Cool, so thanks for joining me here. Today I'm going to be talking about decentralized identity and reputation. So first of all, I'm Sina. I was previously the engineering lead at TrueBit, a project for scaling computation on Ethereum. Also helped launch this project called ETHPrize, where we interviewed over 100 engineers around the space to pinpoint shared problems around development, like deploying a test net or doing security audits and helped fund resources towards solving those problems. And more recently, I've been exploring open problems and helping at the Ethereum foundations with the grants program. So today I'm going to talk about identity. And I think identity is one of the most important problems any of us could be working on. In the blockchain space, identity plays into a whole host of things that we're all excited about. So I'm just going to kind of talk through a few of them. The first is, if you're familiar with some of the protocols that are being built, you know that Ethereum addresses are pseudonymous. You can create a new one at zero cost. And because of that, a lot of the protocols that exist, like Casper, LivePierre for decentralized video streaming, TrueBit for computation, the only way you have of keeping your participants honest is to make them deposit some stake, and then if they do something wrong, burning that stake. And that, by definition, is a one-off game. Now imagine if instead of staking ETH or some amount of monetary collateral, people had to stake their reputation and their persistent identity. And if they did something wrong, it was a reputation that would take a hit. This would give us much stronger guarantees around the space. There's a whole host of application layer things that depend on identity. One is governance. If you want to do any kind of quadratic voting, you need a sense of identity. On-chain lending relies on identity to be able to underwrite the loans, determine how risky someone is, because you just can't give money to someone who's anonymous and could disappear. Air drops, which are means of economic distribution and bootstrapping networks. It's one of the very interesting, like, crypto-native primitives that we have. Having identity would help people do these in a more nuanced way. And rate limiting and pricing. So some of the Web 2 services that we all use, and which are great, for example, Dropbox, make extensive use of these techniques. For example, there's freemium models where as a new user you get free access to the service, or there's tiered usage models, where as a pro user you get a discount on what you're doing. And you just can't replicate these models on the blockchain right now. And finally, the problem of sampling, which is kind of theoretical, but if you can basically pick an address from amongst a number of addresses, and right now you can't do this because they can be cybbled, this would change everything. This is basically, in some way, it's what proof-of-work and proof-of-stake and these various mechanisms we're trying to get at is selecting a leader or sampling a number of people from a large pool. And even in the real world, we're seeing identity become, or digital identity become more and more important. So the Aadhar program in India, it's an identity system based on biometrics and has over one billion people using it now. And you can use it to sign up for bank accounts, take out loans, e-residency in Estonia, of course, and China's rolling out this virtual ID, which could speak to alternate ways that we could provide a more self-sovereign way of doing this. So today I'm gonna talk about what we mean by identity and reputation and then talk through some of the nuances through the lens of three particular applications, governance, lending, and security tokens. So an identity is basically the atomic actor within the system. So if we're talking about Ethereum right now, each Ethereum address could be an identity. When you're buying a token on XeroX or you're staking some ETH in a protocol, that's the identity. And these addresses can obviously be backed by a human being who's controlling the private key or they could be a smart contract that has interesting mechanisms around different spending limits, access control mechanisms. And if you build up a history as you engage with the network through your identity and this speaks to the importance of being this identity being secure and why if you have a multi-sig and you have ways to recover your keys, it's important. And obviously it plays into the user experience which a lot of other people are talking about at this conference. The next kind of part of this that you should know about is this idea of a claim, which is you have all these identities dispersed around the network and each one of them can claim something about another one. So you can, identity A can say that identity B has passed KYC or that they're a resident of this country or they have this income. And these could play different. It's just kind of a primitive that you can use within different applications. And you don't really need to enforce any kind of authority here. Any, I can claim something about someone else, they can claim something about someone else. And there's a lot of awesome teams working on pushing this stuff forward. Project like Zeppelin, TPL, Bloom, U-Ports, ERC 725 and 735. There's different architectures like storing these claims in a smart contract registry, storing them with the user in a more self sovereign way. And this is kind of an area of active experimentation. And what do we mean by reputation? Reputation is when one of these identities kind of builds up trust over time. So it goes from this state of being just this anonymous, Ethereum address to an identity that people can trust. And you can think of this analogously to the real world. So think of you just hearing of an engineer for the first time who you've never met before, you don't know anything about them. How do you know if they're any good or if you should work with them? This can happen in one of two ways really. Either someone you already trust goes out on the limb and is like, no, this person is amazing. And through their trust you take a chance on this person. Or that graph of trust isn't there and instead this person just shows up and does some good work over time. And through their own good behavior they build up their reputation. So we can use the same two kinds of ideas on blockchains. So let's talk about governance a little bit. Governance is really important in this space as it comes to decentralized networks upgrading without a central party making that choice when it comes to allocating funds and making decisions as a whole. And we can't really replicate the model that exists in the real world which is one person, one vote because obviously you can spin up multiple addresses and civil the system. And so what's been happening so far is coin voting which is you have the scarce resource which is the number of tokens you have or the amount of ETH you have and you stake this ETH and your voice in this vote is determined by how much you stake. And this works but it has this problem of being plutocratic which is people with more money get more voice in the system. So this all speaks to this need for decentralized civil resistant identity. Civil resistant meaning one person can't spin up multiple identities and it's decentralized meaning it emerges from the network. And this is one of the hardest problems that exists in the space and I think anyone who wants to work on an interesting research problem should go and attack this. And I'll just talk through kind of a thought experiment of how you can think about this. One method of approaching this though no system has been built that fully achieves this. So I think that there's some protocol let's say one of my favorites zero X that wants to upgrade their contracts. This is couple like some time in the future and the system is fully decentralized and they want the network to vote on whether this change happens or how it happens. And one way you could do this instead of doing the coin voting is you could just announce that any Ethereum address who wants to have an input on this we're just going to airdrop 100 vote tokens onto them. And so you just give this to everyone on the network. And obviously you can't just like get these people to vote with these tokens because it would be civil. But what happens instead is there's a campaigning period where anyone can use the existing social channels to campaign for their voice to be heard. So the core zero X team people in the community developers anonymous reddit commenters everyone would make their case for why they should have an input into this. And they would list their Ethereum address next to their name. And during this month of campaigning you go and allocate your vote tokens between all these other people and whatever proportions that you want. And now once the month is over you take the vote. So everyone just cast their vote once. But instead of counting each vote as equal or equal to the number of tokens they had instead the naive way would be how many vote tokens did they get allocated to them by the community which would already be pretty interesting. But what you could do is actually run page rank on this which is Google's algorithm for ranking websites. So you would say this person person X received all these vote tokens to them. So their voice obviously matters and you can imagine Will in a mirror from zero X receiving all these vote tokens. But then you wouldn't stop there.  And those edges themselves have more value and this wasn't determined by any centralized process. It's just a property of the network. People, someone gets a lot of votes from the community and because of that their own votes become more important and then in turn that person's votes become more in turn. So this process converges and is a really interesting idea. The problem is that this approach also can be cybbled. So you can, if you have the real trust graph here of all these people allocating their tokens within the real Ethereum ecosystem someone could just spin up a thousand addresses and replicate the exact same structure on this side. And this is why this is an open problem. So some ideas there are having globally trusted peers, maybe like 10, 50, or 100 addresses that kind of everyone agrees should be trusted. And you kind of start the graph from them and you're like who do these people trust? Who do they trust? And this has a way of bringing the network to grounding the network. Another approach is to requiring a scarce resource to create an edge. So you could use those zero X tokens to create these edges and that makes them means that one person just can't create an infinite number of them. And the final one is you could pattern match from the top down. So you could say that these addresses seem to be trusting themselves within this cluster but no one from the outside is trusting them. And the next problem is how do you actually incentivize these people to allocate these tokens correctly? So what makes you spend the time and the due diligence to find out who to give your tokens to and what prevents you from giving this to just bad actors in the system? And there's ideas around using collateral and requiring people lock up some value that they get back in time or if these edges actually come to existence as a byproduct of existing behavior. So a great example of this is in the web itself where Google didn't go to all these people and tell them to point to each other so that the PageRank algorithm could work instead someone who's building a website personally just wants to have good links going out because that means that their website is more interesting and they get more traffic and they're just doing that in a selfish way. And that in turn means that this PageRank can be built on top of it. So there's projects exploring this in crypto as well like SourceGrad which is doing it for a GitHub. So this is a really interesting area to explore and you should all kind of look into it. Next kind of application we'll look at is lending. So lending intuitively makes sense as a place where we all should look for applying this blockchain technology. It's a global network, you can write code instead of legal contracts, it's self enforcing. But then again there's a problem. You can't just extend the line of credit to an anonymous person because they can disappear, they can take that money and run. And so there's a few ideas, I'll kind of talk through a spectrum of them here. And my goal is to show that the identity systems that we build are nuanced and relates to what we're trying to achieve on the application layer. So there's existing companies in the Web2 world that give out loans to people without credit scores. And they begin by lending really small amounts. So let's say it's a village in Sub-Saharan Africa, they start by lending out $5 a month or till the loan is paid back and then as this person builds up reputation, they increase that amount. And this has actually worked. These are successful companies actually making a difference in the world. But the critical thing is that they all rely on this person's real world identity. So they use the person's contact list and GPS location and if they have identity information and they use these things to underwrite that person's risk and know that in the future, if this person exits the system that they don't let them in again. So this is how these systems have been able to build up trust over time. And that's not really available to us in the crypto space if we want to build fully anonymous, decentralized lending systems. And the example of this kind of was shown in earlier when this awesome company, BTC Jam, which was doing Bitcoin lending in the developing world, a lot of people were very excited about it but there was just a lot of exit scams. So people would build up their reputation by borrowing, paying back in time, not defaulting.  And then they'd start over again. So how do you solve that? Another idea is, okay, let's not do this decentralized anonymous thing. Let's do peer to peer loans in a user's own community. So in their own village, people trust them socially so you can do that. And that wasn't possible before either. We can use blockchain technology to enable that. There's a few questions there, again more on the social layer rather than the technology layer, which is does our community actually have the capital to lend, like is that a believable idea? And the other one is, do people like to borrow a lend from people they know? If you think about it right now would you take out a loan from your friends or would you lend to your friends and how would that impact your personal relationship? So some people, there's some research that shows people actually behave better if you do that because of the social accountability and there's a bunch of people who think that people would rather have this relationship with some bank and not involve, have the separation between the person and the financial life. So again, things that we need to all think about. And on the other side of the continuum is, okay, it's actually not using the blockchain for peer to peer lending, for building up reputation. We're just using the blockchain to simplify the payment rails and make it global and automate the settlement. And the case here is that even the peer to peer lending marketplaces like Lending Club and Prosper and these companies that have been built over the last 10 years, even though they're peer to peer, most of the volume comes from institutional investors. And the catch is that if you talk to these institutions they actually can't go off of peer to peer claims. Like it's not good enough if 10 Ethereum addresses or your friends in the community say that you have this income. They actually need to know that. And when it comes to KYC and AML they actually need certified authorities to do that. So again, it's like you need to think about how what the application is as you design the identity reputation layer. The final thing I wanted to talk about is security tokens, which have been getting a lot of attention recently. And the case makes sense. So the idea is that there's all these real world illiquid assets like real estate, art, private company equity, and you can tokenize them. You can open them to global markets. People can own fractional amounts and it seems like a value add. And maybe this would open up ownership to people who aren't in the US. Someone could own a piece of an American company even if they live in Asia or in Africa. So we actually looked into this because we were researching identity broadly. And it turns out that if these issuers are in regulated countries themselves and because this is in the name is a security token, the compliance means that they're actually on the hook for who buys these tokens. So they need to run all the traditional processes that they would have to in the real world on the buyers. So KYC, AML, accreditation, OFAC lists, debarment lists. And that's fair enough. And then you think about what you could really change on the identity layer and you realize that again, peer-to-peer identities don't work because this issuer is actually legally on the hook. Like they will go to jail if the government realizes that someone didn't have the KYC, AML. So they need to rely on certified authorities to do that.  And this is what, you know, an awesome company like Bloom is doing right now. So the attestations come from regulated authorities, but the user actually holds them, they reveal them when they want. But there's other things you need to navigate here. So these providers, the attestors, actually their incentives are right now, you know, if a user is going to buy five different tokens, each of those platforms does the KYC wants and this like provider like makes money from that. So by putting this stuff on chain, you're actually like lowering the redundancy. So there's a lot of kind of case-by-case nuances that you need to navigate. And so just wanted to kind of give some context, you know, beyond the key management and the user experience and these things which are all really important and we need to work on to make this stuff viable for people who aren't, you know, who aren't in the space like so they can actually use this stuff. But we need to actually think about what use cases we're building for and design with that in mind from the architecture layer. And that's what I'll leave you with. We do have about four minutes, do anyone have one to ask a question? Okay, down there. Hello, Dmitri Bispalovic knows us safe. Let's imagine that you have solved most of the problems that you were talking about. In this case, what would be the major problems for the adoption of the decentralized identity? Decentralized meaning it's not pegged on the real world. It emerges from the network. Maybe in this case, like maybe it depends on the problems that you were talking about, but in a sense, what would be the adoption barriers for this kind of thing? So the question is what would be the adoption barriers to an identity system? And I think there's multiple aspects to this. One part of it is you just need to have like a very compelling use case where people are coming in and using, because this technology still, it's hard to use. And one thing you notice is that identity in the web2 world has always emerged as a byproduct of an application that people actually wanna use. So there's been attempts to build more self-sovereign identity on web2 from 10, 15 years ago. But eventually what became people's identity was their email address because they were just using it to communicate with everyone. Or was their Facebook login because everyone had it and people had originally joined to build relationships and stay in touch. So I think a key part is actually having use cases that pull people in. And then beyond that, it's security. So there's a lot of good ideas around having different keys with different levels of permissions, different key recovery mechanisms, because you just can't lose your identity. And most people aren't gonna have the level of understanding of the technologies, be able to do that stuff hands-on. And the user experience. So even having to understand claims or transactions or delegation or all these things need to get abstracted over time. Which I think I'm hopeful will happen given how many great people are working in this space. But it's all stuff we need to figure out. Thank you. Whoops, hi. We're working in the self-sovereign identity space and I would be curious what's your opinion about the major challenges to get the current understanding of self-sovereign identity, either the approach of Uport or Sovereign or whoever. Where do you see the major challenges to get it on a broader level towards the people? Or even here in the room. So basically take that crowd and not just the ordinary person if you like. I think this speaks to why it's important to think of the design consciously upfront. So if you let it purely emerge as a byproduct of the application, then you don't really know what's gonna happen. All these claims might be on chain and it might be, it might completely lack privacy or the dominant service that's getting all the traction might just store all the information in a centralized server. So it's good that we're thinking about it upfront. I think, I mean I've seen some approaches that are pretty interesting. Like again, talking to the Bloom team while you're here would be like they have a pretty interesting go-to-market strategy. But yeah, I think it's use cases, user experience, security, just kind of things. That's gonna have you be able to do that.


I'm going to thank you Sean. I'm going to call to order the finance committee meeting of December 5 2019 at to order at 3 excuse me to 40 p.m. And I'm going to start by advising all present that we have one person who is participating remotely pursuant to 940 code of mass regulations 2910 and it is committee member Kathy Shane and I'm Going to ask if she Can let us know if she can hear Us from this room. We will be needing to use the microphones of course, but that's for Amherst me And for Kathy to be able to hear us Kathy can you hear? Okay, so Everybody agrees that they can hear Kathy then we've met that requirement there are a Couple of additional things we should notice this will have to be included in the minutes that this remote participant and that we have included the Information that we could hear her and she can hear us and the other thing is to just put you on notice that Should we take a vote on any issue later during the meeting it will need to be by roll call vote and I think that that takes care of that logistical issue so I'm going to immediately get into our agenda for the day Because there's two items that I think are particularly important though. We have a longer agenda than that But the first two items are the other discussion about the preliminary financial projections for Fiscal year 21 budget planning the document that was presented at the meeting in which financial Projections were presented to a joint meeting of the council school committee and the library trustees and That document contained a proposed initial Budget and This is typical of the process that has been used for many years What would happen in? Mary Luke can add to this Issue wishes because she's shared it more recently than I have but the finance committee would traditionally meet even that evening or within a week And be able to ask questions of the finance director and town manager if the town manager is available about the assumptions recommendations that he's making and then the committee would make a decision as to what to include in financial guidance that we wish to offer as a finance committee and What we're doing now is adopting that procedure for the new council format of government and But we are starting at that point. We're taking the financial Projections from the budget planning document and the financial projections meeting and Opening it up for questions and discussion within the council to make sure In this committee to make sure that we understand and then we can move into the preliminary budget guidance that we Think is appropriate to give to the town manager so the first item is to see if there's any questions or discussion about the financial projections and Sonia Aldrich is here. She has on the screen not the entire financial projection Document I have that if and she might also with the graphs of people of questions about that but in particular what she has on the screen right now is the Pages from the actual underlying Excel spreadsheet that is presented on those two pages I think it's like 41 and 42 roughly of the Financial projections that have the income and expense breakdown as suggested by the town manager at that meeting and Because she has it as the Excel spreadsheet. She has access to underlying spreadsheet information so and should note that Dorothy Pam has now arrived at the meeting and Dorothy we Just started in introduction Kathy is participating remotely so we have one remote participant and And and we just did a very brief introduction to the first topic item, but they actually haven't talked about it So that I will open it up to see if there are questions that people had about the financial projections presentation and the proposed budget pages Hi, Sonia, I was looking through the presentation and there was a I Had a question about what the sort of employee benefit cost Increase has been historically Prior to last year they were increasing quite a bit because our We were self-insured and we were having a hard time keeping up with the claims that were happening So they they increased I believe almost 10% over Um, was fiscal year 18. We had already had it an increase of 3% we had to increase it three more times so we did a whole lot of Research and went out to bed and got fully Looked at fully insured programs So now we're fully insured last year. It was a point six percent increase So it went way up and then it kind of went down and leveled off We're not sure what the increase is going to be this year. We're assuming between five and six percent I'm hoping and I'm hoping it's going to be less than that this year. We won't find that out until next month Okay, so we will know before yes, because I just looking at the historical and I realize things have changed. It's a it's a depending on which graph you look at it either the benefits or the the debt service and fixed costs sort of doubled over 10 years or if you look at the other Chart they went up about 50 percent. So at the same time, so I don't have I know it's It's probably just the way you cut the data But anyway, I think that's that to me is an Unknown because we all know what the healthcare market is like So we'll we'll see We should have that we should have that number end of January Yeah, I think that it's usually announced in general terms of at the Mass Municipal Association conference and Which is at the towards the end of January and then I think that they send out a specific information to Organization to town cities and towns that buy their insurance from the Mass Municipal Program, which is what we're doing now Right. I just want to clarify that our employee benefits health insurance is part of our operating budget So it doesn't stand alone outside of the operating budgets. So we get two and a half percent. I mean we proposed We projected two and a half percent increase for all the Entities town elementary school region in and we have to pay for our employee Benefits within that budget. It's not outside that those budgets So I know some cities and towns Treat it like our retirement like a retirement assessment and it's outside that Do we know what the Hampshire retirement plan is? Oh Yeah We just received their retirement information. We have to do the allocations to figure out exactly how much is going to be Part of this. I think it's going to be closer to six percent a little over six percent But we do have the numbers now. It's not on here. This This projection won't change. This was used with financial indicators. I'm I've got a working copy that I'm working on And That'll get distributed as we get more information Sure, I Did have a question about the previous question. So I've heard you say that before that, you know, the health insurance is in each Budget is can you just quickly tell us what the advantages and disadvantages of that are? It's easier to it's easier to see What a department really costs with the benefits in there with it Is it then disadvantages when we have big hikes like we did in 2018 it affected the individual operating budgets where we could have If it I don't really think there's an advantage or a disadvantage either way to be honest with you it's made out to motto It's going to be count. It's also one pie and it's going to be in a different piece of the pie rather than this piece Really? Just press hold the button while you talk it is that part of the Percentage that they're allowed to go up by department or is that separate? I've forgotten what how that works, but so it could really impact a department Right, so the town went up two and a half percent that does not mean every department went up two and a half percent We go through every department and see Turnover we calculate what what salaries are going to be we go through all the operating some operating budgets go up higher Some go lower depending on on whether positions rat it or deleted the organizations Changes like that happen all the time Benefits is a separate department of itself within the town department so it doesn't It doesn't affect the town budgets unless we had a real deficit and there was no money anywhere else to Cover that deficit. We would have to hit all the operating budgets It's kind of hard to Do you have a follow-up? Okay, so that if if the department has a two and a half percent budget This is not considered part of that That that these the two and a half percent is for the overall town budget the total of all Departments, right? But when we break it down by departments Whether it's leisure services or whatever that two and a half percent that that Benefit the percentage of that benefit is not part of their two and a half percent They don't get two and a half percent Two and a half percent is for the whole town entity or a whole elementary school entity within each department salaries go up because of job because of Negotiations and union contracts and stuff. So salaries will change with that So the part of that two and a half percent the six hundred and fourteen thousand dollars up there Some of that will get eaten up by benefits Some of that gets eaten up by the increases in salaries that were contractually obligated to put in and Then whatever is left over after all of that. That's where the town manager gets ad requests and if we have room we could add if they need more in Vehicle maintenance or grounds maintenance it would come from that little pile That was that's left. So it doesn't it's not a automatic two and a half percent increase And you live within that two and a half percent increase operating budgets don't change you have to request an additional additional funding from within the town and Personnel is automatically calculated by the finance department I want to go back to the issue of the Hampshire County retirement, which I assume is very similar to the state retirement So I have a couple questions first of all Is it true that we always only pay the same percentage regardless of the individual and when they joined the town? That in the state retirement Individuals pay a higher percentage Based on when they joined You know so for example my husband who was with the university since he was born paid five percent I on the other hand paid nine percent, but do we have that same differentiation among individuals? We do okay, but the base we pay towards is the same for everybody Yes, the individual pays percentage differences Based on when they joined the organization It's different because the retirement board does the calculations based on aggregate salaries as of September 30th every year, so they take that and Whatever is paid in it's a percentage that they come up with That they charge us for so it's not 9% gets paid for you 9% gets paid for me 5% gets paid for your husband It's not like that. No, it's it's 6% for everybody on our bill the town's bill Do we have a cap on how much people can? cash in on sick and vacation time When they retire We do on sick you can only accrue two years worth, so you can only accrue two years worth of vacation time Two years worth of vacation. I'm gonna keep two years worth on the books. Okay, and how about sick time? sick time is based on How many days you've taken off so you don't get paid day for? for a whole day what you get paid I Think it's $10 a day with certain situations $20 a day with others if you've never used your sick time and you participated in The employee health program then it's $40 a day, but that's the max and Do we cap how much someone can? Receive when they retire in sick time Yes, I know Okay, it's grandfathered. I'm not sure which unions and I'm not this is something you'd have to follow up with with the HR Department, but I believe some of the newer unit the union contracts have Put caps in place for sick time a $2,000 cap payout For new hires within a certain date or something, but okay, so you'd have to Okay, those are really it. I mean recently the university went through putting caps in right and Take time because you have to negotiate everything right exactly. Thank you Looking for questions about the financial indicators anything that was in the report that you had questions about This is the opportunity. Yes, Bob Yes, so I have a question about the ongoing capital projects, so we're increasing the capital budget to 10% of the levy and we have a long list of Maintenance etc. That has to happen over time Well that 10% cover all of those Additional capital expenses or are we gonna need? Would we need more money, you know a greater percentage in order to cover that well? That's where I think We've been having a lot of large capital program discussions and Sean's got that tool out there You want to answer that and yeah, I think Yes, I believe we will need some debt exclusion overrides to do all four projects if we're going to No, I wasn't referring to the capital project. I was referring to the sidewalks in the It's all part of that capital budget. What one of the things that I Don't I have to go back and look at the goals But one of the things that we have asked for this year is that we actually set a realistic five-year plan for what? I would want to call the regular capital projects not the big ones, okay And that that plan, you know be a lot more realistic than just shoving it off to the next year Which is what we generally have done Some of some people have even suggested they'd like to see tenure, okay? The 10% that we're trying to achieve we're now at nine and a half this year Has been able to cover Many capital projects meaning the smaller ones, but it doesn't cover them all I mean, we still have things out there that we aren't able to do repairs to sidewalks roads Vehicles, we aren't able to buy things like that However, part of what has happened is because we've been building up our reserves When as we go to fund the big capital investments before big projects What we hope and think may happen is that we can fund two of them without an override Maybe three, but we will probably have to go out for an override for one if not two of them Okay to expand a little bit because I think I To go back to a more basic level for a second If you the source document, I would refer you to if you're not familiar with it the Is the financial policies that was adopted around 2007-2008 and the financial policies I can forward copies to you, but for the public who may be watching at some point they are on the website in the budget section is one of the documents that's a Supporting document you will find the town financial policies The fight when we did that Back in the time that it was done because I was involved in that process We were spending around six or seven percent of the Amount that we measured which is the Taxation revenue and The We established we recognized that we were falling behind so we set a 10% goal This year if we get to 10% it will be the first time we ever got to 10% We have always had to make hard choices And that's what the joint capital planning committee does and then it provides advice to the town manager about what to include to Reach that 10% goal if we end up being able to Allocate 10% for them to work with It will not be enough to do everything and which is why the multi-year plan is an essential element To the process Kathy Hi, can you hear me? Okay. Yes Okay on the capital budget the third line down a debt assessment for the region and It shows up for the first time in FY 21 And my question is that the anticipated debt for the roof of the middle school? I want to know what that was. It's two ninety two hundred ninety two thousand five hundred and sixty-six Kathy, this is the first year that I've done this projection sheet completely my myself So I started singling out the showing the region debt separately then having it all put into the current debt number So that's why you're seeing it for the first time in 21 And you'll see it going forward Because it used to be all in the past it was lumped in the debt service on the sheet and The region bills us in one single amount for all agreed-upon projects, right? It's an assessment. It's really an assessment But because we consider it the town considers it part of the debt and it comes out of capital because it is for capital projects over on the region side Any follow-up Kathy? Very good So other questions So I sorry I have a follow-up so that is for the I believe Kathy asked if that was for the roof on the Middle school is that it's a combination of things I mean I have to break down and I'm happy to share it with everybody But I don't have it here, and I certainly don't have it memorized. I'm sorry Yeah, each Mary Luke can probably help with this a little bit too bit There what happens is that there's a whole process That when the regional school committee makes a decision about what it needs to do in the way of capital It sends a request to the four towns We just got one, but it actually was not new appropriation. It was as I understand that just Reallocation of existing appropriation, but if there's new appropriation it is get then it gets even more specific and If note if a town meeting if a select board wants to take it to a town meeting and a town meeting objects within 60 days of receiving it then it's not approved But I can't recall that ever happening once it gets in there then the Because frequently those are just bonded expenditures so that they're being billed over time It's gets lumped together and so it's not just a single project It's all projects. I think that Kathy's question Was generated and was logical on because it appeared to be the first time something new and that was a the most recently approved item, but Actually, it was I think that's on the answer the question beyond that Yes, Mary Lou There are some big items under region coming along though fields and a number of other things and With the new council structure Is there a way that they can limit that? or be involved in Making those decisions before those requests go out to the towns I mean one of the things and you and I were on this together Andy We really encouraged the region to come up with a capital plan Because they didn't prior to that I mean they had items they brought to the regional school committee But they didn't have the long-range plan which they now have in place But there's some major items on there so my question would be or at least to think about how is this going to be handled with The council and how are you going to review these items? Before they get on a warrant in the other towns because there is a time Certain that they have to go forward Actually, we're in a better position in one respect because the council meets here around and it doesn't have to call the special town meeting If though the if necessary to hit that 60-day window We did actually consult with town council about this question and The answer is is that the council? Has the same role that town meeting did and there's a state statute that our town attorney pointed us to that Explains this but Town attorney's opinion is is that the council has the same role as the town meetings do in other communities and The only difference is because we don't have a separate select board for if the town manager is the Brings it to the council's attention and the council can make a decision I think that what we will probably do in those Situations though we haven't really had one of substance because this last one was just reallocation of money But if there's a new request It would likely come for discussion at this committee to see if this committee has any advice to offer the council For the count and then the council will have to make a decision as to what to do So other topics because otherwise if there's not then we can go on to discuss the guidelines for FY 21 and If people Anybody here on the committee has further questions after as we start discussing the guidelines that Reflect back on this information on the first agenda item. We can always return to it So that there's no, you know, it's not that we have to now foreclose it forever discussion You should have a draft it is in the packet of a Memo guideline memo and It is a draft that is dated 12-3-19 with my initials behind it And Is in the is some of you know, it's the fourth iteration that got to this point what I did and I let me explain a little bit of the process so that It's it's understood is that I took the select board Guidelines for FY 20 which were Entitled actually Preliminary fiscal year budget Guidelines and the finance committee guidelines from last year that were presented by the former finance committee and I used those two documents And tried to make sure that I had all of the content of both documents Incorporated into one document that actually read as a cohesive whole and So it was took a lot of work the Select board piece Was really more about sort of overarching budget policy decisions And the finance committee did a little of that but act but then went into more specific guidance In about in comments about income and expenditures for the year ahead including the allocation of how much each major component of the budgets Schools regional schools library and municipal services would have so I took the Select board guidelines and that part is under Roman numeral one overall philosophy and key concerns for FY 21 and Virtually the entire content of that is from the select board guidelines the revenue then Two and three which are revenue and expenses are more are largely from the finance committee guidelines from the prior year The unmet budget needs is probably the the that in budget process are the newer sections where I really had to do some significant new drafting and One of the things about unmet budget needs is that I Recognize that the council wants to be able to give some guidance to the Or or our suggestions of things to consider to the town manager And I wanted to make sure that I had a section in place for that to happen In that there is a list section that I put four items down and I did that for the benefit of This group and the council itself. I Really don't expect that list to end up looking exactly like it looks now because that really is Something new and I was just making some assumptions so that we'd have a could get a field for language as well as some places where I thought there might be realistic content in any event based upon current discussions that are going on and The budget process was the adaptation to our new form of government so that's what the this Document is there was one suggestion made Which I thought was a good point and I can Say what it is or I can ask Mary Lou who made the suggestion earlier, and it was a it was merely a Way of phrasing things a wording change, but I thought it was an important suggestion So do you want me to do you want to say it yourself for? Use the microphone if you do Okay no, it's just for the sake of everybody else who's looking is to Try and move away from the words we counsel being the in this case is going on to being a counsel document, so We're going to have if I change it it was going to have to be to the counsel Because this is a proposed Document to the counsel the guidelines are going to be adopted by the counsel itself But we are making a recommendation of a document for counsel consideration Yes, I guess I had I was So this is a this is to Paul Backelman so And it's from the council correct So it is it the guidelines will end up under our current Charter I think the guidelines have to come from the council But the conclusion that She can speak for herself, of course And I'm sure will but the president thought that the best way to get A document that the council can actually consider and work with is to get a draft to the council through this committee and It gives this committee the opportunity to look at the in particular at the budget pieces the assumptions behind the budget and What it wants to recommend for counsel consideration But the final documents a council document so Dorothy under section Three what it mentions that this budget will have a deficit of 959,511 dollars I guess I'm supposed to read between the lines and that We think maybe more state money will come in or I'm just not sure Predicting a budget with a deficit while doing capital projects. I'm finding that confusing Let me just start with a little bit and then I'm gonna ask Sonya to follow up Because Sonya has the document at hand If you look if in prior years In prior years don't show up this actually happened pretty much every year That we would start with a deficit if you look ahead in the years beyond you see that there's a deficit line shown by the time that the town manager proposes a budget to us in May on May 1st that has to be eliminated and It is a Process to get from point from that point there are changes We I think that and so this is where I want Sonya to be able to add to it There are a lot of points where Conservative cautious estimates are made so that we're always If we have errors, we're hoping that the Revenue will go up or the expenses will go down In not the other way around Yeah, this is the very beginning of our budget process So we always budget like Andy said very conservatively we do the increase the tax levy by the two and a half percent allowed and then our new growth estimate We normally keep it at 600 We've had a lot of new growth the last couple of years and I'm pretty sure this will probably go up How much I don't know at this point? We won't know for a few more months down the road So we start off with a very conservative Estimate on that and then all our local receipts the only local receipt that I increase is a little bit on the motor vehicle excise as As you can see these are the actuals over here for fiscal year 19 Some more money came in during fiscal year 19 and it will and we as we get more trend We will look at these we're looking at fees during the budget process Whether some fees need to be raised or not that'll be taken into consideration. So these will get tweaked Local receipts will stay day. I made no assumptions that we were getting any more than last year Which is highly unlikely. Well, probably Last year we got two and a half percent Increase in aga. We'll know more about that again at the end of January So started with basic Other financing sources Which would be the ambulance fund I increased that very Minimally because we've lost revenue with ambulance receipts. We are in the process now looking at ambulance fees and figuring out When and how much to raise those fees So that that might change The problem with the ambulance reserve fund receipts is the money has to be in the account before we can appropriate it So it might take a while to recover Once we raise fees point that out This is just the offsetting entry for CPA Enterprise reimbursements indirect costs coming from the enterprise funds We've had some one-time revenue Last year I'm for this year the current year we're in too many fiscal years going at the same time here we used an Assumption of 180,000 in what they what David calls the Hopkins and bill which is construction in progress So we have a big construction happening in North Square and he's estimating that We're gonna get a hundred and eighty thousand dollars and we had a deficit lot in our budget So we wanted to we use that one about one-time revenue to Bridge that gap This year I had to take it out Because it was one-time revenue on the expenditure side Are you saying two and a half percent increase for everybody this elementary school is net net of charter and choice and We're trying to get to our 10% for capital budget and The cherry-cheat assessments I did I left with no increase there and that will happen We I'm sure the assessments will go up This is our assessments for regional lockup our retirement assessment, which we just received I I think this will be going down to six percent But I'm not sure right moment We still have OPEB at 500 So we have a lot of avenues to Reduce this deficit Maybe we can't maybe we can't do 10% this year I'm pretty sure we will be able to but at this point it's hard to tell so everything is just a starting point this changes continuously through the air until We get the cherry-cheat estimates from the State final ones Actually, I have two-part question. It's a follow-up on what you just presented Why was North Square showing up under miscellaneous as Local receipts as opposed to new growth because it's not new growth. It's construction in progress The DOR considers it a non recurring revenue and it has to be under local receipts. So it's a requirement Will it Show up in FY 21 then it's new growth I don't believe so because North Square has the tax incentive program. So I don't think it's going to show up right away Well, it should show up to some extent because we didn't give away all the taxes Just gave up some of the taxes on temporary. I mean that's a question for David Burgess when he gets back Tuesday, but Yeah, I haven't had this discussion for a while because I've been on the finance committee for a while Sandy Poole or used to tell me that The new growth was estimated conservatively with the Hope that it will increase is one of these items, right? That's why I have six six hundred up there But this does emphasize the point to why new growth is important So Additional questions Yeah, Dorothy. Did you does that was that sufficient? Yeah, maybe Think and I'll share and help me with this when we talked about new growth. We were relying on Maybe an average over a certain number of years used to be the medium six hundred was the medium we've had a lot of And it pretty much still is we've had a lot of good years because of all the new construction that's been going on Let's see if I can hide this so in 16 we were at 624 17 we were a million but 400 and something of this was the ever source Wemco Infrastructure for personal property that increased. So if you took if you were to take that out, we were still around 600 so it's an increased a Bit in 18 19 So we start off 600. It's just a safe conservative number Yeah, good So do you find this a good way to go forward is to do these averages over time And we're talking about noticing the letter not only for now, but looking into the future So do you find this a good formula? Average is in trend if you see it starting to take quite a bit then we would probably lower our estimates Let's get back to the conservative estimate piece that we referenced earlier Or that this is one of the lines that we That's essentially been done and recommended at this stage on a conservative basis because We don't want it to go down we'd rather it go up But it is traditionally which is why is we're making reference back to Conversations with our former finance director who's said that over years that that has been a major contributor to Reducing the that initial projected deficit, which is what Dorothy was asking about which started the conversation so Yes, shall any In the unmet needs talking about economic development. I wonder if We want to recommend to the town manager an additional position or something because I'm looking at other towns like Burlington for example, which are similar college towns and they have at least Two to four employees working in just for economic development Which is revitalizing the businesses Locally and doing all the other stuff and we have only one person right now that makes up our economic development office So that's something to think about how can you know with all the expenses and what? Investment can we make do? Further boost our economic development Yes, is there a budget for the economic development director as part of the town manager's budget Yeah, for the sake of members of the council who weren't involved with this It was quite a there was a period of time between when The select board and the finance committee identified the need for an economic development director until we were able to actually Create the position and it was sort of Not too long before John me sandy passed away that we actually were able to work it into the budget and had started a hiring process at that time and completed the hiring process that Where Jeff Kravitz came to work for the town in that position Was around the time that? Just before We hired Mr. Backelman to be our town manager But that was a years-long process to get from the conception of the need To the being able to create the position and then do the hire and But I think that the question getting back to where we started from which is shell in these point What we could do is put into there a recommendation to assess whether The department is adequately staffed to meet what he anticipates is the need for an economic development director and if he has any recommendations regarding expansion of staffing and then But at least get it in there and I can if there's agreement amongst the committee I can add another bullet on that There was another bullet that I had wanted to just since we're on the topic of additional bullets We had a recommendation from the downtown parking working group That had financial implications because it was adding a staff position to oversee the entire parking system and The decision is to whether that's going to be an exist coming from an existing position or be a new position and how much would have to be budgeted for it was not a part of the working group recommendation though it was sort of implied in the Recommendation that that discussion would have to take place So I was realizing that that could also be an additional bullet And of course, I expect that this as I said earlier I would think that this is the area that I really anticipate Healthy discussion in the council. Yes And this additional staff for parking could be part of the economic development Department, I mean he would be working could work in conjunction with Jeff or It seems like they're related issues and it would make our economic development department healthier It could though We have to wear that carefully because I think that we're trying to talk about budget issues and The administrative staffing issues really need to arise from the town manager Yes, I just like to add that I believe that recommendation from the committee which I was on One of the focus points that was to have a focus point So I think Andy's right, you know where that fits in is not really I mean it makes sense that it will be part of economic development But it was also just to have a focal point for both town users and for In the other thing that we could put in there on the related issue also recommended by you in the work you being the working group is to the idea of Changing from an enterprise fund to a parking district in the financial implications of that To just put that in there that We would hope that the manager would give some guidance on the subject or Something like that and just leave it We don't You know, this isn't I was trying to word it so that we're not making specific recommendations, but we're Trying to point out areas where we want thought given Because we think something's important. That's the idea that I was gonna try trying to get across then following those lines, maybe maybe just a bullet point about You know looking at the recommendations from the downtown parking working group and some follow-through on that would Suffice for that bullet point and that would cover That would cover that nice Yes the paragraph before about reserves and I Get the idea that I think one of the things is Sometimes you get money, but you don't get the money up front You have to build it and then you then you get paid by the state if it's on the state money so you'd be using reserves for upfront money and I guess I'm wondering is how low do you let it go or is it just Like something like an aquifer where water will flow in from somewhere else that you move money around all over the place Between the reserves and the free cash It's they're gonna be very very busy in this whole capital thing, but you don't let it go Be on a certain number or is it that you just can go get some more from some other place? There is no more from some other place It's just what we it's Basically, we've been our policy has been to move anything over five percent of the operating budget out of free cash into Stabilization because free cash goes away June 30th. You have to get it recertified again We're stabilization is like a real savings account the money's there you can appropriate from there. I Don't know of any plans to Take out big chunks of our reserves at this point in time, but it would it would The way reserves are built up is getting more revenue than you budget for or spending less than operating budgets So that takes time to accumulate. It's not an easy fix Shall we let's see This is more of a general comment. I saw in some in the recommendation by the MMA that They defined what fiscal sustainability is and I thought that was really helpful for people to understand What does it really mean and they divided it into cash? Solvency budgetary solvency long-run solvency and service level solvency and I thought and they gave like a little description Of what each is and I thought that was really helpful If you might want to add that Do our guidelines that was at the MMA section on budget last year, which I unfortunately didn't attend but I can look for the Document because it's on the MMA website Okay, thank you. Yes, I'd like to start on page one And kind of go through That's where I've made some comments at the very beginning. I have a couple on this page It's obviously addressed to the manager because he's in charge But I'd like to suggest that the CC also go to the school committee and the library trustees I think they need to know what the guidelines are and also there's a lot of information in here that We assume elected officials know But having talked to some elected officials. They don't know Especially the two and a half so I'd like to suggest that this document be sent to them also and and then under item One where it says municipal I know this is going to the manager for town Services, but he oversees evidently in the new charter the schools But those budgets come to him the school budget and the library budget I'm not sure exactly what he can or can't do with them. I gather he can reduce them But I'm not sure of that either. So when we get down to talking about The municipal where it says Continued evaluation of those services and improvements to enhance efficiency and effectiveness intense evaluation of the current range of Municipal services, I would like to say school and library services and their delivery methods is Critical for ensuring that we are spending every dollar wisely I guess It's not only the town that needs to be doing that it needs to be the library and the schools and As I say, I'm not sure What the manager's role is in those in the library and school budgets, so I'm throwing that out there. I'm not sure you all know the charter So you might be able to help me with that And do you want to respond or How do you want me to try? Okay, I think it's a work in progress in part, which is what makes it a little bit because we're trying to take the charter and Translated to make it work. We're also looking at What our neighboring communities like Northampton that have a lot more experience with this than we do have done because their budget Charter section is almost identical to ours and I've been told by People who are on the Charter Commission that that was purposeful Because they recognize that it was working well in Northampton the the My understanding of it is is that we're still in the same place that as in as they do in Northampton that the school committee develops the school budget and Proposes the school budget to the mayor the mayor then Includes the school budget which covers their high school too because they are just a K-12 district It's so the entire Education budget which I've been told is in two parts The other part being the vocational school is actually a separate budget But the two school budgets Go through the mayor then In the mayor's recommended budget to the council the council has exactly the same role If you look at their charter and our charter what happens from the mayor's recommendation to the conclusion And what happens from the town manager's recommendation the conclusion are it's almost you know, it's virtually the same language the So I Think that the manager Under our under the way that we have now structured it Would not want to get into Trying to make second-guest decisions once they've been Approved by the school committee of what the school budget should be The total amount of course is started with this process Which is not dissimilar to what existed in the prior form of Amherst government And but this is very much still of the details of work in progress, I think the suggestion of Making sure that the language of we recommend that services Including all things funded by the town be reviewed on a regular basis is a really good suggestion and it's a good way to handle that But We're still working at it. So Lynn So the charter I mean both the library trustees and the school committee have to approve their budget That then comes to the town manager, but as Andy just stated it starts with Sending a message one direction that says this is what you have Okay, and or this is what you should use as your guideline and then they come back and they present a budget that is in the guidelines Ultimately, you know, it comes to the council the town manager delivers it later than it they used to deliver it because the manager Delivers it to us no later than May 1st and we must approve it no later than June 30th And but we have very strict Guidelines if you will or Charter pieces which basically say you know, we can't by the time it gets to us in May We're not in a position to start sending new messages To the town manager if we're gonna start mucking around then we have to you know, it's an eye for an eye What are you gonna take out?  Yes, go ahead. I Think this is a preliminary Budget guidelines in that well, we've used that in the past because what it implies is that in the future if Revenues fall short whether from the state or our own that we can change those and that's that's why we use Preliminary I think in all the old Documents that you see it says preliminary and with the understanding that these are in place But should something unforeseen happen we might have to go back and say you have to reduce by so much Yeah, and I actually gave a lot of thought to that question when I was doing the draft and I didn't use preliminary because we really have a very different budget process now and This is a one-shot opportunity if Guess the best way to say it is to go a little bit back onto what's the difference between the two forms of government And how the budget was handled The budget belonged to the legislative branch town meeting it to a larger extent than it does now under the council form of government and So under the old form of government The manager would make recommendations on what is essentially what we're doing now the guidelines The guidelines were put in as preliminary because the finance committee wanted to have the opportunity to make changes to the document and to the budget Because the decision of what budget to go to take to the town meeting the legislative branch Was being made by the finance committee and that was a role of the finance committee under our new form of government It is the town manager Who is making the recommendation of the budget in making the decisions on what budget to present to the council and the council then so that the finance committee doesn't have the same role and therefore The council don't only does the finance committee not have the same role, but the council doesn't have the same role the council can't Change anything as a matter of fact all we can do is give guy is is give recommendations and so that's essentially why the process is so different and There was there really was no room for any Changes to the guidelines once the council adopts them under our new form of government So using the word preliminary didn't make sense. So I dropped it Yes, I kind of understand where our mayor is coming from with this because this is preliminary this You're basing the guidelines on this projection, and that's very preliminary. So it will change It will maybe I'm misunderstanding the concept, but but the problem the problem is this Let's assume that There's a change up or down in state aid. That's always an area that we're most concerned about Whichever direction it goes it's going to affect the amount of money That is available for each of the major components of the budget each of those major functional pieces The council Won't have the opportunity to go back to Say to Manager it can you know through the finance committee. We might give different Advice after hearing from the BCG, but it is really the decision of the town manager as to what to do about that increase or decrease And which is different from the prior form of government where the finance committee had to make an adjustment of What it could send the town meeting because it had to send a balanced budget to town meeting Now it is the manager who has to do that and So we can give additional guidance if we wish, but it's a whole different form Yes So you're saying that let's say we get a windfall from the state the manager can use that in Whatever way he chooses to to add things to the budget or put it in the reserves that that Doesn't come back to the council that you have this windfall now from the state. I'm just curious how that works I think that we can make an additional recommendation and maybe you are hitting on put on a good point Because maybe we should indicate that we may come in with additional guidelines if There is sufficient if there is significant additional information But the decision of what to recommend Whether to recommend that they go to one of the major functional areas or they go to reserves Will be the decision for the manager to propose not for the finance committee to propose as it would have been into the old form of government I Guess my point about the preliminary part of this is that we're using this projection You I'm state 2.9 percent increase in overall budgets and overall in the overall budget But that's going to change It's going to change Once I update the retirement it might go down. So I see this as preliminary guidelines and not really Permanent guidelines So should we do this by saying your guideline such and such a date, right? This is the information we have at this point in time I do believe in the I'd have to look at the section but in one of the later sections of the draft we've highlighted a few things that We would like to see addressed The extent to which they can be addressed may depend on the extent to which the money can be found if We wanted to now say You know the 15 15 dollars an hour for example You know, maybe we can only go to 14 state law doesn't require we get to 15 rule a certain date And it's not this year so If maybe what we want to add to that list now or be thinking of things we would add to that list But that would for me be heads up to the town manager if the if the Council approves these guidelines that would be a heads up to the town manager. Hey, you get some extra money This is where we want to see you come forward Just to answer Typically if we do get more money, then we're estimating in our in our revenues It normally falls to on is a undesignated fund balance and it becomes part of our free cash calculation unless it's Something comes up during the year that the town manager and before the tax rate is set because once the tax rate is set you can't spend Revenues that come in and it has to be Funding source. It's already there like free cash. It's been certified or a stabilization fund So he couldn't just add things to the budget if more money came in once the tax rate is set it's and of course there's a provision in the Charter if He's recommending Additional expenditures to us after the budget on May 1st It essentially is a supplemental budget and it goes through a process like the May 1st budget We've done that a couple times on a couple different points. Yes, shelling We are learning yes, I'm going to page to go ahead I'm just wondering and the very last sentence of that first partial paragraph it would say a Levy limit and some growth in state aid may allow us to remain within the limits of proposition Two and a half wouldn't be allow us to know we love allow us To something about the property tax to remain within the limits of two and a half Would allow the property tax to remain within the limits of proposition two and a half requirement See the very last sentence there on top of page two. Yes Yeah, but new growth that provides new tax revenues in addition to the allowable 2.5 increase in the levy limit and some growth in state aid have allowed us Have allowed the property tax to remain within the limits of the two and a half requirement Isn't it the property tax? Yeah, that's a good point it goes back to the prior point you raised about Trying to get away from pronouns Yeah, no, I think that it's it's a clear statement. I haven't noted on it And one of the things and I don't think it needs to be in here, but we did If you read our finance career report, we did put in what two and a half means or how it works And I just wondered if that could the manager certainly knows But I think there are committees that do not so It might be an attachment for school committee and library trustees I know I was speaking a couple years ago at the fight at the school committee meeting and and Some of them had no clue what two and a half meant and we're you know moving along although the tax rate has gone down For this coming year it we're still moving along and even though it goes back It slowly moves forward and we're not you know, it's 25 and we're at 21. It's 13 or 18 this year But anyway, so I'd like to suggest that even I wouldn't put it in this document But I would make it an attachment for the people who receive this just so they Understand two and a half as they plan their budgets Okay, I can consider a brief Statement to append and see if I can make it work and we can also Then make it by reference get to an item that's on the town website, which is the Department of Revenue Peace about explaining two and a half, but That's really where you get the best explanation other things Yes, yeah, so on the same page when a couple paragraphs down where we talk about the the other capital projects Maybe I would recommend that we put in an explicit You know Recommendation to develop a five-year capital plan or however we want to phrase that it's in the charter already isn't sure yes the charter requires that there be a five-year plan and The that's been long-term town practice So I don't think that It needs to be there as Because we already we're already required to do that Another suggestion later on on page five where you enumerate the unmet budget needs the first point, you know the level staffing for fire EMS services and I Think it would be beneficial to get a better understanding of You know how much the student population writ large Impacts the activities of the fire and EMS services. I don't think there's a real good handle on that And I think there's a kind of a definitional issue about you know, if you go to a House, even if it's a rental house for students, it's just considered the town population So and and I don't want to get into you know Improper things, but I I think it would be very helpful to know Where you know our firefighters and EMS Technicians are spending their time Yeah, let me answer the question a little bit and son you might be able to add to this Town higher to consultant a few years ago who helped do a very thorough analysis of fire EMS staffing and it was presented to the select board at the time by the consultant who did that services the finding was is that It was not the students that were driving the increase in EMS calls that actually our fire calls have gone down and proportion to Total calls in our EMS calls have gone up and the largest driver that is the aging of our population not the students It's interesting. I think you were at the second listening session or the first the first one this question was asked there and We do have A series of maps over the years that show and and line graphs I'm actually trying to get them now so that we can post them But what you really do see is It's kind of gets at your issue, but it's hard to explain Or hard to nail down. Let me just say what you see is major call areas particularly for EMS to places like Applewood The apartment complexes the campuses and so forth now For instance on the apartment complexes. Are those you my students? Yeah, maybe they are maybe they're not it just it's wherever you have concentrations of age I hate to say it or youth You tend to have more ambulance calls and as Andy said ambulance has Continued to go up while fire has gone down because of all the retardants and sprinkler systems and stuff like that Yes Along similar lines, do we have numbers for how many students are going to our schools from? Tax-free housing like you mass-based and I mean I think if you have more accurate numbers of the services that we are providing to you mass Faculty or students and so forth. I think the stronger our case can be Faculty for you mass at least Live in their own houses. They pay their own taxes. And so they're already contributing to the schools the there is a study that was done about two years ago that looked at the University housing and the number of students in those schools and There has been as recently as just this last week a newspaper article that suggests there is some discussion about compensation regarding that a couple other things, I mean, this is a very complex topic obviously and I'll have to speak for Kathy. I don't know if she's still on the call at this point or not But Kathy had been actually giving some good thought to this question and has raised a bunch of questions that have been passed along to the town manager but the University Is giving us a significant piece of money seven hundred thousand dollars for and actually came in two chunks for Ambulance and fire services and They actually increased it A couple of years ago recognizing that there were high Demand weekends That at the beginning and end of semesters essentially or beginning of the end of the school year where the Need was greater and That cut so so we are getting from the University actually Chunk of money the question is this is an adequate chunk of money and I think that that is something that the town manager is now involved with looking at in discussions with the University on The strategic partnership agreement Which is where the payment of money from the University to the town for services The town provides to the University comes from The other thing about EMS services that's very difficult topic is that we Of course can bill for health insurance or medicare if there's a transport to hospital and So that when we make an EMS call We actually receive revenue for it and You know son, you can provide details if you want details on them on it but In general terms that's always been a fairly significant piece the one place that it doesn't We don't get compensation for is if somebody calls from one of those facilities that Has a number of particularly Stabilitated elderly population or any population really and what really happened was that the person fell out of bed and It doesn't involve in the end a transport to the hospital because It's really a lift in the cyst need to get the person back into bed At that point we've made an EMS call for which we have no Additional compensation coming in because that's not billable to anybody And that's another issue that I think we're looking at To see what we can do about To address that question But It's a very big topic Especially especially since Facilities such as applewood in the past they used to Have trained their people to lift people if they felt they aren't allowed to do that anymore And it's it's created this incredible Eeking into the emergency system it's actually Facility that's not applewood. That's the biggest problem, but Yes Under schools and and students and UMass A couple years ago, and I don't know if this is the number is still correct, but They had 50 children who lived in non-taxable student housing the The Per pupil cost is I believe now 21 000 dollars a student You multiply the 50 times 20 000 and you get a million dollars Many of these students require English as a As a second language and so So for many of them, they probably get more services and should So That small bit they give us toward fire and ambulance and that's welcome But I think part of the negotiation on page three Should be that it includes not only The payments in lieu of taxes for the ambulance, but it should include town and school And the second full paragraph second line says they encourage the manager to do this To help defray some of the costs of the town and schools That they incur And and one other thing on that page then the other would be The third paragraph down I'd like more active I'm suggesting that would be more active In requesting that the state look at the funding for charter schools and choice Choice out charter especially they're going to stay with us There has to be a better way to Uh finance them without well embers because of its it's high per pupil per pupil cost Has to pay a higher amount than let's say if you have children from Hadley They their per pupil cost is lower. So they pay less So I think that there has to be Some activity on the part of the council or the manager Um and the schools to continue to push for better funding for charter schools So it doesn't take away from our public schools You're touching on two subjects and let me uh Stay with where you are right now You distinguish between There's charter and there's choice The two different things of course and you're you're suggesting both he used the term choice out and of course Our we pay choice out if somebody goes to another district we pay we receive choice in I think we have more choice in students than choice out students I was comparing Students who leave the district So choice out and charter we have to pay that if they if they figure out how to Pay more for choice out we'll get that because they're going to choice in but But for now, I'd like us to continue to push in those areas to Lesson the burden on the public schools Um Let me see if I can work. I should be able to work that in and I might just be Charter in choice and leave it at that because getting into the in and out question may be Too difficult um as far as the prior one that you talked about with the uh the university and That was actually In the prior strategic partnership agreement the one that just expired There was a provision in there that required the university to work with us to make the study that lynn referred to and um so Now that we've had the study the question is what to do about it and um the I think that it is in current discussions, but we can reinforce that That's that's fine a good addition Other things because then otherwise what i'm going to do is Summarize where we're at what we've done and then see if we want to take a vote To recommend that this go to the council with those changes having been drafted in I will work as quickly as I can to draft them send them to you so you see what I did But i'm not going to be able to I do so before we're not We are not going to have be able to have a discussion at another meeting unless we decide To schedule a meeting for the purpose To do it but We talked about May either using terms of preliminary Guidelines or making the point that we may provide additional guidelines of additional information becomes available On the cc line at the beginning to add school committee and library trustees as recipients um We talked about um in the services Area when we talk about evaluating Cost effectiveness of services to make sure that that includes all services that are funded by the town not just municipal services We talked about um attaching and something to explain two and a half In possibly with a brief introduction in the document referring to the attachment There was the um making sure that There were the property tax here added at the beginning of near the beginning of page two Strategic partnership agreement to say something more specific about Um schools We were those recommendation that we have charter and choice being added to the school language And um on the list, uh, let's see The uh Question of unmet budget need um that uh Our work those the suggestion was to to incorporated the Language from the mass municipal association Conference section that shallony was referring to And i was going to try and look for that document And okay She's we already have it so To see if that can be in some way Incorporated some of that The uh Possible expansion with a little bit more explanation of kinds of things that might be useful for the council to know because remember this is a council document It's not a that we're it's not going to be a recommendation though. We could say there would be But something about getting more information about fire EMS service breakdown For example, um The effect students and elder population Have on it and whether there's anything that can be done the possible increase in economic development staffing by asking for an evaluation of the Economic development putting in something in that list about downtown parking working group So those are the changes that I will do some drafting on and Then I would Like to see if somebody would like to make a motion that we send proposed guidelines to the council In the As drafted with the change with the changes that have were discussed this meeting incorporated in the Next version of the draft that goes to the council I move that we send the draft with the amendments to the council for their review Of at their december 16th meeting Is there a second to the motion? So as the second the motion is the motion was um made by lin second by shallowney And uh Is there any further discussion? I don't think there needs to be Okay, so, um Do we still have our remote participant? Yes, we do. She's ready to vote. Okay, so, um Um Before we vote, um, are there any additional comments or Suggestions about that would be offered to the council members from the three Resident members who aren't able to vote I just want to make sure that you have that opportunity So then um, I'll Just go in order from around around Table and I'll save my vote for last lin Yes, shall any Dorothy Yes, kathy Kathy said yes, and I voted yes, so it's five to zero um Dorothy did you have anything else before we go on to the last few items on the agenda? I'm pursuing solar power generation other green initiatives will contribute to a greenhouse gas emission received at the climate action goals And it's this next part of it just it seems awfully vague our opportunities for economic development Oh our opportunities for economic development to support future budgets It is is that referring to making A money raising solar farm. I mean I don't know what it's referring to um, that was actually language that was um adapted from the select board guidelines that were the prior guidelines and with some modification I think that the um Generate it can come in one of a couple of ways one is the way that you suggested that There might be some economic development potential within Solar generation if it is privately developed and the I we know that Cinda jones has installed solar and It actually has a a taxation benefit because it's And we also know that it's being proposed for hickory ridge and We will receive property taxation for the value of the equipment um And uh, the other is of course it produces revenue which reduces budget to the extent that they're our solar So they're they're two different pieces So if there's anything nothing else on that, um, I just want to turn back to the agenda for just a moment We have not been able to get back to the affordable housing priorities policy And I think we probably will do that at the meeting on the 17th um It's going to be quite a Challenge to do this if anybody wants to offer to volunteer to help me Send me an email after see me after But i'm going to try and take that last document that we did And start working it towards an actual memo that we can see if we can report back I think we're not going to be able to get additional information, but we certainly want to look at it, but it is a Our goal is to look at it from the financial perspective Not the housing policy perspective, but they're not entirely separate issues And we can only pull them apart as far as we can actually pull them apart So I put it on the agenda so that if people wanted to say more about it now they could um, but That was the the reason and uh, I anticipate this being a more significant item at our next meeting So there's nothing else i'm just pausing to see if there's anything else on that um Kathy do you want to say anything or do you want me to report on where we are with a percent for arts by-law? Um, can can everyone hear me okay? Yes Uh, we will be sending finance and CRC a revised by-line With a comparison memo that tells you what was changed and it should be ready start reviewing on the 17th If there's time on that agenda And of course what we will want to do is a finance committee and kathie is in sort of that dual role of being the chair of the uh Work the group the ad hoc committee. Thank you. And uh, but also a member of this committee Our Focus will be largely on looking at the financial implication piece of it So again, it's going to be hard to pick it apart entirely Anything else you want to say on it kathie or shall I go on? I think that's fine Andy just the heads up Yep, and that's really all that we're doing Um, I put on their agenda without any Knowledge as to whether there would be anything to say on it, but report on the december 3rd Major capital investment listening sessions. Um, I know I said bob at one. I've seen I think I saw council members in at least one um I think you're in your one weren't you? No but Something they were they were good and I think they provided a lot of useful information Yeah, I think, you know the weather might have cut back on the number of people and certainly The change of location may have hurt us a little bit having said that we had about 35 people at each of the listening sessions And of those those 35 people who were not On boards are part of staff So actually most of the time they were about 70 people in the room because of the people on boards and on staff so, um, we've gotten very positive feedback about the video and We're actually looking at how We can expand perhaps their district meetings and other Meetings um in key locations for underserved populations Where we might expand how we reach out to people? And we have another one two others on the ninth uh one at fort river and one at Wildwood So if you haven't gone to one, they're interesting to go to so try and get to one if you can if not um There isn't now a web page Just amazon may dot gov slash capital that has the video that was presented Is the beginning of that which is excellent. It has descriptions from The superintendent the Library director the fire chief and the dpw superintendent That were all really well done with slides that Explain the services provided and what the building limitations are and what the problems are So if you don't get a chance to go certainly take a look at the website the the web page that I referred you to against the town website slash capital and It's under the government section if you're trying to just find it from a tab the Just kathy you have a question. She just had a comment that minutes are available posted with finance committee up to date One of the members had a question about the minutes. So They're online now Okay, so the minutes are posted up to date. So, um, thank you for kathy for Letting us know to say that Just going through the next Two agenda items just again really quickly because so we can adjourn The budget process and finance committee Schedule I think we pretty well now know where it is that Assume that we will be twice a week during the month of may so that as soon as we get the may 1st budget That we have the opportunity to start meeting with the department heads on what's in the municipal budgets and the guidelines have already made a suggestion as you probably saw that once the trustees and the school committee have adopted budgets that we Get reports Possibly from the superintendent library director Earlier so that we don't have to do those in may because there's no reason that they have to wait until after the budget If that's already been approved if the manager is agreeable to that So I've made that recommendation through the guidelines There's no public to make public comments. So that can be just noted in the Minutes and The last item is that um matters unanticipated There I sent I believe I'm getting so lost the committee charge and we are going to We've been asked by the GOL committee that approves committee charges that wants to review functioning of all committees To see if we have any recommendations on changes of charges And of course they're asking for us specifically about the finance committee charge That will be on the next agenda This is really just a heads up the additional piece that I want to just just say to you That you'd be aware of it is one of the things that GOL talked about this week and told me about yesterday is that There's a suggestion was made of Combining the audit committee Into this committee so that we would function as an audit committee in addition to a finance committee And I Will want to take that up for discussion At the next meeting and if we did so Whether we would recommend That the three Resident members for the purposes of services not a committee whether it be separated out can be separated out To allow votes For all members of the committee Since it is not the finance committee as specified in the charter but an expansion of the finance committee it's a Difficult issue. I don't know if it's possible, but I think that we ought to Talk about both pieces of that When we get to it on the 17th and I wanted to say it today to alert you to the issues. You have some time to think about it Yes The The old finance committee things sent one person To the audit group and I don't know who else had members there. Sonya may know But yeah, I only had one person go Could be two so I are you suggesting that even if it's not the Non-voting residents that all five of you go to an audit committee meeting. I mean, that's a lot of work I mean, it's just it's not a lot of work. It's just a lot of time it's actually The flip side of it is that And this is the subject of the discussion next time. So I think that it's important to get there and The audit committee having served on it for myself for a number of years Really is just a couple of hours in the morning one once a year Meeting with the auditor and having the auditor go over the audit report the Of course, you get the report in advance. You wouldn't spend time looking at the audit report Before you get to the meeting so that you have some familiarity With it before you go in but Lynn the Other charge over to the audit committee is they must Come up with the process and I know Sonya is working with the president audit committee on this By how we choose an auditor. Well, that gets We're a little hamstrung on this because there's really only two audit firms that serve western mass And I don't think we want to pay a bundle more money Just to have somebody trundle out from eastern mass to do our audit. And so I think But there is a committee that is doing the guidelines Who on who is on the audit committee from the finance committee? Dorothy. Okay. So that's how we handle it this year The the charter allows us at any time to look at how we're organized for our standing committees And you know, we all kind of rushed into that As of december of last year and some people are now standing back and saying do we want to Tweak committee charges There's another piece andy that I've also been hearing and that is That things such as the housing stuff might not come to us and I have mixed feelings about that Because when it comes to issues like The cost of implementing the sustainability And we start having to make choices between whether or not we construct new buildings that are Zero energy or as close to zero energy as we can get Or we renovate which doesn't require Those start eking into things that I think are clearly and completely financial They may have philosophical clearly, but I there's other pieces to that And then one or the piece and let me just share this I am very active in two nonprofits one nonprofit Keeps a separate audit committee I that's the girl scouts of central and western mass And they their bylaws do not allow them To have An audit committee be part of their finance committee The other nonprofit that i'm very active in is the survival center and the finance committee is the audit committee And so having talked to both sets of auditors I have never been able to get a clean answer that says it's fine either way or it's not fine either way It's it's the practice is done either way Yes, uh Sonny I just want to throw out there that our Our audit committee has typically been a representative from the school finance committee Library trustees if it's going to be the finance committee, how do they interact with that? Yeah That's sort of uh, but of course now we have a finance committee that's entirely council and so that the Trustees and the school committee are not represented on the current finance current audit committee and that's another issue that I did alert col2 as we get into this question about audit committee that You know, maybe we should get back to that and it's particularly important because Um, there are elements of both that I think are audited And um, so it makes sense for them to be represented but Let's leave it at that. This was put on as this is an unanticipated item I am low to have significant discussion about items that have not been posted In advance because then there's no public notice for it and it's a matter of open meeting law Um, compliance. I think it's best practice Not to do that if he can avoid it. And so I wanted to just this was really to Raise the issue but not to have the discussion So I won't discuss it. I just want to clarify then Is this suggestion of having the resident members have a vote on the audit committee? Is this from you or is it from gol? It's for me. It was not from gol But It it it was a question that sort of is I thought about how you would apply it It is something that could be explored If we wish to do so So With that, I think I'm out of items unless somebody else has something they didn't anticipate merely Just quick In looking at my calendar You have a meeting on the 16th and you're asking us to come from 640 to 645 As some kind of vote but since we don't vote Are you really serious about our coming for five minutes on the night of the 16th? I think that it's a pencil what you'd like to do. Um, you're part of the committee and um, so I wanted You know, it's certainly Um, Don't want to have you be excluded from it Every meeting you have that choice as to whether to come or not The if you're coming though, I would urge coming at 630 for the Because if there's any public comment about the proposal for Kendrick park The purpose is we've made a recommendation and it's only A question of we said we would reserve the opportunity To modify our recommendation based upon what we hear from the public And that would be the sole that would be the discussion. So It's in For you to the three of you and for the entire For all of us, it's always in our decision as to whether we come 630 is the required public forum when we're going to spend money outside the general budget cycle And there'll be about a Three to five minute presentation You've seen it But that's when we're required to do 50 of the time Is the public comment? And if nobody here is here to comment Then we just look each other at each other for that amount of time and We do we have reserved this brief period of time for The finance committee if we have anything we want to change about our vote That we do That's it So anything else If not, then I'm just going to declare us adjourned at 435 and thank you very much. It's been a very helpful meeting