I'm calling the meeting to order at 6.30. We have any additions to the agenda? I don't see any on that. Like board memo, not a review of minutes, November 20th, 23. Thank you for sending me that contact information for Mr. Chamberlain. I forgot about it too. So I've got a schedule meeting to do that. Yeah, I know, no kidding. Yeah. What do you normally post the annotated agenda? Whenever I get it. It's usually like that morning or the. Yeah, it's usually like pretty. It's morning now, usually in the afternoon, Monday of the meeting. It's not like it's five o'clock over the meeting. No, I'm just asking. OK, it's never before this one. Is that a reasonable agenda? I'll make a motion to accept the minutes. Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I don't hear a second. I can't thank you. I guess we don't move on for a while. We can't really get it. But thank you for the second. Thank you. Yeah, we need a second. We're not I'll second it. Thank you very good. Thank you for that. It doesn't mean it ended when I'm not going on. I'm also allowed to a second. I am. But since I respectfully submitted the minutes, I thought it would be. But now made the second now. Now I read them quite. Yeah, they're fantastic. So now is a further discussion about the minute. Actually, yes. Oh, very good. Yeah, I have a question. Oh, good. You I did something for me for all of you. I happen to be looking in the direction, but that was. You were you were. Yeah, you were looking glaring. I mean, I did something a little bit different in these minutes. And I have in the past, when somebody was making an extended presentation to us, rather than say, you know, they said this, and they added that and so on. Then I just put a paraphrase of what they said and then indented the whole block. And I'm wondering, is that clear? Is that helpful? What do you guys think? Looks clear to me. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Brevity is wonderful. Brevity is wonderful. And it's easy to read. Yeah. Yeah. OK.  No. I think the notes are great. No, that's fine. I was just wondering about the length of them. It's a long, it's pretty long. We've seen for a while, but in the other hand, we had a lot of discussion. Would you like to see more detail? It's a lot of work. No. No. I do not need to see more detail. I mean, it's a novel novella at this point. Right? Wow. OK. Restitution. So is there further discussion on the minutes of November 20? Are there any corrections? If there are none, then we could make a motion for acceptance. We already have, and it's been seconded. Oh, that's why we did make the motion. So we can both make a motion. And now we get called. If there's no more discussion, all those would favorably say aye. Aye. Aye. If the ayes appear to have, they do have it. All right, we're done on that. The next thing that we have is public comment. Is this lady here for public comment? I'm actually with central home health. OK, yeah. And we do have a member of the public on the Zoom. Paul, I think he's probably near the annual request that he committee before. OK. Yes. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. OK. So no public comment. 640, we're a little ahead of schedule on the presentation of funding, request, study, committee report. And I guess that is I. And I don't know why my video isn't working, but I am here. But can you hear me? Can you hear my audio? Yes. Yeah, we can hear you very well. For the record, Paul, would you stick your name? Sure. Paul Earlbound. And I am a member of the Funding Request Committee. And I can make a bit of a presentation, but I know that you've received something in writing, so I don't want to repeat stuff you already know. But I certainly am here to answer any questions you might have. Or I can make a little presentation. No, I think we can read the changes that we have. And I was just wondering on the organizations that did not reach out. Is that just because they didn't want money this year? Some did not have the capacity for those that did respond. Like one person told me they were very tied up with FEMA, and they just simply did not have time. OK. And that was kind of the consistent thing that happened last year when people didn't submit as well. Didn't have the capacity to do it. Yeah. And what's the deadline? It's already passed. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like Washington County Mental Health Services, I can't believe it. Yeah, it was October 20th. And I reached out to people to follow back up. OK. Yeah, I just, OK. And then I have a question about something that's not in the report, I assume, because they weren't in touch with the Funding Request Study Committee, but the Vermont Rural Fire Protection Task Force's own appropriation is on our agenda for a little later on. And apparently, we've given them money in the past. 2021 is so. I looked in our history and our financial records for 2021. OK. I had it. I didn't go back and reach out to them. I'm not sure if it went through the Funding Request Study Committee, though. I did not look at that. I was looking at the Accounts Payable when they were last paid. Seems like it's something that may be appropriate through that. And they came in just very recently. That was something. Yeah, they missed a deadline by a lot. Yeah. So let's finish up with Paul, though. We'll get to the side factor. Sure. I'll just ask Paul, do you call ever hearing of anything from the Vermont Rural Fire Protection Task Force in the past on the Funding Request Committee? I do not remember hearing anything from them. No. OK. So Paul is here available. Who's got questions for him? Scott? No, everything is really much clearer. I want to thank you for the Community Harvest Essential Vermont, giving them a few more bucks than last year, which is wonderful. I'm on their board, and I volunteer. They are a lean machine. So you need to recuse yourself in this vote, and it sounds like. For that? Well, I'm on the board and a contributor, but why would I have to recuse myself? I'm not getting any compensation. No, I think it's a borderline case when it's one out of 30 or so organizations. It would be anybody. And in fact, we aren't making a decision. We're just making a decision on putting it before the voters. And I don't receive any. I mean, if you receive services, definitely it's organized nations. That's about the same thing. Yeah, exactly. Recuse yourself because you go to a library. And I don't receive any services from them. I write a big check. That's right. It was mostly technology. I think I'm misunderstanding something, but so Twin Valley hasn't asked for funding. No, they do. Since they're separate. OK, that's the way. They put the $25,000. How much was it? What's the total number? The total number they got. Did you read the town meeting? Yeah, yeah. Because when I'm there, if you saw that, it'll be a line in that. All favors, certain. That's why we only get that fall. Yes. Just from what I understand, the committee has recommended funding any every organization that asked for money at the amount that they asked for. Am I getting that right? Or did I miss something? No, I believe that every organization that asked, we found to be worthy. And you gave them the amount they asked for? What I'll say. I think that I think this year we actually did give everybody what they asked for. Yeah. And the requests were modest, given inflation and the extra demand. They were, yeah. Right. I mean, sometimes they've had to meter out the money. According to requests, they didn't always give the full amount in the past. Right. Because they pushed it up over the 25. One thing I'd be curious to hear about your discussion about the Vermont Bar Foundation, and that's something given your career history, you might have some special insight into. I'm not sure. But we gave them money for the first time a couple of years ago, and it was a substantial appropriation, $1,500. And then they didn't come back the next year, last year. And now they've come back and they've asked for $500 more than that. And $500 is more than the total we give to a lot of these organizations. So could you tell us about your conversation around the Vermont Bar Foundation? Sure. What they do is they fund Legal Aid, the legal services, the free legal assistance around the state. And a person came, made a pitch, and frankly, convinced me that they could really use the money. I know in years past, referring people to Legal Aid. Legal Aid is great, and they really could really use some more staff. And I guess others on the committee agreed that it was worth the investment in them. And it was a big request, and it worth it, I think. Thank you. And they started with 148 residents, which is a lot. I mean, that's a huge percentage that I would never have expected. They would be eating that many of our residents, which is great. Unfortunately. Any other questions? Would you like a motion, Mr. Chairman? Sure. I'll make a motion to accept the funding, accept the funding request study committee's recommendation to put it in front of the board. Yeah, we'll actually have to do that. No, no. Do you have to agree? No, we just have to say, yeah, this is great. And then when it comes time for the warning for Tom, we have one big vote on the whole way. Yeah, I would draw my vote. I think we're good. Yeah. Thank you for all that work, Paul. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Paul. And thank you, folks. Take good care. Thanks, everybody, for us. Take care. The next thing on our agenda is consideration of winter road policy. It's normally done before now, but overlooking. I am OK with the winter road policy. I would like it not to say town of Pighage on the document. It has had that for probably the last decade. Can we change that? I went at some point, I will put it at the bottom of my list. So that is a document I inherited. It's when you click it open on the website, it's embedded in the document that I inherited from first. Along with many other documents on the website that have very odd words that come up when you click. So that's having the PDF metadata. And I think for the purposes of anybody who might be watching this later on, it's just worth emphasizing that we do not have a clear roads policy. We take time to clear our roads. OK, we should make a motion to adopt. Sir, make a motion to accept the town of East Montpelier on the road 23, 24, winter operations plan. Second. Did you? I said second. Second. Is there further discussion on the motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye, that's good to have it. OK, we're a little bit early. We get central Vermont home health and process. Are you expecting more people? Yes, yes. Oh, yeah. So we can we can just fit something out there. OK. Did you sign in by the way? Oh, I did not. There's a sheet right over there. It'd be great if you could sign in. We talk about the next motion or the next item, consideration of invitation for Vermont 250th anniversary resolution. Looks like there's two different ways we can handle this. The state gave an optional. Yeah. Paragraph. So I, yeah, the two different versions of it. And it all it says is you may make funding. Yes. Say you are. So I'll make a recommendation to accept the we may fund. I read it for the reason it's at our discretion. Yeah. We don't have to exclude ourselves. Right. If we want to. That's what I thought you would do. But is that right? Yeah. It's just a lot of money that they would. It doesn't it doesn't say anything. It just says, okay, we can spend money if we want to. Okay. And the other one doesn't say anything about money. That sounds good. I think we have something to sign here. Yeah, you have the two front posts there. Nobody want to tell us about your conversation with the historical committee? We're going to put two front posts there. Read them to the point that they are interested and participate on. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Cool. Very good. Okay. I think we need a motion to do the funding option. I just made a motion. Okay. For the, for the, that one line where it says we may fund. Yeah. Okay. We have to sign this. And we also, you're making a motion. Yeah. Okay. Do we need a vote on this? We're not going to sign it. Yeah. I guess we don't need a motion. Yeah. We're just going to sign it. Oh, yeah. We don't need a motion, but we're going to sign it. No, we're just going to sign it and we'll be here. Okay. All right. Discussion ensued. Is there any more discussion on this? No. Okay. Hopefully not. Are you suggesting that we shorten discussion time? Well, thank you. Oh, you can be, you can be blunt. Unless it's necessary. You're being reported, but. Well, that's why I'm not going to be.  Clorox. I'll be Clorox. Okay. So that's the care of the appropriation discussion on central Vermont. No, no, we haven't done that yet. Consider it. Okay. We did the indication from Vermont's point in time. 250th anniversary resolution. We're still a little bit early. Yeah. Well, that's going to take a while though, isn't it? We've already seen the schedule. Okay. We can talk about our, you know, if I just want to move things along, why don't we just. We'd like to make a motion to. Consideration of the Vermont or 810. Item, I'd like to make a motion to. Appropriate $100 for the consultant, the consideration of the Vermont rural. Fire protection, task force, talent appropriation. Which is a whole whopping hundred bucks. Yeah, you can deliberate that for a while. But I already read about it. All that phenoxynol in the fund, the dry hydrant program, which is we've done it in these months of year. That's why it's a good thing to do. So that's why I didn't think we needed. Like the. Well, you know, there's other members. It's like whether they want to discuss this. Well, no, no, absolutely. That's why I'm bringing this up to. Yes, it was in November of 2021. Looking at the fiscal 22 funding requests, study committee, it was not on there. So I don't believe it ever has gone through that committee. And it had been made your previous as well. When I sent them work and looked at historical pages to this organization. So I'm not sure I didn't go delve in the minutes of how you. For the more than a hundred dollars doing all. I mean, it can be a slapboard decision given on above. Yeah, we did, we did have a discussion. Some years ago when we see there was some organization, I think that came to the funding request committee and was denied funding and then came back to the select board. Isn't that how it worked? But we made a decision that we wanted people whose level of funding and whose mission qualified for being funded through the $25,000 funding request committee. We wanted them to go there rather than to this left board, otherwise we'd get all these $100, $300 requests. And that's the whole reason we set up the committee is to evaluate those for us. Well, you didn't run through the committee. Yeah, I've never been. Believe it, eight years prior, this particular payment was ever run through that process. So do we want to approve it and suggest that request that they go through that process in the future and put them on the list to get the email next year? I'm not thinking that we should because this is something that we can commit to without our political committee.  That's why Steph actually saw this. I emailed the fire department because I wasn't sure when I received how this had come through. I totally agree with you because I wouldn't want to see. Of course, it's not going to get voted down. No, but it's critical and crucial that we should not have it approved. Exactly. If the select one doesn't feel this is worthwhile, that we have more expertise, then we should not vote for it. So I agree with you rather than Carl's argument. Then going in, I don't think this has to be bad, in my opinion. Our vision is to protect this. And if they put in a hybrid, what they have, that's a great point. That's what we need to keep doing. That's part of our mission to protect our citizens. So I agree. You shouldn't go to the committee. So putting it through the committee would decrease its chance. You're saying it would decrease its chances and actually it's a long shot. There could be somebody on the committee could say, I don't like this or somebody on the floor when it comes up for a vote may say, I don't like the color red. So we can pull it off. But it's pretty unlikely, right? It's unlikely, but I understand. It also crowds out the other organizations that are already asking. $700 a week. Yeah, $200, $25 a week. OK, so somebody made the motion? I did. You made the second one? No, he didn't. I didn't, no. Oh, you got second then. Is there further discussion? All those are favorite, please say aye. Aye. Aye. OK, we're still a couple of minutes early. So gone. I know. Avenue is somewhat quick, I think, if you would like to tackle that. What's that? Avenue. It's the no five item. Essentially, Rosie was impacted by Avenue, that they have a new cloud base version and asked if we would like to switch from housing, server, and different things here and moving over to a cloud-based system. It's no change in cost. However, a huge benefit. And that now, sometimes we have issues with our server. We have issues with. So it's now going to be cloud-based. Any updates Rosie will have issues sometimes when the update comes through. It will be cloud-based. It's no additional cost to the town. We'll enhance remote connectivity if Rosie ever needed to in a disaster. Right now, it's she can't really connect the land record system with Oakley. So that's the contract division to switch to the cloud-based system. And FYI, RB Tech was thrilled about this as well, because this is another difficult part of maintaining IT infrastructure, because we kind of have these two different systems housed in the building. And it would make life a lot easier for them as well. Would it save money for us? No, the cost is a little bit less. No, I understand for this particular line item. But in other ways, might it save money? We have talked last time or the time before about server upgrade costs. Is it going to reduce the need for a server upgrade? Well, these types of servers, this is all through avenue. It's a completely separate system that's maintained here. So no, not really. So it has hardware on site, right? It'll be used separately from everything else. Yes, yes. And that was all part of that contract. We're switching to the cloud-based. Do we have to open this? Do we have to open this? Yeah, because I would need to accept this question. I'm just curious. I thought it was nothing. Well, but it's a contract revision. We have to sign an amendment to the contract. Right, yeah. So. Just on the cloud. The question was, does it change security? Yeah, not really. The same cryptid has been break into a salient. It makes it more resilient in the case of the cloud. Yeah, it really does. Yeah, exactly. We serve our melts in some way. Yeah. Sitting in that. I mean, I assume that we have outside backup anyway. I don't know the internet of avenue, but I would imagine. Okay. I'd like to make the motion to accept. The avenue contract revision for cloud-based services. Second. Second. Carl, second. Any further discussion? Oh, I do have it. I take care of that. Okay. Back to. The 655. Item. Or seven o'clock item, actually. Can we do that? Because I think same thing here. Yeah. We're ready to rock and roll on the appropriation discussion. Central Vermont. Oh, if you're around for my time. Yeah. Okay. So I think that, you know, several of you, but I'm not sure if I know everyone. My name is Sandy Roosa, the CEO of central Vermont. I love coming to the select because I always feel like it's so engaged and so aware of our services, which is really awesome. I'm here today with Kelly. And Kelly is actually our fundraising and development team. And she oversees all of the town funding. All the application submissions, letters of request, communicating with the contacts and in point. And supporting me and. Doing this work and coming to the select boards. Thanks for coming. We can introduce ourselves.  And I haven't met either. You don't. Yeah. Bill. I was selected last March. You too. This is Carl. Carl and I are helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is Carl. Carl. I hope. Yeah. Great. Great. So. I'm going to start off. I think everyone pretty much knows our mission. So. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go to the page or stop here for all of these. to highlight our service area for those of you that don't know is all of Washington County and three towns of Orange County, Williamstown, Orange, and Washington. Across our service area, we see about 2,500 patients, about 600 patients on service daily. Doesn't mean we see all those patients on any one given day, but they're active on our seeking something through programs. We have 23 communities in our service area. All of those communities have contributed to us through town bugging, whether we're on the ballot, whether it's loaded on the floor, whether it's part of the budget. And we use our clinicians drive lots of miles during the year. So, and for e-small failure, it's specifically this year we've done close to this year. We've done close to 1700 visits and 78 patients served. Want to tell you a little bit about the volume. This past year, we've seen about a 72% increase in hospice visits, a 71% increase in long-term care visits. And those long-term care visits are those individuals that are home, that may be disabled, frail, older adults, that really they're things that we do for them to keep them at home. Kind of those non-personal care type things through their laundry, their groceries, their respite and companion hours, clean their home, and things like that. So, it can really keep them independent in their home and out of the facility for as long as possible. Or out of having to move in with a family member of what not. If you see those increases for e-small failure residents too. Yeah, so those specifically are for e-small failure, 72% increase in long-term care visits. And last 12 months, this is December 2023. So that's November through. Yeah, so it was actually, I did January through November and then I ran it 12-1 through November 30th. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Yeah, so and I know the numbers that we sent were based on a little different because it's earlier in the year. So we're trying to catch up. We've seen a significant increase in the family and child program by 200%. So that's really a program that more and more families are sensing. It's primarily Medicaid-funded programs, but some private insurances do have some certain amount of visits once a mom has had a baby. There's lactation support, etc. So lots of, lots of increases. Overall, since 2015, we've seen about 37% increase in visits. In total visits? In overall visits. Yeah. So on the next page, enhancing quality of life for you and your family. So this past year, we actually started a new service line and it's called our Palliative Care Consultative Service. Really, we decided to start this service because of the complexity of the patients that we see primarily in our home health program and our home health program is really focused on those individuals that have medical necessity, care that needs to be provided by a nurse or a physical therapist or any one of their rehab therapies, licensed nurses, a medical social worker, etc. So we found that there's lots of complexities. Individuals have multiple chronic diseases that have progressed significantly. And lots of times, they're going back and forth to the hospital and some are saying, I don't want to go to the hospital anymore. What do I do? So we hired a full-time nurse practitioner. She is running this particular program. And ultimately, she's working with those individuals and not only supporting individuals, but also supporting our staff that are seeing these patients and other programs to really figure out what are your goals of care? Have you done advanced care planning? Have you completed cults forms? Do you have any sort of, for lack of better words, living will? What are your wishes? So Kelly has really been able to offer a wide array of services and really work with those individuals in their home to really talk about those illnesses that may be presenting them like limiting situations and really kind of not so good quality of life. Some of the things I'm just going to highlight in a bulleted, she coordinates care with a provider and the existing health care team. So Kelly currently right now is a service in a program of one. She works very closely with our other teams, but ultimately what she is doing is she is meeting with individuals and providing these consultations to work with them on goals of care, advanced care planning and center, but also her team is actually their existing care team. So we're not duplicating efforts. So if she, you know, certainly coordinating with their primary care physician or a specific physician that may be overseeing their care currently, and also if they have a special relationship within the faith community, how are they leaking on that? If they already are connected with a social worker, a lot of times if somebody is receiving period of treatment like at the cancer center, there's a social worker embedded in their team that they may be connected with. So really utilizing that health care team and then also trying to work out other community resources they may not be accessing. So the goal is to really not add, but it's to enhance what exists and really help them and provide that support and also provide them emotional support through this process and really help them sort through where do you want to be when you are done with your period of treatment? Where do you want to be based on where you're at with your chronic disease? These individuals like I had said continue to seek curative treatment, you know, potentially lots of them are cutting chemotherapy, radiation, other types of dialysis, different things like that. And it's really, there's no home non-status required. So a lot of, if you know home health, you'll hear, oh, you have to be homebound. A lot of people say, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be homebound. I don't want to be able to go out. That's a like their eligibility thing. And it's for our home health program, but it's not for this program. And you don't have to be on another program to be able to access this palliative care consultative service. And actually Kelly, LL grew up here. She was a PCA at our organization, a personal care attendant. She worked on the long-term care team. She went to nursing school. She worked at some of the local provider practices that CBNC moved to Florida for maybe five years, worked in an oncology unit, proceeded to get her nurse practitioner, and then she got her doctor of nursing practice. And she's back at CBHH. So it's kind of an awesome story. And she was a member of the Valley. So then I want, I wanted to bring up the new service. And I just wanted to talk to you right the services that we've seen an increase in your service area, just to kind of refresh what it is. And I'll talk a little bit about our, one is our hospice services and really to focus on what matters most when it matters most. Lots of times individuals that we're working with when they start saying, I don't want to go back to the hospital. Well, what does that mean? And are there other interventions that can take place that can prevent that? Or if it's just a matter of your chronic diseases truly progressing, then is hospice a better program to serve you if you're in a situation where you're not seeking curative treatment? You really don't want to go back to the hospital. You really want to focus on quality of life and doing certain things, knowing that this is pretty much a life limiting illness. And your end of life journey is coming sooner than later, so to speak. And it's this care is available wherever someone resides. So wherever they call home, not going to be at a skilled nursing facility, a hospice facility. And sometimes it's actually in the hospital. We found that individuals sometimes have had a life long illness. My daughter would be one of them. And all of a sudden, you know, could not do any more. And it definitely if you presented, there was nothing really that could be done pretty much close to end the life. And we can admit that patient onto hospice, which does a couple different things that actually allows the family and caregivers to access bereavement support for 12 months after the above one has passed away. So it gives them that extra support. In addition to that, it also works with the family. Any one of our team has to go over every day to the hospital to see that patient. And you know, lots of times there are family dynamics, people are under crisis, they need the extra support by medical social worker, potentially by Chaplin, and just don't have that additional oversight by nursing staff. I'm really coordinating their care and overseeing their plan of care. That's a really specific incident where an individual can't really be managed at home. So it may be like their pain and symptoms, or something is happening with a disease process, where they couldn't have hospice at home because we couldn't manage that level of care at home. So small population, but certainly at a time where there are lots of needs and providing that benefit of bereavement support and support up to 12 months. Talk a little bit about the interdisciplinary hospice team. And I'll give you an example of a couple things. One, Pamela Byron, who I believe lives in Montpelier. She was honorary chair of our fall annual field. Her husband passed away on our hospice service, I think it's almost a couple of years ago now. She was very generous to be able to tell her story and it was quite impressive. And then I was talking to a good friend whose husband was on hospice just probably in September. And I called her just to check in, not just as the CEO of the agency, but as a friend, but also just talking to check in how are the hospice services going? What's happening in the home? Is it living up to your expectations? And we got to talking and I was talking to her about, so what would you and your husband really like to do? Because I could tell they just felt like stuff and these are really people that were on the go, always doing things big family, etc. And she said, well, you know, I don't know. And I said, well, part of hospice is really working and hoping you are a more family and especially the patient that you are with. But what are those things you want to do? Maybe for the last time? And their wish was we want to go to New Hampshire, we want to have all the family around. They wanted to go to some particular resort, but we can't because we can't get my husband's pain under control for Nicen. So that's what you need to talk to your nurse about. That's what I'm going to talk to hospice manager about because we want you to be able to do that. So it was really a matter of how could he get his pain control in an affordable place so that he could go spend this weekend with his kids, his wife, and his grandkids. And that happened within the week. And they were able to do that. And that's the last time he did that. Then he wanted to go to the police college basketball game because they were in the NCAAs. So the work of them to be able to get him to do that. So those are the things that hospice actually really focuses and works on. And then you wanted to go skydive. And then yeah. Yeah, I know very well. So let's see if we can do that. But you know, it's things like that that make you really realize that, you know, if it's going to that graduation or going to that birthday party, and maybe that's the last one I'm going to go do then, you know, that's that's what the team is working with the patient and family on. And then the last thing was our it's been called our maternal and child health program, but the state changed the name to the family and child health program. It's primarily Medicaid funded, like I said, there is some private insurance. And we have a couple of different efforts that continue from prior year, one with this perinatal collaborative pilot, and working with our OBGYN practices and having some of our nurses and athletes as MCH, maternal and child health work with individuals and conduct some of those visits that are part of the normal planning process of an expected mom. So we kind of go in we work with the team in the practice, we focus on social determinants of health for that individual or maybe for a women child, what is it going to look like what what needs to make that that's going to really support them as a new family, and really working together to try to bring child into a good world and really support that mom, mom and dad or mom and partner in that journey. And then another program is really focused on supporting families through transitioning to parenthood and also following that child and their growth in many different areas through the age of two. And then we have another program that follows them through the age of five. So there's really kind of that longer term support for those individuals. And I actually pass us just the broader maternal and child health and random high risk pregnancy. I think our history won't go over that too much. We have long history of the support of the town of East Montpelier. We feel very fortunate. I'm really enjoying being able to talk about the curriculum. And we're going to look at about why we need town funding. Very simple. The last year Medicare is our primary care source. They continue to cut our service or reimbursement significantly, which is really unfortunate because all you hear about is how we're going to care into the community. It doesn't align. It does not make sense. We just recently got another cut in the airport to come. So when you say cut reimbursements, could you tell us what that means? Does that mean that they are eliminating reimbursements for certain types of care or is it they're reducing the percentage? Care home health, which is our largest program, we get paid based on a period of care. So for a 30 or 60 day period of care. So what they do is they basically just cut off that payment. So last year it was close to 7%. This past year it was bought in Washington and it became a really big thing, but our advocacy organizations and they said that they were going to cut another 7%. So they did 4%. And they'll do the rest in the following year. So they're going based on data that is from it's several years old. And they're saying, well, people are making a profit on Medicare. So we have to cut that back because that's not what it's for. But inevitably, if you look at the agencies in Vermont, no, because making a profit on Medicare that we rely on, contributions to fundraising, telefunding, United Way, kind of all the other things that we do. So all the agencies in Vermont. So even with inflation, they're not, they don't have an inflation. They give us an inflation pack. Oh, they do. They do what's called a behavioral adjustment. And they reduce it. So it ends up negative. Yeah. So was the 4% included in the inflation? That's a net change. That doesn't make a lot of sense. It doesn't. And it's really hard to unwind. Obviously, I think all employers are dealing with significant wage increases and workforce shortages. This past year was the first time in my 21 years at the agency that we've experienced having to reduce the amount of referrals we took in May and June. We didn't have enough nursing staff to safely take on patients for a program. We could take on if it was like a physical therapy only order from a doctor. We were taking hospice long-term here, all our other programs. But we did have to reduce that. We are continuing to take referrals, but not able. Normally, our referral sources are used to admit it within 24 hours. And now, sometimes it's a little bit longer than that. We have to triage depending on what we do what they are and what our needs are due to staffing shortages. We can meet those travel clinicians. I say we probably fire at least one or two every couple months. And it's really disruptive when you are talking about someone for a 13-week assignment, and they're only hit there that much the time for a lot more money. And I think a lot of healthcare is naturally suffering with that. How many people are making money off of Medicare? Who in? Most of them are core-profit agencies, and so they can pick and choose the type of patient they take. In the state of Vermont, we're considered a designated agency. So if we get a referral with a doctor's order, we can't just refuse to take that referral unless we don't have staff to perform the service safely, which is a Medicare conditions of participation and the regulatory. We actually can't accept the referral and the only time you can't take it on is if for some reason there may be an imminent safety issue where maybe it was a prior client and we know there were safety issues for our staff and or we can't provide the care necessarily. But most of the time you do have to take it. Yes. And believe me to take it because if we don't, lawyers are involved, we have to do so. And the state expects us to do a certain amount, even if it looks like cheese, we're concerned about this. Lots of times we still have to go put eyes on or make them talk, you know, try to get under the need. Can we really do this? But the Medicare people that overlook it, they don't differentiate between for profit. No, no, because there, you know, there probably are some not for profits, but in Vermont, we can't pick and choose. Yeah, but you're not. Right. But they don't differentiate in that branch. Yeah. Yeah. So it doesn't look good for funding. It doesn't look good for funding. So we're actually our board is talking more about how we do things differently. How are we going to be able to provide this care differently? What types of partnerships can we have in the college like Central Vermont Medical Center has a great program where they have individuals that go from LNA to LPN to RN. We're not big enough to have something like that, but maybe we potentially can have a scholarship program where we met with a school and we had a scholarship that there's a couple of students that we kind of take from freshman to senior year. And really kind of, you know, but we have to work with other partners potentially to get some of the, get some of what they need under their belt to meet the curriculum requirements. Do you get some state funding? We get Medicaid primarily. That's not safe. That's well, that's through the state. Yeah. Then in some of the family and child grants through the state for those specific programs. We do work with one care Vermont in our health reform efforts. So we have a complex care coordinator position and they help fund that position. And it's really to focus on those individuals that are highly complex in nature. And that kind of overlaps with all of our programs that pretty much support some of the salary of that So, but a lot of it is, you know, we rarely rely on development and fundraising, town funding, the United Way, anywhere we can potentially we can get some grants through some of the special funding that's happened to support certain efforts. So we just recently applied the one to support certain efforts for staff certifications and trainings and things to develop skills, some stuff around regroupment and retention. There are a lot of parameters around that that. Yeah. So what's your total budget? Our total budget is about 14 million. And what was the budget last year? It's actually down some. Yeah, it was about 14 and a half. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. Okay. Anyone have any questions? Well, I remember last year this discussion was saying about funding. Yeah. And I was concerned then. And we talked to the fire department about the same issues. They run into the same restrictions, reductions. Yeah. The one thing that actually was positive for us that did happen and she felt that the state supported us on this. And I think you probably say it through the fire department, EMS is the provider tax, that Medicaid provider tax. Can I say that? I don't remember. Through the some of the ambulance, but what it is, it was a program that started and shouldn't even say it was program. It was somebody from the state can talk to us, some commissioner or whatever and said, well, if you pay this provider tax, so what that is, is we get a bill from the state and it's a tax. They said, you pay this tax and what will happen is it's considered match money. And when we pay your rates will actually increase your rates every year. And you pay the tax and it goes back to you through rates. Well, that lasted about four years. And before you know it, you know, 12, 15 years later, the tax was $100 million and we weren't getting Medicaid rate increases. So this past legislative session, the governor signed on to actually eliminate the provider tax for home health agencies. So that was a half a million dollars to us. So that was a gift other than Medicare to get away. So, and we're really happy about that because that's been something we have been advocating for. If we don't embrace our rates, then why are we paying this tax? Because it was being used for other stuff. We were fortunate. We do know how to survive this payet and certainly we doubt that we're going to have to pay it too. Paul, any questions since I'm new to this, and maybe for Zoe too, and I don't recall what the, what is the rough number that we put in front of the voters to vote? All for this? Yeah. It's not in hand now. Roughly 65. Okay. That was what I was curious about. One day. Oh, okay. Yeah, there's it's advocating for there. No, no, no, I understand. It's since it wasn't exactly. Yeah. Okay. So you guys on the radio all the time. Yeah. Seriously. Our federal delegation. Now Bernie Sanders at least is on a committee that's related. It's really hard to get traction from a home perspective. It's disappointing. I feel like the last maybe easy. What relationship with anything do you have with CDMP or for the Indian health? There are primary sources, but when I say organization. I know that they're also facing staffing shortages, but I don't know about, I don't know anything about how they work financially. It seemed like such a huge organization. I was hoping that in the future, there might be some way that you could benefit from that. I'm sure that your work takes a huge load off. Their system is also overstressing. Exactly. When we say, geez, we have to limit our referrals, their hair expands on end. Because now we're planning out the system, right? Because now they have patients that are sitting in the hospital that are non acute that they have to move and they can move them into the community. That's what you're going to see them. And there is another home health agency, they are out, which is statewide. You know, which they can refer to whether they take, they are a little bit more selective on the patients they take, but you know, I mean, it just sends on where people live and staff cover the same path as well. Because they're statewide, so they're trying to cover the whole state, which is a little different than us just to cover more of the designated territory. I just think it would, you know, I don't know enough to speak to this, but it would seem to make sense if somehow the UVM network was actually involved in some of the organizations and make sense for everybody, but they do come up with health agency and their network. I think they have their struggles as well. We've all been very similar. So I'm not sure because I think the whole organization is struggling. It's really hard. So I think everybody's just kind of stressed. Yeah, all industries and places. Yeah, exactly. But I appreciate your thoughts and do stay pretty connected to them. And we have similar issues. Okay. Well, it's always interesting to hear about the work that you're doing in the community. And we appreciate you taking the time to educate some of us. Is there somebody going to town meeting? Sometimes there is. In short, there is someone they are to reference on us. Okay, yeah. So did you do in person last year? Yeah, we did. Yeah. All right. So, you know, I do have a couple things I just want to leave with you. There's some materials on hospice and palliative care on the service. This palliative care is actually a poster. So if you have a place you want to place it, it is a new service. And for town meeting, just so you know, we did have an RN from CB Home Health and Hospice here a couple weeks ago talking about their services and connection with a non-profit here who is interested in getting some ARPA funding from downtown. So if you want to enlist her for outreach to town meeting, she might be amenable. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Great. So I'm going to leave this here. Thank you so much. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. Take care. Okay. So the next item on our agenda is discussing our updated guidance for American Rescue and at ARPA Fund. So we have a printout. Thank you, everything that ELCD published. Yeah. So they want the money committed by Mark III version. Yes. We already discussed two options. Yeah. That we just didn't move on at the time, which is we have the fire engine chassis purchase. And the mack truck, the build costs, we can't take the purchase of the truck because that was in the previous ARPA reporting period. But the build costs, we can. They are still in this current reporting period. So the benefit of doing this, and this was our discussion before, is those items have been a charge to our Capital Reserve Fund. If we instead allocate the cost to ARPA, then we have now free costs in our Capital Reserve Fund, which if you read through all the VLCT saying this is what they're telling you to do, we all know. So we have freed those funds, which could then be used for the projects like the ToaFudge and Ash Tree Management Program that could probably fit quite well with the sum of money that those two purchases could free up in the Capital Reserve Fund. So all the other projects that we have are really ongoing, that we've executed, quote, or not really a contract, but we kind of have contracted with our VTECs, all those projects are underway, and likely will be completed before that March 31st time period anyway. But they're already committed. We have signed documents for those. Those aren't a problem. And then the only other piece, we had spoken about the Ash Tree Management Project, them doing kind of a double. They've been averaging $30,000 over the last couple of years, doing kind of a double this year because of ARPA funds. So the Risley of Roads Committee just asked if I could confirm that that still aligns with the select board's expectations because that's what they're planning to do. But this is where we are. And then if we allocate the fire engine chassis in the Mack truck, then of ARPA funds that are remaining, we have $58,000, just under $59,000 remaining. Some of the amounts of actual costs, of course, when they commit, or VTEC gave us a quote, exactly, could be minor, up or down. But it's pretty close to where we'll end up. That will all get chewed up as final bills are paid. So this is where we are. So truly, that's what the select board's... So just to make sure I understand this spreadsheet here, the first branch is stuff that we've already approved using ARPA funding for. What's the difference between the second grouping and the third grouping? The second grouping are costs that we've actually incurred. So we have two bills that have currently been charged to the Capitol Reserve. Got it. That could be reclassified out of the Capitol Reserve and reclassified as ARPA expenditures. And that would bring up the funds then in the Capitol Reserve. And is that an all or nothing thing with each item? Or could we charge a percentage of it to ARPA? We could charge a percentage, but I'm not sure what we would gain by voting them. The whole idea is to try to use up all these ARPA funds. Right. Well, I see that the reason I'm asking about that is I see that if we accept putting the ACRI management into ARPA, then that puts us in the negative and we'd have nothing to use to give to Town 9. I actually recommend that we not. But I only listed the ACRI management because this has been here. It really doesn't matter. ACRI management would either come out of Capitol Reserve or come out of ARPA. If we free up more funds in Capitol Reserve, it's the same difference. It's a shell game. I only left it on this list because that was something that we have previously discussed. But I'm not sure we're going to be really tight in committing those funds. It just based on the time that this project is done. That's the reason why I've gone back to this fire engine chassis and the MAC truck so that we can instead free up the funds in the Capitol Reserve and use the Capitol Reserve funds to fund the ACRI management with the funds that ARPA has now reallocated and freed up in the Capitol Reserve. So it's the same difference. Okay. Thank you. So the remaining funds are $58,000 if we take the truck out, right? Yeah. So you would have $58,000 correct. And again, we're bringing up $216,000 in the Capitol Reserve. Yeah, I understand. So we do have money to give the nonprofit. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So $50,000. Yeah. Technically, you have the money that you freed up in the Capitol Reserve as well. I mean, this is the actual decision with your budgets of money. Right. Yeah, yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Sounds good. Good. Well, that's very helpful to present. Yeah. It would just be nice if we so, is the select board comfortable with us reassigning the re-classifying these two items such as ARPA expenditures and this? I think so. There's a reason why this discussion precedes the next agenda item because I'm going to guess that we're going to use up the rest of it in this discussion. That's right. So then we're, well, I'm just, but then we're pretty close to being with ARPA and it's kind of my goal here. Yeah. And if we're not done, then I'll go find other things that we can put to ARPA because I'd like us to get it reported here. I would love to be where we're out, we're done. Yeah, it's just you. We make it reporting that we're not only committed, we're fully spent. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good to me. So it's a common sense way to satisfy the ARPA requirements and free up our cash reserves. Well, and if you write through all the BLCT documents, a lot of their concern is that a lot of towns have not reported that they've done anything we at least have, of course, that reported that we have, but this is their concern is, you know, you have costs just. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.  Yes. So do you want the minister to reflect that there were the consensus to assign the fire engine costs to the ARPA post? Need a motion for that? I don't think we need a motion, do we? No. It's a bookkeeping question. We aren't deciding to spend more money. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because all these other things are kind of in the same category. So we're not going to make a vote on each thing. Yeah.  I don't remember whether we voted on these other things. So it's a consensus. We're agreeing. We did vote on the mold remediation for the Fort Corners Schoolhouse, as I recall. We did do that. Yeah. A lot of these you did because they were votes that I needed to accept or contracts that I needed to execute. Right. We voted on them initially, but we didn't agree to put them as ARPA expenditure. Okay. So you have previously approved that, yeah. That's right. To move the costs out of the capital reserve and move them into ARPA expenditure. That we're going to dog it. No. Classified expenditure. Okay. From the capital to ARPA expenditure. And the reporter could be here and it could be on the front page. Yes. I always play with that. Yeah. I didn't say either. Oh, okay. So we're done with that. Item. Yes. All right. So the next item is consideration of contributions to each other and nonprofits to the town ARPA funds. Okay, we're on time. Okay. Okay. So there were four nonprofits that came in, as I remember. So I see that we have represented one non-profit here in the town hall tonight. So we're at Twin Valley Senior Center. We had Eastmont Theater Trails. We're all together now. And we had Eastmont Theater Service Society. So you heard from them last meeting. I didn't necessarily specifically invite people to come. This was more or to continue your discussion. So what is everyone? Everyone has some thoughts that gathered together around these four organizations? I have some myself, but I think we probably all do. Yeah. So one by one, we need to. I had an earlier meeting voice my hesitation on putting a total amount that we should allocate. Yeah. That we should allocate. Yeah. And I still would like to potentially allocate or recommend funds just based on each project rather than just recommending a cumulative number just to reach that goal. Okay. Sure. They would have your likes. Well, okay. Do you have any specific? Well, I think we should. Yeah. I mean, we should get specific. Yeah. So what do you want to get Twin Valley Senior Center for the paving of the pipeline? The issue that they brought up, it's all or nothing. Well, they said they could put it in funds. And they said they need $50,000 or if we didn't give it to them, they would not be able to do this. And that's what they're requesting. They didn't even raise a quarter of the cost from other authorities. Exactly. So yeah, they either wanted $50,000 or they were not going to do the payment. They were very specific on that one pressed. We're not even. People asked them and they said they could put it in a fund and wait until they got more money. That's what I thought they said. But they couldn't do it right now. I didn't get that. Oh, okay. We should clarify that maybe. We're going to make those decisions tonight. Yeah. Okay. Well, all right. I thought that was pretty clear. How did everybody else do that? No, they can't do it without $50,000. That's for the minutes and I don't recall any of it from my review or from the live meeting. They rounded it up because of the estimate they have actually at $40,000. Right. That's true. But they can't do it without the money. It's probably true. Yeah, they said. Yeah. Okay. So that's a good point. What do you think about the trails? I think there's a lot of validity to giving something for the trails. Yeah. And it's used by a lot of it's it's a drawing. It's used by a lot of individuals. Yeah. Okay. And all together now. You need a lot of money and it's really a valid organization. I was totally ignorant on any that they did. Are we just going Scott? Yeah, I know. You can be asked to be on each person. Oh, yeah. Thanks. So we can have a, I'm trying to figure out whether it's going by each person going down all four. Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right. Val organization. They're looking for a lot of money. And then the. Yeah. Yeah. They, uh, Covered and ran. Yeah. Yeah. Again, Valadin. Like a lot of money for what they're trying to put together. Okay. But certainly valid and needed. Uh huh. But. All right. It's not yet. I shouldn't say a lot of money. Okay. So what did you put it on? Maybe. Yeah. I'm sorry. I've refused myself since the family member benefits from twin valley senior center. Why? Because I could say I want to give them a lot of money because it benefits my family. Okay. A lot of money because they walk the trail, which I did. Right. Well, I don't think yet. I don't know. I don't know. Do they pay you? No. They pay you for your family members. No. Okay. I think that point values. Pretty necessary organization, especially based on the demographics of the small pillar. Um, will become more necessary. Um, It's important to support them. And. I haven't. Unfortunately not being here at last week. I guess I want to read more about. The amount, the $63,000 amount for all. Whether or not I just fell under. I'm reading this now. Okay. And the trails. Also, very important. But, um, So it's the estimate for the project is. Basically construction materials. Well, I think you want to put a bridge and 45, they do have some money they can put towards it. The bridge. The bridge is a construction materials plus some free labor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas the sparrow farm board walk replacement. That would be three later. Yeah. All right. You've come to all of me moving on to Carl's. Yes. Okay. Yeah. The twin valley senior center. I'm uncomfortable using $50,000 for a parking lot. Um, Yeah. Yeah. They specifically said it's. Yeah. My whole point is they want 50 grand or they're not going to get it. Yeah. They're not going to get a repaving. They already have the parking lot. Right. Okay. Yes. It's clear. It's clearly. And then our conversation. By what? Your conversation was about either all or now. And. They're not going to do that. They want to do the whole thing. They don't have any money. They don't have another source lined up saying, Hey, I'll throw in a quarter of it. Yeah. They don't have any money. Right. So it's basically we give them 40, 50,000. And they do it. Or we don't give them. We give them no money. Because it's a. It's black or white. Right. They don't have any money. They don't have another source lined up saying. Hey, I'll throw in a quarter of it. So it's black or white. Right. Seen by. That was, that was. Yeah. If we give them half the money, they still can't do it. Right. That's what the gist of it is. Right. And they wouldn't use it for something else. If they. No. We would specify how they use it. And I think we've asked people to not use the money for operational expenses. This was there before. Yeah. We did. They asked the money for specific. I think that. Yeah. Yeah. I think this was there specifically. Okay. It's clearly stated in them. Yeah. No, no. The specific project is paid. And no request. They could request something. Yeah. Okay. So, so that's East Montpelier. That's Twin Belly senior center. Yes. Montpelier trails. Is. The organization with longstanding work and continuing to do excellent work in terms of. Acquiring and make new trails, maintaining trails. Improving trails and I think. Significant chunk to them would be appropriate. They indicated they had some money already and we, through other sources, give them some money each year, but I don't know, maybe paying for the Mallory bridge, for example. And letting them use their own funds or other funds for the project. So I'm curious about that. I think we can take a look at it on board Walker's life then just. For example. All together now is big chunk of money. I'm curious to hear. We have a couple of representatives. I'm curious to hear. We were told about a good crowd sourced funding effort. Last time, I'm curious to hear how much they've gotten in there. I'm also, I raised questions last time about. Giving money to a nonprofit. To give to a. A nonprofit. And I'm curious. To know how we can use this potential gift to strengthen the nonprofit. And I realized that there's so much overlap between the nonprofit and everybody else who's involved. That from a practical point of view, yeah, all together now is going to continue to be able to use that space. But from a. I think we're giving town funds to a local organization. I'm wondering whether it would be prudent to say, you say there's a five year lease right now for the nonprofit. I don't know when that started, when it runs out, but maybe extend it for another 10 years, for example, just to. Just to show that this is something that the nonprofit is going to continue benefiting from. And provide a significant chunk of. They need after other sources of contributions have come in. And historical society, I think those are. I think the ADA stuff in particular is, is worthy that the ramp on the stairs. To the, the stage. And the cabinets, I mean, our history is worth preserving. We're not going to be inclined to give them at least a significant chunk of the data. Okay, so what do you think? Okay. So the way I like to work on things like this is I like to either eliminate some or lead them to the top of this. So looking at the hysterical society, historical society, we've already given 30,000 bucks. So I'm like. Forget it. I feel like about the, the four courting schoolhouse. Yeah, same. That's where they're building the cabinets. Yeah. Yeah, it's the same building. It's the same building. Yeah. Right. The same building. We've already given $30,000. So I'm thinking that. That's enough. In my opinion. No. What's that? Sorry. What's that? Let me give my whole idea. I think the cabinet had to do something with moving materials that might even be here. To a permanent place for historical preservation. Yeah. Historical society said that they have no place to store three dimensional objects right now. They can store paper somewhere, but not three dimensional objects. I don't know if they have some somewhere that's like under people's beds. They're going to be putting. Yeah. I mean, we give them 30,000 bucks. They got 30 something out of state to do the mold remediation. How much does the historical society use at schoolhouse? Wow. They're different organizations. So I'm the same building. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same building. Right. Whatever. Okay. I'm just giving my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. Separate family. Okay. Let's, let's hear. They're still working on the same building. Okay. I'm just going to say. I'm not feeling warm and fuzzy about $10,000. I think there's better uses of the money.  I love that place. I just don't know if our money is going to get. Where our money is going to go. If we can't give them 50,000. I don't feel comfortable giving them the whole 50,000. I just don't. I'd rather break up the money. Give us the worthy organization two or three. But that means. They can't, we can't give them the money because they're not going to be able to use it. And we, unless we just decided to give them the whole 50,000. Do you want to invite them back because they're not. Again, I didn't reach out to these organizations and I'm specifically invite them to come in and to answer any questions you may have tonight. So it feels a bit unfair that they're not here to speak. I haven't had parking lot a few days a week to take my mom to the Twin Valley senior center. I haven't had a car. I haven't been here there for a long time. So I'm just here to be aware of the potholes in that. Is it bad? Yes, it's bad. And I can tell you that look like last, I did not know the day, but last week after the snow. This is also money. And I, I feel that we should be giving this to capital projects. Yep. Things that are specific. Yeah. Rather than do the shell games. No, the show game though. And right, right. But if you say that you're going to give them X for yes, it should pay specifically should be East Montpelier residents gave that wing of that building, whatever, or that parking lot. Yeah. Yeah. So I, yeah, I agree with that. I'm not sure why you're bringing it up now. What was your point? I'm totally agree. We could, my point is, why bring them back? Because they might, when they hear our objections to paying the whole 50,000 for the parking lot and not say, Oh, we have this other capital project. There's that shed off the parking lot that needs to be improved or. Yeah. Yeah. I think they're an important organization to give them a little bit more time and questioning. They're also in blocks. I mean, I think that's my interim director right now. So keep in mind when this request previously came, they had their full time director who since retired. Right. So I also think we're dealing with an organization that's kind of operating on volunteers right now. So they probably have not had the time to put into grants and, you know, seeking funding. So. All right. So. Fair enough. The trails incorporated. I really think that's a good use of our money is to build a bridge. At least, even if we just give them 10,000, they still could do the bridge, but no less than 10,000 because, or we could give them the whole 14 by whatever. And the rest of it, they can handle themselves the sparrow farm boardwalk. You know, volunteers, et cetera. But I think that somewhere around the 14 five would be a good idea. It's not a huge amount of money, but it would help them a lot. And that's a great bridge that they're going to build that they built over here on, we're all bubbling. Yeah, yeah, which will last. Steel. So, and then we have all together now a valid request. As Scott said, to pay, you know, give them some money towards the boiler, which was a huge chunk of change for them 30,000 bucks. So I think that's a good request and a valid place for money. So the thing is, if we want to sort out twin valley, we should ask them back and make a final decision there but I don't want to wait too much longer. Everyone feel like they want to ask to invalidate. Yeah. Okay. I'm good. The point is, it really historical society, but I know that no one else agrees with me. Altogether now is valid. He's pumped their trails. And we're not going to allocate any funds tonight. I don't think we can. Right. I agree. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I said you didn't have to. No, no, it's a good idea. I mean, I like the discussion, but my only issue, and I understand it's a valuable asset in the community. This is the request. Yeah. This was their request. Yeah. It's a do over. I have issues with, you know, we can't do over. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I will remind you that when we first discussed this, I wanted to provide some specific guidance to the nonprofits on what level of funding we were prepared to provide. And you guys decided no, we aren't going to do that.  Right. If you will. So given that we didn't want to limit on the request. Well, we had a conversation. Yeah. We had a conversation that. Yeah. In the, in the open. Yeah. That we were talking with Carl and said maybe we should just allocate 50,000. Yeah, anybody who was on the call on at the meeting would have heard where we were thinking about going. Right, right, right, right, right. Right. But we didn't say that. I don't want to sell, I don't want to allocate money just for the purpose of allocating money. If we give 30,000. We have other areas that are for the good of the town, instead of just. So I'm saying it's our fault we put out fuzzy guidance and that we should give them a chance to come back and get another bite at the end. I will just tell you that I did receive a number of calls for people that were confused about because they were expecting very specific guidance. And I didn't have any further clarity to offer them other than the posts that I did. So, in their defense, people were asking specific questions. Well, we got some specific requests. So that's fine. All we're trying to do is clarify twin valid, because we all feel it's a worthy organization to get money. Yeah, so we don't want to just say no, because we all are feeling bad about that. So we're giving them another chance. I agree. Yeah, I mean I don't think it's a bad idea. I would like as long as we have a couple of representatives from all together now. I asked some indirect questions of you earlier. I'm wondering if you would mind filling up in on those. Um, we did not. 63 was the total we needed to come for the building to come in compliance with the fire safety code upgrades. And our crowd source funding is successful. I think $9,000 as of Saturday I heard from that and then I've received over $3,000 in checks this week. So I'm hoping that, you know, we can pay, you know, out of 60 if you were generous and gave us the 30 then hopefully we could get close to that 30 other that we need and some of that 30 includes volunteer labor. We put labor costs for everything and we're hoping that we can do some work parties to get that fire safety and the fire stuff done. So we were really realistic with its costs and also so again, we are still raising funds not asking to help us do it all you asked about the nonprofits relationship with the building. It is in flux, ownership structures and sell and I learned it collectively it's currently actually the ownership deed is an LLC, and its purpose is to create affordable housing for the residents that live there, and to support small businesses and the nonprofits activities. So, even if it's not owned directly by the nonprofit, it is there to sustain the nonprofits activities without the building the nonprofits activities would be our best. In fact, there could be no summer camps programs and the seasonal events would be, you know, hard to to relook in terms of their organizing efforts. Two questions there and I realized this last meeting is unclear on the names and nonprofits it's called all together now correct. Yes. And what's the LLC call that owns the building. Cherry tree hill co housing community. We restructured the ownership of the property in 2018 to be a condominium structure. So from the privately owned land it is now what we consider ourselves a co housing but legally it's a condominium structure. So the land is held in common by the people who own the buildings. And the intention of that is, again, to support community support affordable housing support, you know, the agriculture that happens there, community gardens and things like that. So, that's who currently holds the so cherry tree hill co housing community LLC owns the land. No, the land is held by the association, the organization, I know it's the condominium structures are interesting and that's probably, but so the land actually divided in its interest by the four units. Okay, okay. So the land isn't deeded to the. So each unit takes tax responsibility for a board of land. Okay, doesn't actually own it. Okay, it's a it's an LLC structure is a condominium structure that is a federal estate structure is our name for the owner of the land. Yeah. Well, the co housing association owns, it doesn't own the land land now doesn't have a separate deed, the deeds, each unit that building has a 25% value of the land. Okay, okay, value. Okay, there's not indeed. So that's how the deeds. Okay, that makes sense. I'm sure it makes sense, whether I understand it or not is less clear. And each have a deed. Yeah, the community centers one of them. Yeah. And so a quarter of the land value is right committed to that. Okay, okay. And so the cherry tree hill co housing community LLC holds the deed for that building holds the deed for the building. Okay, and in its organizational documents it's charter or whatever. And the other now as a nonprofit is specifically mentioned as is part of its mission to promote. No, okay. No, okay. You got to be like writing the LLC and its mission is affordable housing and to support community programming. Okay. Okay. What do you think of the thought of just extending the lease of APN in the building by 10 years. The lease was signed this with it May. And so it's not even been a year for that five years. Okay. And yes, my intention is definitely to give it a long term lease. And what else did I want to say about that. I don't know how cost of long term. I did mention it I can't really speak to it but part of the long term goal is that the nonprofit could potentially own the building. Okay, that's goal box. But I can't, you know, promise you that that's going to happen negotiations. The members of the house. If we wanted to tell the taxpayers of East Montpelier that we gave this money on the condition that the, the lease be extended by 10 years is that something that you could do with a fairly short time frame. I mean, as I said, this is the land, the place is essential to the ongoing future activities of the nonprofit. Yeah. Yeah. And I know how much of your heart and the hearts of the people who are there are in the nonprofit. Yeah. And just so I understand what you said about the $9,000 and the $3,000 at first, the 3000 and checks system. Is that part of the 9,000 that was pledged but then on top of it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Good. Congratulations. Yeah. Okay. So we're not gonna make a final decision on the money. We're not gonna make a final decision on the money. We're not gonna make a final decision on the money today. Okay. Because we, I mean, we, we can hear from twin Valley again, because you know, Paving is expensive and it takes a lot of repair, but we're going a lot of laid down on our roads or levels of roads to drink. What are you saying? Yeah, it's a lot less expensive than paving and it lasts a lot longer in Vermont winters when it's you take the pavement up. Or you repave it. Oh, do they have pavement? I just thought if you took it out and but then the other thing is that you can probably move in. I mean, they use the wheel things on paving. Yeah. I see a number of people walking into the can. Right. And the wheel. But that doesn't work. And if you fill a bottle. It's not as close. It is an assault purpose. It's an old as well. Yeah. And that's not a good thing for older people to walk on. Okay. Right. So I think we should move on because we've got a lot of things to do. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Yeah. So the next thing that we have to consider presentation at 523 financial audit. You can make this quick. It was a very clean audit. Essentially there were no issues noted. I have audit reports that are going to take home and read stuff. I would take. I read a new slide. Yeah. Yeah. So I have all your reports. I did not. I did not. I did not. I did not reprint the reports that you have our copies here, but it's on the website. Yeah. Both in this meeting and in all spots. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's good to read some of it. All of it. So then we did the consideration of Avenue contract. We did the consideration of. The fire protection tax worth. $100. Now we go to discussion at 525 budget development. Yeah. Yeah. Not really anything to get into detail tonight. I think the next meeting is what we'll have more because we don't have fires or party numbers yet. Those should come next week. Next week. It's a Thursday. Yeah. Yeah. It was well. It ordinarily would have been this Thursday. Yeah. Next week. Yeah. What day is it? Thursday. The 14. 14. Yeah. So really I'm giving you all copies for you to review. Let me know if you have any questions. Let me know if you see anything. I'm still going through it. Every time I look at it, there's something I tweak. Yeah. Unemployment costs. You don't know that much. But that should be a good more employees. More employees in different phase structures. Yeah. Wow. That's going on a lot. Again, I'm still checking the numbers. And there's still information coming in. Like some of the insurance information like that. I just got the bill last week for the LCT. Yeah. Yeah. It's the time of year. It seems like. Every other day there's some. A little nugget that comes in an email that actually gives you clarity on the first. So there'll be an update for the next meeting. We'll be seeing this until it's final. Yeah. Would you mind. Put dating. Yeah. We'll be seeing this until it's final. Yeah. Would you mind. Put dating each draft that you give to us. We don't get the file name. The file name has the date at the end of it. Okay. Yep. Okay. I see that. Thank you. I have to do that for myself. Right. That's how I keep the. I think it's confusing with PDFs the way that they have. Both a file name and then a title. For the file. Which can be different. Yeah. You'll have this a couple of days before. I can send this to you ahead of the next meeting. Yeah. I'm leaving Friday morning. This is my door in California. But I. Kind of allocated it. I'm flying back. We're all flying back. But it'll be three 30. I'll get a couple of hours. I'll be online. I'll be in. Yeah. We'll be in. I'll be in. But I want it. You know, And that's me. Sorry. That's the next meeting. Right. I wanna. I'll read on the planning. Yep. My hours. Yeah. Whatever that. Yeah, we can keep going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great. This is a full-time job just to do this. to do this. So what are we doing between the two of you? Between me. Sorry. I do that. It's all you. Michelle doesn't contribute. It's not her. She came in today, right? No. She worked them out. Any questions? No. There will be an intro. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, you may put things in the note. Yeah. If I, if I have information on where I got the number. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So that takes care of there. That's basically our. 2025 budget development. Now we have discussion in 2024 town meeting warning. I think Carl said that the last meeting, this is something that you'll just see each time as we get information. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For example, you all met with some of them on home home with hospice tonight. So they're currently a yellow X where their number is. We now know that number is $6,500. That will now get filled in. So each meeting. Up until January. 20 seconds. You will see this document. Come to life and get filled in with numbers. Yeah. What is articles? What is the threshold or the minimum. That would be put as an article versus. The group donations. The funding. The funding. Well, we have to keep the funding request for total under 25,000. So there isn't any minimum really. Well, we've had to do in the past and kick out a big one. That's why you broke down green mountain transit. In the fund request. Total on group. And then our 13, you've got 1499 and Oracle for 13. And under number 18. Under the group one set from the beginning. We get that over here. Okay. 1366. That's my question. You want to find that you want to find that. So they're different programs. The, the one. The separate is for. Right. For proper basically for. Oh, yeah. Every year. The one that's in there is the. The budget. The bus service. The bus service is much different. Yeah. Total number could be 27,000. You would have taken the 1499. And put it right in here. We can't go over 25,000. Therefore, that's why it's broken down. That's why it's broken out. My question. If this was 27,000 total. If this. If the threshold, if the threshold was 27,000, we would not have to list it as a separate article. Is that correct? Okay. So anything if you push your phone. 25,000. I know. Okay. I don't know why you're bringing up the. Do you want to put it to 27,000? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why you're bringing up the. Do you want to put it to 27,000? Yeah. Yeah. The history is, you know, when I moved to town at the turn of the century, it was $10,000. We had a community council that. We had a community council that. I think that it's a good quote on. In an article at town meeting and the town meeting floor, the idea was. It was sort of a hybrid. Up to a valid meeting arrangement. And the big bucks would be decided by the people who. I feel. And because of increased demands. And even so, some of the bigger items have been progressively from there because otherwise it had seen $25,000. So if we want to raise that again, then the way to do it is to talk to our town meeting moderator and bring it before the voters and say, we want to raise the $25,000 to $27,000. Okay, so I thought of a way to keep silent. I'm not happy. I'm curious why you're... You're talking about $49,000 back in the funding request. You're good. And take something else out. So you keep it below the $25,000. Yeah, that's cool. If you push it over $25,000, you can't change it on the floor. Because the reason you have this discussion, Ryan, you can change each item if you want to. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry to waste your time. Here is one additional request. The Energy Committee asked about having approximately three minutes at town meeting for a brief introduction at their work. They would like to use that time to discuss the advanced energy plan that is under development, alluding to future public input sessions, and also to mention the critical energy aspects of the town barrage project. Yeah, so Article 15 is now in this draft to transact any other business that may properly come before the meeting. And if I recall correctly, then miscellaneous things like three minutes to the Energy Committee have been considered under Article 15 in the past. Or it could be as a report. It could be as an article. No, it could be as a report. They could have a lower report if I'd like that. Well, that's a good point. Yeah. But we don't have to pass a separate article for the Energy Committee. Yeah, the Article 2 is the town officers. There's not been this left-board report. Yeah, but we've asked for people to give reports, but no one ever does. But are they town officers? I guess that's kind of a loose term as far as the Energy Committee goes. We could see some of our time to the Energy Committee if we wanted to. Well, it doesn't run with that. Yeah. We could say, hey, let's hear a report from that kind of energy group. Does that make sense to the moderator that the Energy Committee could also go under Article 2 to hear the reports of several town officers and to act there on? It does. Okay. It doesn't make sense to me. Okay. So that's, okay. So is there anything else we need to discuss on the town morning? Do you have any more hypothetical situations? No, I don't think we need to talk about Article 13 yet. I think we don't. No, I don't think so. That's always a confusing. Everyone always asks about that. No, no. Yeah, I'm just curious since it's 1499. Yeah. Right. So I think we've got this. Yeah. We should pitch out community connections and put that in place. I agree. Okay. So is there any more discussion about the town meeting warning? Permanent or not? Not from my list. Are you calling for impertinent discussion? Okay. We have warrants. And I've already reviewed them and signed it. So I will pass it on to you. Here you go. Okay. Thank you. And we have the town administrator report. So I put the update for the town throughout the project in this. Just letting the select board know that the responses from the RFP are due on December 15th at 4 p.m. And the max number of responses we will receive is eight because we had eight firms attend the site visit and attending the site visit as a requirement to submit a proposal that Seth and John have been leading that effort and they are currently in the process of discussing with Kathleen Jen, the potential to also do an RFP for an owner's representative or project manager to kind of oversee this project for the town. There were a lot of questions asked at the site visit and components of the project that are the owners will need to facilitate and facilitate. And so the question became who is doing that? Right. And in my experience, it is very helpful to have someone overseeing your project anyway, especially in this nature and we simply don't have the capacity in town staff or someone to do that. Chase and Chase, I've been communicating with we need a boundary line adjustment. So they've given just a, it's a rough estimate but just an idea of maybe 5,500 to 6,502 survey the properties and then do the boundary line adjustment sometime in the spring, which hopefully we will have a design firm on board at that time. And we'll more definitively know where the siting of the building would be. Right now it's more of a kind of guesstimate of standing on the site. So I think it would be helpful to know more precisely where we think the building would be prior to doing the boundary line adjustment and it's and Chase agreed with me as well. We've had one firm in applications since last meeting, a home office, a 20 by 24 structure. We didn't need the future meeting schedule, which has the fire department meeting on December 14th highlighted. I'm sorry, that's all good. Okay, and we don't have any other business. Do we have any other business you need? No, I just came to the end of the town wrap morning and I did. You have a copy. Good time. Well, it's actually on Monday. What? Well, we haven't made any drastic changes to it yet. There's certainly has been, there's been some discussion about making changes. There's been some discussion about making changes to the town on Monday by one of the members. Uh-huh. Do we discuss the attire of the town moderator or is that totally up to the town moderators' discretion? You know, God, if you want to delve into detail, that's fine. I don't know. You know, obviously, you're very detail-oriented. I'm not. I am not detail-oriented. Are you broad stroke? Oh, that is to my detriment. I am not detail-oriented. I wish I was more detail-oriented. Well, you certainly were on the 1499 or 1599, whatever it was. That was more. Look at that. I was 14. Oh, okay, okay. So it ain't going to work, but, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Okay, so the, do you have any comments on the way? I'm just trying to remember. It's like, yeah, just trying to remember. This would help. You were on the left, there was something that got left out. Oh, yeah. And used a flier, sweet, COVID, but we'll take everything that was in here now. Article one and two. Yeah, that was a message. Now, we're just getting on to that one again. Yeah. But that, I think that was both of the two things that the first graph, maybe even the second graph, and put in. Now, how are we going to do this? We're going to find the version from last year. Yeah, that's a good template to use. Yes. I don't usually go back to the first graph. I usually go back to the final. Yeah.  A second. I was in favor of you say aye. Aye.