe affordable housing to low income and very low income members of society, some of which have been homeless in the past and we try to give them an opportunity to have a nice, safe, decent home for themselves and to help better themselves. We come to you tonight. We've had a little bit of a challenge over the last year or so with some expenses that have come up on our properties. We had one building up in Allington on Fresno Road. We had a sewer line that failed on the rear of the property that we had to connect to the main line of the street and we had a boiler fail in the property this past year along with the challenges in the pandemic it just became a situation where we were looking to continue with our development and capital planning for improvements at these locations. And we thought that it might be a good opportunity to see if we could request some CDBG assistance for those projects. So we have a total of 20 SRO single room occupancy, shared kitchen, shared bath, living units in one property and 15 in the other. And one is at, as I mentioned, 22 Fresno Road in Allington and the other is at 12 Russell Terrace in Allington. So we come to you tonight in hopes that we may be able to present ourselves in the way that we could gain your support for our recommendation of some bathroom renovations at our property at 22 Fresno Road along with some exterior walk in driveway paving improvements. The buildings, they're well over 100 years old each and the property at Fresno Road we've had for 29 years and really haven't had any upgrades on the interior baths or any of those areas. So that's a primary cost of a request and along with some additional improvements to as I mentioned to the other areas but I'm happy to answer any questions. We have a couple of other members of our team on the call are Sarah Fendrick who is our grants manager and Victor Martinez who is our chief operating officer. So thank you for taking the time to hear us tonight and I'd be happy to answer any questions I could. All right, thank you. And I'll turn to the board, Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Between the two locations at 22 Fresno and all Russell Terrace, I think what was said by applying for the CDBG monies if successful, would that open up? And it's okay if it doesn't, would that open up any other matching funding or similar funding to go towards these two locations? Mr. Mead? Yes, we have a commitment of 29,250 dollars that Kerry Toss would be using to help leverage the CDBG money assistance, yes. Okay. If that answers your question, I wanna make sure correctly answering it for you. No, I guess just to expand upon that, if you did not receive the CDBG monies, would that preclude you from any caritas funds or any other nonprofit or other funding? Certainly, I think that it would certainly push any of these projects down the road until we had, we were able to obtain additional funding to help support those projects. We haven't done them in years past and we've had planned to do them, but we ran into additional expenses, as I mentioned earlier, that kind of put us in the situation where we are today. So it would, if we weren't able to obtain them, we would need to delay the work. Okay, thank you. You definitely answered my question and I do appreciate that. Besides looking to only can CDBG funds, you're also looking for a partnership for some other tie-in for some other funding that will make this successful. Thank you, Mr. Harper. Yeah, Mr. Crow. No, I have no additional questions. Thank you very much. Mr. Corsi. No questions, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. No questions from you either. Thank you. All right, thank you, Mr. Mead. Thank you. And we will just, this is public here. We'll go through all the applicants that would like to speak and then we'll open this up for a public comment at the end for any members of the public that want to speak on any of the items they can do so at that time. So the next that I have on the list here is the Housing Corporation of Arlington. Did just see. I just... Hi. Yes. You hear me? That's why she's not on the list that I'm looking for. Yep. Hi, Ms. Hallett. Hi, how are you? There we are. Good evening. Nice to be here. I want to first say that thank you very much for the funds that we used for last year for our capital improvements. We replaced seven different boilers or furnaces, put on four roofs and sited a number of our buildings. So our tenants are much happier this year, much warmer and have no rain falling in on them, which is terrific. The new project that we're bringing is our... We're just negotiating the purchase and sale agreement now. It looks like it's going through. We're in the final stages of 1021 Mass Ave. We're hoping to be able to put 18 to 30 units there. We also may be able to negotiate a purchase price for the building next door to it, which would allow us to do a larger development. But we're not quite sure if that one's coming through yet or not. But I also want to point out that you've also given us a lot of CDBG for 19R Park Ave. So our two buildings there are more than 50% complete. If you've been by recently, we've got brick and siding up and windows. And we're very excited about that. And our building at 117 Broadway is coming along beautifully. It's a little bit slower than the other two, yet some trouble with that resource. But we're very excited and we hope you all have noticed it because we're very pleased with it. So thank you very much. All right. And I will turn to the board for any questions, Mr. Carl. No, no questions, applications. Pretty thorough. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. No questions, thank you. Mr. Corsi. I have no questions, thank you. Ms. Mann. I have no questions, but thank you, Ms. Hallett. For everything going on down the square and everywhere else, I'm very excited by it. Thank you. All right, thank you, Ms. Hallett. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. All right, next group that I have on here is Arlington Boys and Girls Club. Do we have anybody from the Boys and Girls Club if you could just use the raise hand function on your Zoom application? I don't recognize anybody. Yeah, I don't recognize any names. All right. Arlington High School at Athletic Scholarships. Okay, so there's no one there for that, right? Oh yeah, I don't see Jella, I can't get the questions up. All right. Arlington Housing Authority. Anyone from the Housing Authority? Nope. Arlington Youth Counseling Center. Hold on. All right, so now that takes us to the Council on Agents and Ms. Shaw, still with us. Good to use you. Good evening. Hi, how are you? Good, how are you? Thank you so much for having me and I promise to be as brief as possible given how late it is and to respect everybody's time, but I'm happy to join you all today. Last time I was here last January when we presented our applications for CDBG, it was before any of the pandemic was even a thought on anybody's mind. So I'm really proud of what the Council on Aging has been able to do as a part of the three applications that you so generously funded for us last year. And we also were able to be awarded a special COVID-19 related CDBG fund grant for a technology loan library that I wanted to briefly update you on. That library to date has created really an inventory of about 60 Chromebooks and about 20 hotspots that older adults in Arlington who did not have access to technology before the pandemic were able to reserve through us. We have a volunteer team of individuals who are on call to help people set up their devices and help them use them. So that has been a really great CDBG funded program that we were happy to establish in addition to the funds that were part of the year 46. And for year 47, we did submit three grant proposals for level funding for three very big areas that we serve. I'll briefly explain each of them. One of them is for our transportation services program. Even with the pandemic going on, our transportation never stopped. We are receiving calls every day from people that need to get to important medical appointments. They need their pharmacy runs completed. They need items from the grocery store. And although we have done our best to have our older adults in Arlington and they have really done an amazing job of staying home when it's very hard to do so, there are times that they have needed to go out for important reasons. And our transportation, I'm proud to say, has been available to them even when Uber was closed for a little while in the spring and even when the MBTA cut back services, we're still there getting people where they need to go. So we've put a lot of COVID precautions in place. Our van drivers only drive one person at a time. Of course, we follow all of the masks and social distancing. And up until August, we were able to offer our transportation at no charge to people that needed it during the pandemic. People really appreciated that because only the most necessary of trips were happening at that time. And it also was able to, we didn't really cut back on the amount of cash that was being handed between our drivers and our riders. So we were happy to be able to do that to support the older adults in Arlington. One of the other big programs that CDBG funds for us annually is our volunteer coordinator position. Again, given the pandemic, we went from about 200 volunteers that for the council on aging to about 300 in one year, which is a huge difference. And that's because people need volunteer assistance right now more than ever. We've had great partnerships with Arlington Eats. We've had great partnerships with organizations in town that really have helped us recruit new volunteers. All of our food service programs that we run for nutrition access, such as our partnerships with the Greater Boston Food Bank and also our farmer's market that we run were delivered to people this year because it was not in their best interest to come out due to the pandemic. So we had lower risk volunteers pick up items in the driveway of our center and drive them to people's doorsteps and call them when the items have been dropped off. We also have numerous volunteers that are doing telephone call reassurance program wellness checks weekly to folks that really don't have access to technology and we don't have the ability to check in with as much. Just old fashioned phone calls work really well for some people and the volunteers that are working on those are very, very important and are reporting to us how folks are doing and what they need from us. I mentioned the volunteers that we put into place that are helping people with technology. Many of our older adults in Arlington do not have access to the internet. And like I said, needed a hotspot to be able to go with a Chromebook to be able to access technology. So we have volunteers that are talking them through over the phone, you know, how to plug in their laptop, how to access our virtual programs. All of our programs that we were running at 27 Maple Street, they are happening over Zoom. It's pretty impressive. Every single day we have at least 60 people signing on for exercise classes and talks and lunches and we do some drive through events where they pick up a coffee and then Zoom with us over the internet. And that's all completely different than we thought we were gonna be doing when we talked about these volunteer programs last year, but they've changed a lot, but they're still very important in a very different way. So we're very lucky to have CDBG's support. And finally our adult day scholarships that is funded through CDBG annually is still very important. Our partner, co-opter of elder services was of course like everywhere else in the pandemic they were closed for some time because of the direct contact that they have with their clients, but they have since reopened and there is a huge need, as you can imagine with all of the social isolation for older adults to access adult day programs and they've started, you know, following limitations, but re-enrolling folks from Arlington to be able to use their services awarding them the scholarships through this grant and we foresee that getting back up to normal numbers as soon as vaccinations are more widely rolled out. So thank you very much for all of your support in the past and I'm happy to answer any questions about any of our programs. Thank you. Ms. Mon. First I wanna thank Ms. Shaw. I've over-indulged on providing her as a resource to our seniors here in Arlington and I definitely appreciate that. And I know it's part of the job that you wanna do and you do do. I just wanted to ask in light of Governor Baker's statement today regarding his press conference today regarding the vaccination program and how people, seniors and other individuals need to sign up online on the state's website at mass.gov slash COVID vaccine. I'm thinking of seniors like my parents who live with me in their late 80s who don't have email, don't have a laptop don't have a computer and don't really have access to that information. And I understand Ms. Shaw has volunteers that are working with her. But I'm wondering in terms of what outreach, how do we reach those seniors here in Arlington whether through the Board of Health or the Council on Aging or others? What I'm asking you is what resource can you give to me to provide to seniors that don't have the technology that really on websites online and can't access them? What is the advice I should give to them through this program that hopefully you'll get some CDBG funding from but more importantly, access information on a vaccination program because there's a lot of questions around that in terms of when you're eligible and how you get it. You're exactly right. And a lot of our, that's really our job at the Council on Aging and we try to kind of see that coming. And the fact that people are needing to sign up for vaccinations online is a hurdle. So really any of the town vaccination clinics that roll out for Arlington residents people can register by calling us at the Council on Aging. And we're making that clear. We're under the Board of Health and when we get to the point and it's gonna be soon that we're starting to open a vaccination clinics for our older adults in town will pretty much be doing it all over the phone, the registering by and signing up for a vaccine slot by phone. All of our staff will be doing that. So really anytime there's something that's required online, people can call us, we'll assist them in signing up or if they're interested, we'll try to get them technology if they're interested in learning or using it. And some people aren't and that's completely fine. We just, we have plenty of ways of doing things so that they can be comfortable. We can do things via conference call if they wanna do things on the phone or just old fashioned over the phone and we'll type it in for them. Okay, so what I'm hearing the message is A, if you're a senior and you don't have the technology to do that, me as a member of the select board or anyone else is gonna give the Council on Aging phone number to kind of walk you through that. And then I don't know that this is your ballot work but developmentally disabled adults. I'm not sure if that's your area of expertise but if somebody is in that group, can I also refer them to calling the Council on Aging or someone else at the Board of Health if they don't have the technology or the expertise to maneuver their way through that? Of course, yes. And we'll assist them or we'll put them in touch with the correct person who can help them for sure. No, thank you, Ms. Shaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yep. And Ms. Viggins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Shaw. And this is a good work that you're doing. And I know that you are also participating on the advisory committee for the sustainable transportation plan. And so I'll be able to talk with you more about some things related to transportation. But just a couple of quick questions. Have you noticed any increase in demand for your transportation services since the MBTA has got back on services? We have, yes. We have and it's not necessarily just related to the bus service or the tea service but a lot of our folks are very dependent on the ride, the MBTA ride. That actually has been running the entire time throughout the pandemic as well but on a more limited basis. So a lot of folks that use that service or even don't feel as comfortable using the bus because of the number of people on it but our van is much smaller and uses as much less social interaction. We have seen an uptick in people using our services just because it's smaller and a little bit safer. I see. So what was the cutback in the ride? It was only that they didn't cut back on funds but it was the number of people that could be on the ride at the time. So it was just a scheduling issue. Gotcha, okay, fine, fine. And one final question. So the Boston MPO, the Metropolitan Planning Organization has this plan called the Coordinated Public Transit Human Services Transportation Plan so are you aware of that? I've heard of it through the town.  Yeah, because I mean, it's really very interesting and I mean, there's a lot of programs and types of services mean that they utilize in order to help especially elderly folks in doing transportation. So I'll follow up with you more on this, but I think there's a lot of potential there a lot and so the coordination be amongst the smaller towns in the area to really help people get to where they want to go. So great work, thank you very much. Thank you, Carol. Thank you very much. As the board's liaison to council on aging, I want to welcome Ms. Shah and I'm glad that my colleagues get to see a glimpse of the professionalism and the creativity and the energy that you bring to the job. One thing that my colleagues may not see is that I know that you do a lot of grant writing on top of the CDBG requests that we have here and that's really appreciated. But also one thing that I want to make sure people are aware of is that the council on aging just went through this massive logistical challenge of trying to relocate physically all of the various programs and services to other locations to accommodate the renovation of the community center and then COVID hit and then everything had to be reinvented and I think Ms. Shah referenced that here. And so some of this request supports the folks who helped to make sure that that keeps going. So I just want to make sure that that doesn't go unacknowledged. So thank you. It's great having you as our liaison to the board for now. Maybe future board member. Thank you, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear you. I have no questions but I want to thank Ms. Shah for the thorough presentation. And I have no questions either but I just want to thank you for the presentation. Thank you for all the work that you do with the council. Every year is incredibly important to the seniors in the town of Arlington, but this year much more than others. So I appreciate the work that you do and nice to meet you. Thank you. And with that, we will move on to the next applicant. Do we have anyone from the Fidelity house? All right, Ms. Lisa Urban, Ms. Urban, can you hear us? I can hear you. Can you hear me? We can hear you now. Thank you. All right, great. I'm Lisa Urban. I work at Fidelity house and I thought it was important to give an overview of our outreach program. Fidelity house runs year round for the families that reside at Menami Manor. But now I'm also thinking it's pretty important to be brief. So first of all, I just wanted to say this year, thank you for the funding for this year. It was probably the most important year to still offer as much as we could. And I can honestly say that I have seen the most positive visible changes in the shortest amount of time for the kids. And we couldn't have done it without the funding from CDBG. Just a quick overview of the program. I know most of you are aware of what we run, but not everyone is. We offer year round program for kids that reside down at Menami Manor, their families. They camp, they come to they camp. We provide transportation there and back every day for them to get to camp from their house. Then during the school year, normally we offer free memberships and also an onsite program and scholarships to any of the programs that we run here. This year we had to modify that extremely a lot. So instead of the, we don't have a drop-in program at the moment. So the kids are now getting phased into our daycare program, our preschool, our pre-kindergarten, whatever programs are running right now, we're getting them involved in that until we can resume what they're used to. But it's been a challenging year, but an awesome year. And the CDBG funding is so important to this programming and I'm hoping moving forward, it's gonna be available. And just on the side thing, we also offer, we're part of the jobs, jobs, jobs, with mainly for our day camp. We have high schoolers that work here and learn how to work with kids and get training during the summer, but those kids that have worked have worked out great every year. And they've come back year after year and tried to work as long as they could in between sports seasons. So I hope that continues too. And thank you for pulling it out this long evening. Thanks for having me. No problem, thank you. Mr. Corsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, no questions. Thank you, Ms. Urban, for hanging in there with us this evening too. It's a late night and we appreciate the work, the important work that you're doing. Thanks. Mr. Carroll. No, I have no questions, but thank you for the work. I could, you know, like so much of what's brought forward is particularly important this year, I appreciate it. Mrs. Mohan. No questions and similar to my colleagues, I wanna thank Ms. Urban and her colleagues for the invaluable service they provide down the fidelity house. And we're so fortunate to have you doing that. Thank you. Mr. Diggins. No questions that echo my colleagues. Thank you. And I have no questions and there's a former Fidel kid. I thank you for everything that you did for me and the kids of Arlington and continue to do. So we appreciate the work. All right, and thanks for hanging in there with all the meetings. No problem. Thank you. Good night. Evening is young. We just wanna finish today. All right. So next is the Somerville Homeless Coalition. So if we can promote Mike Libby. Mr. Libby, can you hear us? Mr. Chairman. Good evening. Just tell us a little bit about your requests. Sure. And thank you to the slack board and Tom manager for all your hard work and the opportunity to for the Somerville Homeless Coalition to apply for CDBG funding this year. My name is Mike Libby. Not only am I the executive director of Somerville Homeless Coalition, I'm also a lifelong Arlington resident and live on Hillside Avenue. This year, while the Somerville Homeless Coalition has partnered with Arlington for decades in terms of providing different services for homeless prevention, housing and outreach to the street homeless. This is, as I mentioned the first time we're applying for CDBG funding to help support the work that the Somerville Homeless Coalition is doing for the unsheltered residents of Somerville. In particular, those that are staying out in the encampment at the New Garwoods area. But we've also worked with other folks that have been living in their cars behind different storefronts down Mass Avenue and whatnot. One of the things that happened a couple of years ago is the Arlington Police Department applied for a grant through the state called the Rapid Transition of Homeless Individuals Program, the state program through DHCD. And it was funded fully to provide not only outreach to the folks living outside in Arlington, but also resources to provide housing and Tennessee stabilization services once they were moved into housing. We were asked a couple of years ago to join those efforts with the health department and the police department. And we've been doing it ever since. And it's what we do. We love it. We have a great staff that has had great success with the program the last couple of years. We have moved people into housing, about 10 different households into housing over the course of that timeframe. And we're continuing to go out there three times a week with Officer Joe Kenneth, who's our homeless outreach officer through the police department. Unfortunately, the state started a great program and then decided to cut it in half for us. So we lost about half of our funding for the program as of June 30th of 2020. So we are coming to the town of Arlington and particularly the CDBG program to ask for part of the funding necessary to not only continue the outreach services that we do to the folks in the encampment and that are homeless in other areas of Arlington, but also to continue to provide the support to those that we've already moved into housing to help them remain successful in their housing so that they don't have to return to that situation. And it was very unfortunate because I feel like it's been a very successful program that the state ended up cutting it and making life more difficult for us. So we really enjoy partnering with the town on this effort. And as a Arlington resident myself, I feel very passionate about what we're doing to help the folks down at Muver. Thank you. Mr. Kerl. I have no questions. Thank you very much for what you're doing. It's such important work. Ms. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank you on behalf of the Summable Homeless Coalition. I know that myself and my colleagues have certainly availed us of the opportunity for Arlington residents during the COVID crisis, along with your South Summable Homeless Coalition, Chief Larrity and Officer Joe Kniff that have helped quite a few residents that I know I've been involved with and my colleagues have been involved with others. And regarding the MuGar homeless encampment, you all have been in invaluable service in the past and as well as we believe in the future in terms of balancing the MuGar site and the homeless people that are out there and I don't know how we accomplish any success without the partnership between the town of Arlington and the Summable Homeless Coalition because you recognize the fact that there's a lot of factors playing into each individual, not only in terms of circumstance and happenstance but mental health issues. And that's something that you really need expertise to kind of work through the waters of that. And we're very fortunate to have you all. So I applaud you and thank you for your application. I thank you and my colleagues for your previous efforts in that and your continued in the future and hopefully anything the town of Arlington can do to encourage and facilitate that will be able to do in the future. But I don't wanna say it just to say it but you're definitely an invaluable resource for every person that you touch. So I appreciate it and thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Yes, thank you. I'll echo a lot of what Mrs. Mohan said. And the more I work with Somerville, folks in Somerville on other issues, I appreciate how lucky we are to be right next door to Somerville. I wanna reread your application. I have a bunch of questions but I'm gonna get in touch with you later and discuss the work that you do and other things that can possibly be done. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Ngozi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Libby for the presentation and for all the work that you've done. And we've had several discussions over the past few months and I've seen firsthand the great work that you're doing there with your team and yourself, Hannah O'Heller and others. And it's really just a great partnership with the town, both the Health and Human Services Department and the Police Department. So thank you for that. I do have one question on the funding that you talked about that is going away. And I see in your application, there's $52,000 listed there. Is that the DHCD funding that has gone away as of last June 30th? Yes, it's a separate line item within the homeless individual budget line item within the state and it's the DHCD and that's the one that's been cut. Okay, no, that's unfortunate. Okay, thank you again and keep up the great work. Thanks, Mr. Diggins. And thank you for the presentation. I know it's been a difficult year for all, but I know you rely on a lot of fundraising and funding that sources that haven't been available. So I hope we can help you out here do great work for the town and I'll start training for the 5K for next year so that you can resume that and- Hopefully it's in person. I don't know. All right, thank you everybody. Thank you. All right, so that takes us to the rec department. Mr. Chaplain, do we have any friend? Would you have someone from the rec department? All right, Mr. Vellet. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Good, how are you? Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Zachary Vellet and I'm the program supervisor for the Arlington Rec Department. I started in the role back in March, so this is my first time presenting to the board so it's a pleasure to meet you all. So each year, Arlington Recreation uses the CDBG funding as part of our scholarship program. With that, we tried to provide as many individuals in the Arlington community from low to moderate income housing the opportunity to do a recreation-based program. As far as an update for the current fiscal year, the department was awarded $6,200. We are currently after quarter to about halfway to that goal, providing just over 22 program scholarships to 12 individuals. In terms of the request for fiscal year 22, we are looking to request $13,000 in funding between fiscal year, excuse me, fiscal year 2015 through 2019 that department has traditionally received an award of $13,000, which has been applied to the scholarship program. That amount decreased in fiscal year 20, down to $12,400. And then again, last year at $6,200. The hope and with the increase in requests is to again provide as many families in need as possible with the current time as with COVID. We think that the increase in the number of families in town is gonna go up with the amount of individuals that need help. Currently just looking at our programs upcoming as Mr. Pouls said earlier, we are scheduled to do a full slate of spring and summer programming. And that includes summer camp. So fingers crossed, stay hopeful. And we've been running programs since the later end of the summer. So this funding is so important just over kind of looking back over before me what the department has done over the last seven years or fiscal years. We've done over $108,000 in financial aid. That $83,000 has come from CDBG funding and then about 25,000 of internal scholarship. So there is always a need and we hope that this funding can help those in need and have the opportunity to get as many individuals into our programming as possible. Just wanna thank Ms. Sullivan for all the hard work and thank you all for having me tonight. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Nkorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Vaitet for the