Welcome to Toffy TV, it's the Match Preview, West Ham United versus Everton, I'm joined by Matthew Barry making his debut on Toffy TV, welcome. West Ham away at the weekend, a fix you that is alright for Everton, Everton West, I'm not going to say any more than that for fear of jinxing anything. But obviously this one's got a little bit more spice with it being David Moyes again at the helm at West Ham in December, there was big rumours that he could be in the Everton dugout and obviously we've got Carlo and Cialotti but a tough game but a game that Everton can win? Yeah I think so, we've always seemed to have done well against West Ham in the past, the thing this time around Moyes being the manager, you think he's going to have him probably fired up that little bit more, he's going to be disappointed that he didn't get the evident job, he probably thought he was there or there about and calling West Ham Everton in his press conference as well, I don't think he's indeed into the fans that much. But it's a fixture we always tend to be alright in. That's it isn't it, you are worried about trying too much because you've got too much evident history in us having me to go over the top. The last time he was West Ham manager we beat them 4-0 at Godderson but the only game he's actually won against Everton since leaving was the one at the London Stadium when he beat us 3-1 the last game of the season when we had someone in our dugout who shall remain nameless. They've done, they've had a little bit of an up turn since he went in so the job they had a good win against Bournemouth be Bournemouth 4-0 and then they got thrown in the FA Cup didn't they but you know last week they lost 1-0 at Sheffield United, almost at the point obviously a goal that's allowed with FA. So he's got them fired up like you say because they've had an injury against the Fabianski which is a big blow for them because he's a good goalie but they have completed the signing of Darren Randolph for 4 million from Middlesbrough. It looks as though Philip Anderson is going to be fit as well which he limped off against Sheffield United and the hope was that from our perspective that he might miss this one when it looks like he's fit. So you've got players you can cause as problems, Hallard as well, he's a good player and Everton will have to be careful with Westam's form of players won't he? Yeah I mean you look at last season when they beat us a gooderson, Philip Anderson was superb, he had the freedom of the left hand side and he was excellent, Lanzini usually turns up against us as well but Fabianski's a massive massive miss for them. But Darren Randolph, I think Jonathan Woodgate said he's the longest medical in history this week so hopefully he's not 100% fit. Yeah well he's lonely just I think he's first right in the sessions there so that's never good. You look at sort of the forward line and Hallard I think he's a very good centre forward and I think where he was up front for Eintracht where he was part of the front three and he played better especially with Jovic. With Jovic off of him but I think Michal Antonio was injured as well so he usually has a good game against us so if he's up front on his own you think that Mina or Keane I think he's going to be Mina probably Carlo said that he's going to rotate. You think he'd be able to look after him but it's the players coming off of him I think that we may have certainly without issues in midfield. Well that's it isn't it. I mean in midfield they'll have, they've played with Noble and Dechlan Wright and they've had other people in there as well. And we're not the most mobile of midfields at the moment because obviously the mission is going and the big miss was obviously gone and we haven't had all season so no point worrying about that but we just haven't got the most mobility in the centre of the park. Do you see him staying with the two that started against Brighton and Guilfeasigas and Tom Dade or do you think maybe Morgan Snidl and they'll come back into his thinking this weekend? I don't think Snidl in well. I think that ship sailed now I think. After I'm feeling absolutely, I don't think the supporters are aware of that to a certain degree. I wouldn't be surprised if Delft came back in. I was going to say Fabian Delft is the one he seems to be. I think the type of player the Noble is. I think you may need somebody who's a little bit more combative than Sigurdsson and I think you need the legs of Tom Davies absolutely 100%. I wouldn't be against Sigurdsson and Davies playing midfield but I think it'd be Delft and Davies. I mean he could do that, he could rotate. Sigurdsson's played a lot of games lately as well as me's been in the team pretty much since Marco Silva got sacked actually. I know he just got in because we had a couple of injuries, Silva had dropped them. He dropped them actually for this game. Didn't he for the reverse fixture he could as he came on and scored his only goal of the season. Currently averaging a goal every 788 minutes so it's not very good. He's got one goal, one assist this season and that for someone who we paid a lot of money for to be a chief goal maker and goal taker. And certainly last season I think he finished with 13 Premier League goals and six assists I think it was. This season he's been way off it so if he is, you know he could be one who he might look at and think well we will go with Delft. We'll go with Delft and Davies and then maybe bring Sigurdsson off the bench with half an hour left to time. You know when the game is slowed down he can have more of an influence so that wouldn't surprise me if he did that. I think you look at the impact that Delft had when he came on against Newcastle where he slowed the game completely down and we took control of it. Again I think Newcastle's midfield is a little bit more combative certainly than what Westhams were sort of the old tempo that. I think the big win for us will be with Bernard being fit and him and Lucadine being back on the left hand side because Lucadine looked himself again. He did and he had a difficult week as well last week. You know we had family bereavement and stuff and he didn't shine for two or three days last week and I think that's why Carlo took him off for the last 10 minutes against Brighton. But you're right he looked a lot more like himself, a bit more like himself with having Bernard in front of him. They were great last season and down here, they were brilliant. And Dean does need that link up play. You know I think it just helps him out. Bernard, we spoke about it certainly on the podcast and we spoke about it in the final where that. Since Antelott he's come in and Bernard's played, he's got him cutting inside, a bit like Insigni does for Napoli. But he's coming in off the wing and creating a problem centrally for teams and because Calvert-Lewan and Retial isn't quite mobile that's given us options. I think I expect Theo Walcott to play with just reading something there. He scored and assisted more goals against Westham than any other club in the Premier League. So sometimes those things work for players that feel good. He hasn't scored or assisted any at the London Stadium yet so we have to change that at the weekend. I expect Walcott to play as well just because I think away from home, even though he does run in straight lines, his pace is a threat isn't it? I suppose if you've got, because Bernard isn't the quickest in transition, he's okay with the ball, he's like when he's running with the ball but he's not a long sprinter. I think if you've got Walcott and you've got Calvert-Lewan and you've got Retial, you can turn the ball over quickly because they are quick and that could be something we can have Westham worried with. The youngness on Westham will be to attack, certainly after the Shefford United game where they're probably going to want a bit of a reaction to that.  Certainly against them because you've got the pace of Retial-Lewan and Walcott and Calvert-Lewan could almost be a front three in some respect. So that's the thing, they will cause us problems because they've got plays in attacking areas that can cause your problems. Lanzini snog-crashed normally as a decent game against us, we've got a good set of balls especially, I remember them scoring one for Hull against us a few years ago. So we'll have to be wary of that but it's a game you look at and think with Everton, even putting your up a side and I don't see why we should. It's a very real possibility with four points off the European places but even if you put that to one side and said a top eight finish, these are the kind of games where you have to go and win. Other teams we saw like the Crystal Palace last season winning eight away games and things like that, we're being able to play in the counter-attack. I think Everton in general over the last five, six, seven, even Moises era really but we just haven't won enough away games, it's one season it's a game, another season it's three. This team with the ability and the pace like you've just said on the break should be able to win half a dozen for me. I think one of the instant wins that we'll get with a manager like Ancelotti will be able to beat the teams who were supposed to beat. Because he's tactically astute enough to be able to close the game down like for example last week, one that left 70 minutes he takes Bernard off and you think in what's he doing that for but he's seeing things that we don't see. Italian manager 1-0 20 minutes to go, he's just going to close it down. I'd love to have seen Moise King come on but if you're two or three up then he'd probably come on but whereas Marco Silva probably would have made an attacking change and he wouldn't have closed the game out and we draw that game then because Glen Murray comes on and all of a sudden there's long balls, balls going in over the top, going to the back post probably the last 10-15 minutes then we probably would have drawn that game so having somebody who's able to be able to look at it from the side and go right I need to do that, I need to do that and draws into wins and losses into draws but that's what he'll do and some of the games that like a Bournemouth away this year we get to 1-0 then you know we throw the game away in the second half it's terrible. Yeah, there's been too many of them as in the bay and Lee was a poor result but they're brightening away you know we had that game 2-1 up with 10 minutes left you know that should have been a victory and he threw that away. There's been too many of them and we have to ensure really that Saturday isn't one of those days I mean the big one for me that we'll have to look after is Halle, you've already mentioned him. Jerry Maynab was superb against him at Godderson, he bullied him, he wasn't interested at all after that for now he was getting further and further back up the pitch.   He's a mood player if it's not going the way he wants it so he can fall away from the game so everything do after win the battles and that'll be key and if we can keep Halle quiet you know and look after Anderson then it'll be great. I think we can go on and win the game it'll be a tough game by home you know every Premier League game is a tough game but I think for Carlo currently got a 75% win ratio in the Premier League which is lovely so it'll be nice for him to increase that to 80% this week with a win but let's get out there get the three points and see how far up the table we can go and it's about closing the gap on everyone at Godderson. A win at the weekend would mean that it'd be nine points then between Everton and Westam it would therefore fall from bottom so it's about creating that gap away from everyone. The sides below us as well they've got to play each other and they also play the top six as well so if we can get a result against Westam against Newcastle then we're playing one game a week now whereas Wolves Arsenal Chelsea they're all playing. United they've all got Tuesday Saturday Thursday Sunday Sunday. That's it I mean for this squad in particular and for Carlo Ancelotti because he's just come into the job and you know to bore everyone again I've just finished this book and he doesn't make a note in that book if he doesn't like taking teams over mid season for that reason but once you get to one game a week it's going to give him all of that time to assess this squad now to close the season now hopefully finish on a high. And start making their preparations for next season because listen we can still achieve something this season. It's almost like a long pre-season this where you're right he's going to weed out who he wants to keep, who he wants to go he can assess them all and work out then what he wants to do going forward but from an acclimatisation point of view then he hasn't got six to eight weeks to work with the players he's had almost six to eight months and we'd go into next season then if we can get into Europe this year it'd be the other season. I know a couple of people certainly on Payton of Keith and Keith on Payton is worried about us getting into Europe so we're not ready. I don't think we can pick and choose things like that I think the quicker this club gets into European football the sponsors and everyone else yes I get the point I get the point about the squad but if you're clever Wolves are above us and they're in your over league and won less games but they've used it well I think what you do when clopted at Liverpool is you use your other players this is the problem when we got in it last time in Coom and was in charge. I don't know if Roberto Martinez did it brilliantly negotiated that he didn't know how to defend in the league but he negotiated the other league quite well till he went to Kiev and then played Alcatraz. We made it and escaped from Alcatraz because he was woeful but what Coom and done wrong was he didn't trust the reserves so we played the wrong players all the time instead. I think someone like Antio Lottie with the experience they like to be ideal for Anthony Gordon. You know Moise Keane people like that you know one of your centre backs like the Gibson maybe even if they're just on the bench for the experience you use your squad like that maybe play your strong team at home and get the three own wins and then go away and use your other players and try and get a couple of you win three own games and draw one away game you threw in the Europa League ten points get you through and that's what Everton could do and develop into if they don't get into Europe fine but we've got to make a good run certainly at the top eight. And keep that that thing clearly in Antio Lottie's mind about where we want to go for next season. Lester did this last year with Rogers he came in in January. He had like you've just said he used that end of the season got them doing what he wanted don't forget he come in and they were above Everton and they finished below Everton. So even though he did well he wasn't amazing so he used it to see like how can I tinker this team get them my messages across and then they hit the ground running. They had that like you've just said a six month preseason so that when the august started they hit the ground running and they've gone from strength to strength and it'd be an absolute it'd have to take a disaster now for them to not finish in the Champions League places because the ten points ever whatever of people around them. So you'd expect they would finish in the top four now this season and that's because he's had the benefit of that six months. I think if we if we can get into Europe I think two of the biggest attractions Everton next season in terms of recruitment will be Antio Lottie for one players I want to play for him and you know we'll pay we'll pay good money we'll pay we'll pay a good salary. Of course we will. But if you've got European football on the back of that then you're going to attract probably you can be looking at players from like Leverkusen from Frankfurt from Ajax. The right kind of players. You know from Italy, Napoli and Lattio players like that so it's going to open possibilities to sign better players. Which then? That's what Liverpool did and teams like that have gone off and they've gone a bit better than what you've got, better than what you can go for and European football does do that. You write it, have an Antio Lottie and have the ability to say well we're in Europe in a players mind you don't go over that a team that finishes near the top that's where I want to go. They've got to move into a new stadium so you're showing a player perspective play look this is the stadium you want to move to. You've got Carlo Antio Lottie his arm and it's in European football. You've got a young squad and it makes you all of a sudden very attractive proposition because most players want to go and play for Champions League clubs. Of course they do because it makes right and everything else it goes in the back pocket and gives them a good wedge and they can judge themselves against the best players and whatever. But the next best thing is that you're overleag and it's European football that gives them not as good benefits but still benefits. And the other thing as well finally on the European football thing is that the involvement in the Europa League now if you can get into the group stages and stuff I think it's 12 million whereas when Everton got to the last 16 or last 82 whatever it was under Martinus last 16 it was something like 900,000. So it's a big difference especially to a club like Everton especially with FFP and everything else it is important and I know people can have that fear that all the season can be derailed but not in it this season and the season was almost derailed. So I don't think you can pick and choose personally I think you should always try to finish at the top of the league if that ends up being seventh and you get into Europe you take your medicine. If you look at the price of money disparity between finishing seventh or eighth, 14th or 15th then it's 12 million which is huge but I mean just going back to West Ham when you look at them as a club they've got aspirations like we have but they've never kicked on. If we can go there get an early goal Saturday they're proud, they're horrific, they'll be on their backs straight away. I don't think that they're delighted with the David Moyns appointments are. I think some of them share as a necessity and go alright at least he'll keep us up but I think the other ones who do want better from their club are looking at seeing loads when we were linked with them loads of West Ham fans going you don't want him. You don't want him and it's like well we know David Moyns we had him for a long time you know you had him for six months and he kept you up. So there will be that little bit and the first goal is key in a lot I think it's 71% of the teams who win the game of the team that scores the first goal so it's a high thing to get the first goal and that's what everything will look to do with the weekend. Just very just finally before we finish Anthony Gordon he's been in and around the squad there's more talking from this week obviously Marcel Brands at the ADM pointed out he's a player who's very very close. Is he someone you think you'd like to see on the bench at the weekend or do you think it's still a little bit too soon for him? No I think he'd be great to come off the bench I think Wood Bernard he sort of gets to the 65-70 minutes and he's tiring but to have somebody who's got ability like Gordon to be able to come and he's quick he's direct he can come inside then you're having somebody who's going to cause the same type of problems but who's going to be a lot fresher and he's going to be able to stretch the game and we've got to see him at some point he's got to play. I think he can make an impact for us. I think when we get to 40 points this season get that boxed off and we can see where we are in terms of the league whoever wins the league cup they're going to be in Europe. When we get to the quarter-finals semi-finals of the FA Cup then we'll know who's going to win that and how that affects the league places and perhaps we can start to give him full 98 or get him to start games then towards the back end of the season. Lewis Gibson as well I think he's back from injury now I think he's going to need to get into the team at some point just to see what it's like. He's got six months left on his contract, they're going to need to make a decision. I think Lewis Gibson is really interesting actually because the club are trying to get him to sign a new deal. He wants reassurance about his pathway to the team, it's just fine. A sure way of getting him to sign a contract is to include him. We're looking at you to be one of our centre-backs or cover at left-back because I know he's probably not going to be a left-back but you can start off as a fullback and move back inside. There's a couple of opportunities, I don't think Leighton Brains will stay beyond the season so there's a couple of opportunities for him to be in the evidence squad as either a centre-back or a left-back. The best way to sweeten a player up is to give him a couple of appearances at the end of the season so he's in my thinking. Unless I give God but another contract.  Let's hope we can scrape a win. Actually, let's do what we did last year. Go there and attack. Attack from the first minute, put the game to bed and get three big points and then we move on. Beat Newcastle and we go into that FA Cup break shall we call it in a great position but fingers crossed. It'll be a tough game but fingers crossed ever and can continue the good run of form of Leighton. Make sure you give the video a thumbs up, subscribe if you haven't or join us on python like Matthew has if you want more videos. See you later.


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Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, General Law 30A Section 18, this meeting of the Finance Committee is being conducted by a relevant participation. I just want to share with everybody that at least as of today's meeting that this is a special meeting of the town council. There's no public comment for the public. There's no period for public comment during this meeting. We welcome public comment and at future meetings of the Finance Committee that we're going to be holding remotely, we will have public comment. But this being the first meeting in this format, it was not advisable for us to try and do that today. However, we really welcome your thoughts and questions about anything that the Finance Committee is working on. And you'll see right now on the screen. My address, email address, steinbergatmrsa.gov, and strongly encourage public comment, and it will be shared with the entire committee. So, having said that, I will then go back to where I was before and turn off the shared screen for the moment and we can start working through our way through the agenda. I want to just introduce everybody to make sure that everybody knows who are currently members of the Finance Committee and to allow our minute taker to be able to assure that there is attendance. So I'll just go down the list and Kathy Shane, you're with us. Yes, I am. And Dorothy Pam, just unmute and say and acknowledge your participation. Dorothy, you can do it easy. Just once. Okay. Hold the space bar down. All the space bar down while you're talking. It works the same way. Lynn Griezmer. Lynn, are you with us? Present. I'm here. And I'm Andy Steinberg, chair of the committee. Then we have three members who are resident non voting members Bob Hickner. I'm here. Sharon Povinelli. Sharon. Sharon was here and she can, she may be joining us again in a few minutes. She's here. She just muted. And Mary Lou Tom and. You're participating by phone. Sharon Povinelli is here, but she's. Maybe maybe. Okay. And Mary Lou. Yes. Okay. So everybody is present. So I'm going then on to today's agenda because this is the first meeting. That we've had of the committee in some time. And I really am glad that we're finally. Back to the. What we're, what we're trying to do. And the first agenda item. That you can see on your screen is to review and comment on. A document that was prepared for. For the council meeting. March 30th. In which we tried. The screen is not showing for us. It is not showing. Okay. Well. It should be, but. I'm having trouble with my. Other things on my screen. So let me go back to share if I can, or I'll stop. We'll have. Athena be able to help us out too. I'll try one last time. See if I can. Find word is that going to spend too much time on this for the agenda. Is the agenda now showing or not? No. Okay.  So for Athena's sake, what I want to do is on the next document that I want to get on the screen is actually the item that we're going to be discussing itself, which is the. Standing committees chart the pages that have to do with the. With the finance committee. So let's see if I can. We're up now. Now I'm up. Okay. The agenda is. No, the agenda. I think that. I'm going to put the agenda on. Athena, can you switch it over to the standing committees. Report that was there and then get us down to the page that shows the finance committee. And we'll leave it on the screen as we talk about it so that people from the public can see what we're discussing. And this was a document that is available in the packet from March 30th meeting. And it identifies the goals of the finance committee. As over the next. Couple of months and things that we need to do. And I think that we all recognize that. And I think that we all recognize that. Developing an FY 21 budget. It's going to be a complex and different issue. And I want to make sure that everybody on the committee. Has a chance to ask questions about the goals of the committee. Over the next. Period of. Probably two to three months and disabled to. Find out any information that you need to know. And I think that what we do is we try and develop an FY 21 budget. For which, which is a requirement. Of the committee each year. It is going to be particularly difficult and different from prior years. And I want to. I want to make sure that everybody on the committee. Is aware of the concerns that we're facing. Because of changed circumstances that are. Just as a result of the current financial crisis resulting from. Go void. 19. Budget crisis. So the goals of the committee are up on the screen to discuss. And I know that there's. There's a lot of questions about that. But I'm not going to get to it now. But the five items that are on the screen. I want to just see if there are any questions or thoughts about those items is to. Their importance for the finance committee. Any thoughts. Okay. Just to go on. And then if, and please interrupt if you do. There's one of the things that I wanted to touch on a little bit further. Is the matter and the fourth. Box. Which is the regional school district. Process and how that fits in with the rest of the process. As you recall last year. We talked about what we did in. In conformance with the charter. And just the reality of the timing. Was that the regional budget was being presented before. The finance committee and the council were considering the budget. As a whole for the rest of the town. And I'm not going to talk about the budget process. I'm not going to talk about it. I'm not going to talk about it. I'm not going to talk about an unknown schedule. Because of the financial circumstances that we're in. The regional school district. The regional school committee is having a meeting tonight. In which they're going to talk about the budget process. But. Do. Does everybody feel comfortable in understanding. The regional school district budget. And our budget process all fit together. If you need to raise your hand, please do. You want us to unmute and just say yes, if we understand. Or if you have any. If you have any thoughts or questions, please. You know, feel free to do that members of the committee. Mary Lou and Dorothy have their hands up. Two hands up. Okay. I'm just curious where you have in notes. On timing for consideration. It says Amherst will need to. And there's nothing after that. Yeah. No, I realize that there's that problem. And that's exactly what I was referring to. I was referring to. Yeah. I'm just curious where you have in notes. On timing for consideration. It says Amherst will need to. And there's nothing after that. Yeah. Yeah. No, I realize that there's that problem. And that's exactly what I was referring to. What we need to do is make adjustments to be prepared to make adjustments to the process. And there are various reasons that we could. Need to adjust the process that being just one of them. One of the town meetings rejects the proposed assessment method. I think that the reason that I listed that one is because. Last year. There was a particular concern that that might happen in one of the towns that did not happen. And we all agreed to. The budget, the regional budget process. What is happening this year is that. The other towns are rescheduling their. Their annual town meetings all are in the process of either one having picked a date and the others. Working towards picking dates, but they are going to be later than usual, which gives the regional school committee extra time. To finally approve its budget, which is why it's only talking about process tonight. And I think that the budget will not be voting on the budget, according to an email I received from the superintendent. And. The budget and very look and give us the full explanation of this. The budget has to be ready. For inclusion in the warrant with the first town meeting that's going to be scheduled. Of the towns that have town meetings. That's because the town finance committees. Need to have that information available needs to be out to the members of the public in those towns who are voters in town meeting. So we, when we know the date, we will then have to decide how we fit. The regional school budget into our process. And then we'll have to go back to the school committee. And then we'll have to go back to the school committee. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. One of the concerns would be, you know, it's all being postponed, but if one of the towns rejects. The budget. Then it has to go back to the school committee. To rethink it. And decide what they're going to do. So I don't know how much latitude you have in time. As you propose these deadlines. Because it, it. It could be a possibility that one of the towns. Would reject the budget. They have. One town rejects. Review it. And then. Start again. That would have to be completed. Otherwise the commissioner. That's the budget monthly. So I don't know how much. Latitude you have in time. As you propose these deadlines. Because it. It could be a possibility that one of the towns. Would reject the budget. Would reject the budget. That would be a good start again. If one town rejects the budget, it still passes because. I'm sorry. I mean. The method. Yeah. But if one town rejects the method. Then the method defaults to the. Statutory method. Okay. So that's already established. Well, isn't that what the standard rule is? I haven't been on that assessment committee. Now for a couple of years. Yeah. And I think that that's the way the statute works. It is. It is a complex. Problem. And see if I can explain it as best possible. Because there is actually a separate states. Statute that is working its way through the legislature. Having to do with what's going to happen in the regional school district. If there's no budget by. July one. And what the legislation that was submitted by the governor is working its way through the joint committee on education provides. Is for the. If there's no budget by July one. That the commissioner can approve. A one 12th budget for each month until. There's a budget that is finally adopted. So if default, it goes to, if that law passes, and I think some version of it. Is likely to pass. For this year only. There is that special provision. Legislature has been working hard on trying to make sure. That there are provisions for each scenario that we might be concerned about. And that's one of them. I think that the concern that I have is that. At least as of this time. The legislation as it's working its way through committee. Is so far silent on the issue of. Assessment methodology. Assessment methodology makes a huge difference for Amherst. Because. When we were looking at the. Four towns meeting results. And the difference for Amherst between the 45%. What was referred as the 45% of. Statutory solution that we all agreed to. And the default methodology, which is 100% of statutory. The difference for Amherst is $180,000 based on the budget amount. That was previously discussed. That's for us, even before. This crisis. His hit us. Is a large difference. Is that answer your questions best I can. Mary Lewis or anything else. That's fine. Thank you. And. I just want to go back and look in the participant list and see if there's anybody else's wants to be recognized at this point.  Kathy. So Dorothy. Now I press the space bar. Keep it, keep it down. Okay. All right. I just wanted to double check the order. Okay. The school committee approves the budget. It comes to the finance committee. We approve the budget. We take it to town council. They approve the budget. Then it goes to the town meetings and they approve the budget, which is separate from the. That we were just talking about, which is the method of payment. Is it not. So aren't there two things. That the other towns have to approve. One is the budget and two is. How we're going to pay for it. So. Mary Lou had chapered us through that. The finance committee of town meetings and. Now it's on us to do that, but they are two separate votes. The budget has to be approved by three towns out of four. And if it's approved by three times out of four, it's binding on all four towns. The assessment method. And it's approved by all four towns. And of course in three of the towns, it is town meetings in our town as the council. Don't forget to press your bid bar space bar. If you want to talk about using that method. So I say, thank you. Okay. So Kathy. Okay. I have two questions. One is the school budget itself. And I know you said they're meeting. Tonight. I had been told that because of the union contract. To the extent there needed to be layoffs, any layoff notice would have to go out by April 1st. And that you. And that's Paula's shaking his head. No. So I don't know whether that's true or not in terms of layoffs for the fall.  And then it's the second, which would go with that. If, if we run into the issue of statutory budget and Amher says, we can't pay that amount, then does it have to go back to the school and the school has to live with a smaller budget in total. So the two questions. The first is on the. If we needed a smaller staff to live within a smaller budget, did there have to be notices by April 1st? Or is there, was there not a deadline on that? I'm going to answer one question and then get back to the first question about the notice that has to be given to. Teachers on potential layoffs. The. Part that. Is. We don't, we would not have an option to, to say no, once a budget is approved by three towns, it is binding on all four towns. And. If one town is not. Not happy with it. It still has to figure a way to pay it. There is no choice. I think that's a good point. And as far as the other. And I must, and I actually should add to that. Both for the committee and for the public. We have not had that happen in this region. And I don't think ever. And the reason is that all of the towns work together and try and figure out a solution. To. We have four town meetings in which we try and get together and make sure that we have a budget. That is agreeable to the towns. The danger has come up with the assessment method because that has become an issue in one of the towns. And if it was rejected, it has the kind of large effect that we're talking about. So, as far as the other question that you were asking. The. Most union contracts have a provision that if there is a possibility of layoffs, the teachers have to be notified of the possibility of layoffs. Or a date that is established within the agreement between the district and the union. And if the. Financial situation for the district or the town supporting the district is severe enough. It puts the district in a position where it has to. Send that notification to the union. Doesn't mean that they're layoff notices. That's not necessarily, but it's notifying the union of possibility. Paul, you have some expertise in this. Did I state it correctly? Thank you, Andy. You did. So first, I think just want to. Make sure that people aren't sort of seizing the screen. It seems like some people are trying to share screens and shouldn't. So just make a caveat that what you said, Andy is accurate that. I don't know what you're talking about. But we should recognize that they clearly the school administration and the union are in close contact with each other. So they understand what the situation is. Okay. And as I. Anybody for who wants to watch the school committee meeting tonight. They are talking about budget process. I did ask superintendent whether. I think it's a good idea to have a four town meeting either by. A remote meeting such as this or. In in person, if it's a light enough that it's acceptable. To, to do an in person meeting. And it's an unknown. At this point. That's part of the process that they might be discussing later. So. I don't see anyone else's hand up, but I may be missing it. So I just want to make sure before I go on. You said we can get back. Can you take us back to the chart. With the issues that. Are coming before the committee, the delayable. So. You know what I mean. I just want to make sure it's. From the March 30 council meeting. Okay. So we were on this before and. Can you get back to it? Are there any other boxes? People. That any members of the committee wouldn't ask questions about. On this page. I think we're going to have a discussion. On the budget hearings. They are required by the charter. Other factors that are involved is that we need to. Come to a process ourselves. That is essentially going to. Allow us to. Figure out what the revenue likelihood is. And then we can. Go back and restart the process as if necessary. To look at the allocations amongst the various major functional areas. Schools, library and municipal. We don't know that's necessary. We were hoping to get some insight today. I just want to. I just want to give you a few additional reasons to hold the meeting that a lot of us said to hope to attend to it. The. Information that I've been able to get. Is not entirely conclusive because while Tufts University. Did do a fairly good study. On the issue and one that I can add to the packet for this meeting rather than discuss it here. I don't know how much money is going to be available from the federal. Multi trillion dollar package. That would flow to the state. And. So we don't. We. The analysis. Very thorough study of. The amount of lost revenue to the Commonwealth. But it would be offset by that. And it would also be offset by the federal budget. And it would also be offset by any legislative decision to use a portion of its rainy day funds. And those are. Topics that we were hoping for better insight into. And that we need to get into. Get the answers to. So the determination can be made. Of what our likely state aid is going to be under the new circumstances. So are there any questions about the revenue projection.  Under. The. The third item consideration for the budget. I'd like to suggest that we give. All of the departments and power to present. So that we get information about the department. Some of their needs or concerns. And I think you were. Part of it when we started giving departments an hour. And it does give us. A great deal of information. And the way you have a three or four weeks. And if you meet. For three hours each of those. Times. Twice a week to. You would have an opportunity to give each of the department. An hour. To present. So that would be under other notes. That's a good question. Paul and Sonia had given some consideration to how to proceed with that. Before this whole crisis came up. And had a schedule set up for the. Finance committee. And we were going to. Have. I think that the goal was to have brief presentations from each of the departments. Paul. Yeah. So we were, we had a consolidated schedule. I mean, all that is out the window now because we don't know what the schedule is going to look like. But we were, it wasn't going to be like it had in the past where they're going to be long and like each department gets an hour or anything like that. Because we did a lot of. Work on the budget. As early on and Sony had done a lot of pre-work with it. All the department heads. So we had, we did have a time schedule from all the major departments to beat me with the finance committee. Okay. Bob has a Santa. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I'm just wondering since I know there's a lot of uncertainty in terms of what the impacts of. The virus will be on the town and state budgets, but is the recession of 08 and 09. A good starting point to sort of say, Hey, let's start here in terms of our thinking. And then, you know, we'll adjust that as we get more information. Welcome Sonia and Paul. Adding to this. Now, having been through the, that experience. And I think that Mary Lou was also involved at that. Time period. We. There were some differences. One was that it worked its way out over a longer period of time. It didn't hit us in March because. The crisis started well before March. We know that I think it was September. Really when the major things began to happen. So the budget year was going on. On a more normal schedule with the uncertainty. Stringing out over a longer period of time. The other. Reality is this recession appears to be a lot deeper. And. We therefore really haven't yet scoped what the. Reality is. So I'm not sure how much the. It matters. Mary Lou, did you have some thought on it? Not particularly no. Dorothy, you had your hand up and then Kathy. So I had a question. If this would be similar to the budget crisis in New York City in the 1970s. I think it's a. Way of boycott. You know, on the whole time when New York City had to just stop everything. It was. It was going to be out of it. But I don't know if you had an experience in the end in New York at that time or we're following it. I did not. So I don't know. I think it's a little bit more recent experience. The most recent experience one is, is the one that. I referred to earlier. Kathy. Did you. I just. Andy Bob had mentioned earlier this tough. Projection and we can send it to you. They did a very simple modeling like you just suggested on. Massachusetts tracks. What happens to national GDP and when GDP goes down, it's going to go down. It's going to go down.   They looked at 2008. Both on how much of a rainy day fund does the state have to not have it. Completely hit the localities. You know, how much do localities have. And that year. And then they put a lot of money in the state. And then they put a lot of money in that act. And that actually put more money into state and local governments than what is allocated right now on the two trillion. Of in terms of a share. So I think we. What is the federal government going to do? How much money does the state have? And then. Paul will talk a little bit about Amherst. And how much money does the state have? And how much money does the state have? And how much money does the state have in place in terms of our own savings than we were in 2008? You know, like. What helps you weather a storm. If there's a storm. So each of those became question marks on. How similar or dissimilar are we on the length of time? And how quickly this is going to hit. And how much can we grow out of it? If we do stimulus quickly. You know, to counteract. What's happening. Andy. I'm going to go back to the question. I'm going to go back to the question. I'm going to go back to the question. And either my town manager reporter last night, the tough study that actually mirrors pretty closely, the mass taxpayers foundation study. They're both in the same ballpark. And that's why with those two studies out there, it was the hearing from this. Ways and means chairs and the. And that's direct. Secretary today was going to be so important. Because they're the ones that should have the biggest insight into where we're headed. Financially. In terms of a state and anything the state does. I mean, it's not the only tool that we have. We also have to look at all of our tools. I think we're not going to know for a while, Bob. I mean, it's. There's so much uncertainty. And we don't know what the markets are going to do. We don't know how much the state, you know, we don't know the posture of the state will take whether they will be. Sort of.  Sort of calling back all discretionary funding for all their projects, That are out there. Or if they're going to say we got to be pouring money into the state. You know, Cal ہوine back the money to fill the big hole they have behind them, or if they're going to be trying to pump money into the state, They've bumped the economy going to, We're looking at it both ways. Trying to have things that are shovel ready. So if money is available, recognizing that they might be taking all their, you know, the grants that we have out there, just taking them off the table and putting them back into their own reserves. So, there's so many uncertainties. So, we can spend a lot of time speculating, but until we have a little more clarity, I don't know how wise it is. I think what we can be doing is some scenario planning, like what if, what if, what if, and then start to look at what that does to our budget. I think that's very helpful. It sort of is what, when I did the budget outline that I sent to the committee and of issues that I identified, it was really what we need to know. The problem is, is that it didn't really get into the question of when we were going to know the information. And it's hard to develop budgets and to do planning without it. There's numerous pieces that come into play as we try and figure this out, including what we're going to do about capital, both capital for next year and sort of the longer term capital issues that we've been discussing for so much, so long and now we're facing a crisis and having to rethink the whole thing that we've developed. But we, we're just going to have to go through and try and track that out and come up with an orderly process that allows us to work with Paul and Sonia and other staff and finance to get to where we need to be sizing up what the money is, what the needs is, what our choices are and be prepared to make the decisions. But we know we have a sequence that we have to get through to get to an end result. The other thing that we know is that the timeline has a little bit more flexibility than we think about because we don't really need to have a budget by June 30th. We could go on to one month budgets for up to three months in order to buy us some additional time if that becomes a wise choice to make. I don't think it's anything we'd like to do, but we at least we have, it is another tool. So any thoughts about how we go forward with a budget process itself would you like to just have us continue to have me work with Paul and other staff and come up with an outline of a more detailed process and then present it back to the committee for further discussion? So it seemed like the best process. You want us to nod our heads? I saw a couple of head nods there. Okay, that's very helpful because I think that that's where we will go. There's some hands up, Andy. Yeah, okay. Sharon, Sharon Pevelle, do you have your hand up? Okay, she- Can you hear me? Yes. I was trying to do a thumbs up, but there's only a raised hand. Okay. Sometimes there's a thumbs up as well, so. Okay, I'm going to try and do one last share of work this time. See if I can get it. Great dog picture. We have a beautiful dog. We see your dog. That's strange. Is that what I have on my screen? Now we have budget issues outlined. That sounds like better. So this is the document that I was talking about before. And I didn't know if the committee, this has been sent to you, has had a chance to look at it if there's anything that you would add to this outline. I did the original development, but I haven't had a chance to share it with the committee yet. And if there are things now that you know of that you would like to add to the outline, this would be a good time to speak up and see if we can get this, get it added because I think what I would like to do is make it be a working outline for all of us. Andy, can you scroll down where the outline stops at number two? Yeah. It is, this was in your packet. Earthy has her hand up. Go ahead. Well, I did read it and I took a few notes. The one that I made was on number three, Enterprise Fund Revenues. And I know that we were told, I guess yesterday, that the revenues will go down because the colleges aren't in session. My question was, are there any savings when the colleges aren't in session in terms of water and sewer? Sonya, do you have an answer to that or? I can address that. No, there aren't savings because the staff remains the same, the processing stays the same. All the fixed costs are there, whether there's 1,000 people or 100,000 people. I mean, there's some variability in the cost, but the fixed costs are the fixed costs. So that's what drives that expense. Paul, does that include things like the study that we authorized, the $700,000, $800,000 study, if we decided to postpone that a year as an expense? Well, there are a lot of things that we could postpone. I think you're gonna see a lot of those things as options that cities and towns and the state will be looking at as well. It depends what kind of relief the state provides for a lot of the regulatory decisions that their regulatory postures previously. And I'm guessing we'll see some adjustment in that. But I think that we've looked at or talked about a lot of different things that might impact it. So, yes, there's a lot of variables as you well know. So when you look at the page that's on right now, which is the revenue side of it, that's just maybe easiest to stick with that for a moment. It's noted there's four categories that I put on there. Property tax, we know the amount of property taxes. This is a difficult thing for our residents, but property tax doesn't go down. It is established and we are allowing deferrals and payments. And that was reported last night at the council meeting in legislatures, given authority for cities and towns to do that. And the Paulist town manager has made the decision that we would do that here in Amherst. That changes the time collection, but the money is still due, the taxes are still due. And one of the benefits of having the reserves that we have is that we don't have to worry about having a cash flow problem because we have the cash available. But the one piece of property taxes that I am nervous about and think you mentioned it some last night was the new growth estimates. Because there's always, we build in some estimate of new growth estimates each year, which is the one place above 2.5% that we get increases without going to an override. And so the new growth estimate, something that's gonna have to be redone. And I think our assessor is gonna help us with that. So the second grouping is the stay aid, which we've been talking about some. And I think that there's not a lot that I can add to that. The other local revenue, I think that we do have to be nervous about that aspect of it. It is sort of the third piece, but it's not an insignificant piece. Meals and lodging tax I think is going to be significantly decreased for a while. Certainly it is for this year. And so that's both an FY20 and FY21 issue. Car sales are way off and that's what affects the excise tax because we collect the most excise tax in the first couple of years when cars have the highest value. Building activity and fees that come in with building activity. I think we're assuming that it's an area of concern that the extent of these concern, I don't know that we have an estimate for at this point. And whether there's gonna be problems and payments from other sources, I think that that's another area that we just don't know yet. But, and then the enterprise funds, it's a different piece because it's not the general operating budgets, the enterprise fund budgets, but we've already talked about that. So are there any other questions about the, about the revenues page? Because if not, then I'll go on to this. Bob has a question. Oh, Bob. Yeah, I just wonder if we wanna just put a line in there for anything that's directly from the federal government, not that we necessarily know about that right now, if there are direct grants to local governments or other SBA loan type things that might happen? I can, we can add that under other local revenue. That's probably a good thing to add. And I will make a note of that rather than try and do it on the screen as we speak. But the federal grants that we receive are most of them in public safety right now. I believe Sonia's not- Most of them are in the school. Can you hear me? Yeah. Finally. Yeah, most of them, a lot of federal grants are in school, CDBG and some in public safety. But normally when you get money from the federal government, it goes through the state and it's part of our state income. So it would be there. Otherwise it's reimbursements promoting that we have spent during the emergency. So it wouldn't go in here. So you may have seen some communities are entitled under community development block grants. Some communities are entitlement communities. We are North Hampton is, Amherst is not, we are a mini entitlement community. So our funds flow through the state. So the state gets the money from the federal government and then they have to come up with a process to distribute it to their mini entitlement communities and like us. So it's federal money, but it flows through the state as Sonya said. Rofi has a question. Yes. When you said that in terms of property tax, and we've given deferments, and you said the reserves were a help, I don't remember whether, would these are general reserves or whether there are special reserves connected to property tax? It's just our general reserves. It would be a free cash and stabilization fund? It's a matter of allowing us to continue to operate because if we use free cash to make up for late payments, we've had a very successful collection rate, very good collection rate. We have good taxpayers who care a lot about the town and support what we do, but people are gonna have to make difficult decisions right now for their own personal lives. I think that's what we're recognizing, that it could be the delay. Anything else on the revenue or I'm gonna go on to just talk about the issues and spending is I don't see, well hold off in regional schools. Mary Lou has a question. Yeah, Mary Lou. Delays in paying various taxes that also impacts any interest we make on that money. So I was wondering if Paul could give us an idea of how much we might have to take out of the reserves? And if that's a significant amount, would it be wise now to ask all departments to look at their budgets to see how much they could reduce them by? Multiple questions. So interest rates are abysmally low. So the time value of money is not very significant to us. Cash flow wise, we're in good shape because we have a pretty good collection rate and our reserves are strong. We are looking at all things on the table. That's what we've been telling department heads so until we get a better sense of where we are. Again, it's a fine line between keeping the economy going and keeping our budget balanced. So I think it's just a little premature at that moment in time. And in addition, we will be working closely with the school department because they are such a significant portion of our budget. That's a conversation that the finance people and the superintendent will have with our finance people and me. So I'll point out on that as we're getting into on the spending side for FY 21, municipal department, what we're gonna have to do is figure out whether we need a new guideline amount and what that guideline amount is gonna be and if this can reduce the amount that we tell each of the segments of government, the library, the elementary schools and the municipal departments that is going to be available for expenditure in FY 21. I don't think we know the answer to that until we know what our revenue choices are. And then as we made the comment earlier about the state's gonna have to make a decision as to how much of its rainy day fund it wants to use. We've collected reserves and used reserves for two different purposes. One is to treat it as a local rainy day fund which is how it was used in 2008, 2009 period. And the other is we had built up reserves with the idea that it was gonna help us in figuring out how to fund the major building projects. So we've been talking about, I think, so that's gonna be one of these difficult questions we may have to confront as we go through the, we need to look to reserves as to supplement our operating budgets in FY 21. If so, by how much, what's gonna be the ramification of doing that? And then the other thing, and I'll stop talking to see what other people have to say is that we have to get it and make a decision about whether we stay with 10% of the property tax revenue for capital or whether we have to go back to what we did in the 2008 and subsequent year period and reduce that amount. There are long-term consequences when you start putting off capital because eventually all those needs don't go away. They just get worse. So comments, I don't think I have much choice to add on that. Kathy has a hand up. Paige. Okay, just on the capital and 10%. So people know we postponed the first meeting of, we've postponed the next meeting. It wouldn't be the first meeting of JCPC because of the level of uncertainty on what's total property tax revenue gonna be and is 10% the right number. But I was looking at the projections, the debt service that we're carrying in FY 21 under capital is a clear number. And so it's gonna be whatever other number we come up, we've got slightly under $2 million based on what Sonia and Paula have been giving us in debt service. So at some point we'll have at least a grapple of on the capital side, what do we have to spend? And then what else can we spend would be the second piece. So it's the level of uncertainty when you get down to capital. It's like, if we don't know what the total is, you certainly don't know what 10% is and you don't know whether you can even do 10% of the lower amount. So all of those are contingent. So we're not scheduled to meet until at the earliest the third week in April till we get to finance and fall and everyone get a better grasp on the total budget and projections. Let me know if hands go up because I'm still, I have too many things on my screen as I think what the problem is. I'll do that. So let me know if there are any other hands up. The other thing that comes out of this is because our policy says that capital is measured as a percentage of property tax. You know, since the property tax revenue doesn't go down for the reason that I previously said, while other components of the budget are going down, that's why you have to start looking at that 10% figure because 10% was put on the one piece of the budget that goes up to 1.5% each year without us doing anything unless we decide not to tax to the full amount loud. And it's the other parts of the budget that we're most nervous about right now and we need to do the evaluation and that's why that 10% becomes so important. And I put issues up to deal with the regional schools but I think that we've pretty well discussed that earlier. And that was the question that I put in for enterprise funds and I think Paul had an answer to Kathy's question on that. So if you have additional suggestions on this outline, please let me know, I'm going to use it and continue to use it but try and make it into a group document so that we use it to identify what our choices are. So going back to the agenda, I think that that is the major thing so we need to deal with right now is we've talked about trying to get a budget calendar put together and I think the other thing we'll say on that is that the budget coordinating group will be meeting sometime later in this month and help us to think that through and to assure that we have proper coordination with the schools and the library. And so trying to think if there's anything else I wanna ask today, is there other information that anybody can think of that would be helpful to have to make the decisions that we need about timetable and budget? I would just suggest patience. We're all gonna need that and the ability to deal with ambiguity. Tom, how's the hand? Yeah, Paul, can you give us a sense of the timeline of when you feel you're going to get enough information to start making decisions or start making plans? Well, we're making plans now but I think that the action the state has taken by allowing towns and communities to adopt 112 budgets they think it's gonna be well into June, July, August before there's any kind of clarity on any of this stuff. So if we go through a cycle of trying to come up with a better understanding of what our revenue is and then how we're gonna allocate that revenue amongst the categories including capital and then ask Paul to at that point be ready to submit a budget to us. We really could likely be into the summer. I would expect we'll be into the summer to have the kind of meetings that we expected to have in May. Kathy and Dorothy have a hands up? Kathy. You know, I think I know the answer to this but I'll ask it anyway. A couple, I've heard from a couple of corporations. So REA is one of them on what they're doing looking forward on their revenue and they're for top level people and maybe for more thinking of to avoid layoffs they're doing wage freezes but keeping benefits intact. So keeping the employer contribution to benefits intact. Do we have any flexibility like that? So for the unionized employees versus the nonunion if the town and say you wanted to do it for June, July and August rather than a couple of them were saying for three months rather than for a year. Does a municipality, do we have that ability if we had to use it? There are a lot of different tools out there. Even in a situation like this there's even negotiations with the union. So I think, I'm not gonna go down any individual path on this, but I think there's a lot of tools that we have available to us. I think Dorothy was next. My question is to Paul. Are there areas where we're spending or are going to spend a lot more than we had budgeted to spend? I think that might be more with Sonya. At this point, I think we don't have our March numbers really processed yet. We will have a bit more about that, Sonya. Well, we're gonna be working on the quarterly report next week to get that out to everybody through March. And you're not gonna see much of a difference. It's not really affecting the third quarter. You're gonna see that effect more in the fourth quarter as far as expending. They're spending more for COVID related items. However, all the regular operations haven't been spent. So I think it's kind of zeroing out, netting out that way. So we're watching. We're not spending any, we're not spending any money on any projects of regular operations that we normally have. So there'll be cities that way. So I mean, we are buying more PPE, obviously. Anything we can get our hands on, we've hired five firefighters to put on force from the student force. So they're working so that's at an expense as well. But, yeah. Sharon, did you have a question?  Anything? No other questions. I have one other issue for the committee, but I wanna make sure that we get all of the questions out about either process or budget information that you would like to have to help you do the work as we go forward. The other issue that I wanna make sure that we touch on is the sixth agenda item. And that is that we had talked about our role as the audit committee and starting an audit process of choosing a new audit firm. And that discussion happened sort of before all of this crisis came up. And question is that we're gonna have to confront at some point is whether it is important enough to do that process and go forward with it or whether we should just not try and go out for bid for not this coming year, but the year after in order to preserve the time of our staff and our committee over the next months to concentrate on just getting us through the current budget problem. The disadvantage of this is that we really have been talking about it for a while.  I do see it. I feel like waiting is for another year to get ourselves through this is a good idea. And I do that because the audit group now Mellons and Heath is very good at shifting who comes in to look at us and what departments they look at. So I feel like we could slide for another year without negative impact. Others. Glenn has a hand. Yeah, I actually agree with Pat. And in addition to that, I think I'd rather not kind of upset yet another business at this point but then be study with us. And in addition to that, knowing our books and then how we proceed through all of this is gonna be important versus somebody coming in in the middle of chaos and trying to break them in. I know the hesitancy from Andy's point is that he is very concerned that, you know, the council would have never then changed auditors I just don't feel like that's a big deal right now. Do you wanna make a motion for the finance committee that we recommend to the council and then just put it out there for the council that under the circumstances that we not do a process? Okay, I move that the finance committee recommend to the full town council that we continue with our present auditor not only through this year, but through the next year. Second. Second. The Angelus seconds. There's been a motion that's made in seconded. Any further discussion on the motion in particular or anything that would like to be offered by the members of the committee who will not then be voting? Bob has a hand up. Bob? Yeah, I agree. I think that's the common sense thing you do right now. Anything else? Cause I am gonna have to take a roll call vote. There's a requirement that any votes that we take. Mary Lou, did you have something? She has a hand up. I support the motion. Okay. And share it to the thumbs up, Andy. Okay, well, thank you. So I'm gonna take a vote on the motion that's on the floor and Kathy? Yes. Dorothy? Yes. Pat? Yes. Lynn? Yes. And I'm voting yes. So it's unanimous. Five to zero and the minutes can reflect that we did have endorsement from all three members of the committee who were unable to vote because of the voting rules. So I think that we probably covered as much as we've gone, it's, it was, I realized somewhat of a disjointed meeting, but it's helpful. I will add that one piece to the packet from Tufts University. I will make that one addition to the outline and keep the outline going as a document, that's a working document for the committee. And try and get it shared to the committee on a regular basis as a working document. And I'm gonna take it, treat it as a committee outline now and not my outline alone. We will start working on a budget calendar for as we get information. And I think that with the BCG meeting once scheduled and then report back, I'm not gonna try and schedule another finance committee meeting right now because I wanna make sure that we have all of the information at hand to use our time well and see if we can start getting some better revenue estimates into the picture. So, and I think that pretty well covers it that there are other comments from members of the committee. Andy, the only one I might make is Paul had given us that link to the state meeting that didn't happen today. So it might be good as you as chair if that is rescheduled to send it out to everyone on the finance committee who wants to tune in to that because it's a round table with addressing what Bob was talking about, whatever projections, whatever best guesses we can be making. And it wasn't a participatory. We were just gonna be watching a live video and then it turned out even the participants couldn't be on the video. They just had a technical, total technical failure. So, but I just think that link for everyone would be a useful thing to have if people wanna tune into that. Yeah, thank you very much. And I've done my best tonight and that was a failure because, but it was actually not much time involved. I think we found out about the meeting yesterday. It was sent as something to the council. And so I went to assure Mary Lou and Bob and Sharon that I'm doing my best every time I spot something that's getting to the council that seems relevant to the committee to make sure that even though it's a repeated thing for committee members that it gets to your attention because otherwise you can't be full participants in the committee. And when that is rescheduled, thank you, Kathy. I will do my best. Mary Lou has a comment and then Dorothy. Mary Lou. Paul and Sonia, at the point they get the format for our finance committee meetings where we look at the whole budget. If we could have the outline or know about that format before those meetings begin so that we have an idea where we're going. I think it would be very helpful to know what that is going to be. What were you thinking? Can you be a little bit more explicit about what meetings here? These were the ones that were to come in May but I guess they're going to be later. But there, cause I had suggested that we meet with departments for an hour and Paul said that he and Sonia were working on a format for those meetings. And I guess I would like to know what that is before those meetings start. There was a plan and you would have been receiving it around now for what was scheduled for each of the dates that were anticipated for May. Had we gone through a normal process and had nothing happened, we would be receiving the town manager's budget on May 1st. And then we would have been engaging in those meetings immediately thereafter. And I think that the plan was to get that scheduled out so that we would actually see what was planned for each of the meetings for that period of time and for that sequence of meetings. And that is indicated if the town manager's budget is not going to be provided until the end of June, it'll be July before we have those meetings. And- Dorothy has her format. Quick a question. I had written down, but it may not be accurate at all, some finance meetings. I did not have one for the 14th, but I did have one for the 21st and the 28th. Is that just me anticipating or are those meetings? I think that we had put those in originally. We're going to have to reassess them because it may be premature to have that those number of meetings. We were trying to make sure that we had time to deal with all of the issues that we saw coming forward prior to May 1st, including the regional schools, which we would be dealing with right now, had we been on a normal schedule, there's nothing normal going on and scheduling. So I will have to just keep you informed. Thank you. So I want to thank everybody, unless there's anything else I have nothing else to add. And I know this has been a difficult meeting, but I hope that it's been helpful to get everybody re-engaged and at least beginning to think about what we have ahead of us because this committee is going to be a very important committee for this community. And I look forward to everyone's participation in trying to help us get through this very difficult budget period with a town with hopes that it turns out to be not as difficult as we fear. Andy, I just want to thank you because I know behind the scenes you've been intensely paying attention but also intensely worrying on behalf of all of us. Thanks. Yeah, thank you, Andy. It is my nature, what can I say? Okay, so I want to thank Sean, I want to thank Amherst Media and I want to thank Athena and Sonia and Paul. You've all been great help to the committee, thank you. So with that, I think we'll call the quits and I'll adjourn the meeting. And...


This is the medical, mobile medical unit that the province has acquired. It's a legacy from the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, donated originally by General Electric and through the offices, good offices of the Provincial Health Services Authority and all of the other health authorities. It's now going to be available in the province for emergency situations, natural disasters, forest fires, earthquakes and to attend its special events like the Abbotsford Air Show where it's being deployed for the very first time. What exactly does this facility and other support resources outside offer? Flexibility. The configuration of the mobile medical unit will depend on the needs and the situation at hand. The unit can respond to three levels of need. The first is capability of managing high volume but low acuity patients, the walking wounded. The second level is critical care capability and the third level is emergency surgical capability. It takes the notion of emergency care to the next level. It's a real asset and as health minister I'm thrilled that the other health authorities and the Provincial Health Services Authority are working together to make sure it is available wherever we need it in British Columbia in whatever circumstances.


But I think we have everyone will Baker, are you there will. I'm here. Okay. And you and Jill Rimmick is also here you're going to talk to us a little bit about the history. The question I asked I don't know if you were here and not was, did we always tax electric poles and wires, or, you know, when we thought, as we do with broadband there was a necessity to get everybody hooked up as quickly as possible. And when did we start and how did we do it and whatever. We're just we're just starting on this very technical road. Okay. So first Joe, Rimmick is also here and Joe, please chime in if you'd like. It's my name is will Baker legal counsel at the Vermont tax department. I, let me just start by saying that the underlying premise here is that real property subject to property tax land and buildings subject to property tax. Personal property business personal property is subject to municipal tax, unless the municipality has decided not to tax it. And I believe that only for about 44 municipalities tax business personal property at this point. So that's sort of that. That's, that's the underlying foundation here. And I should also mention that of our 30 tax types property tax is actually not one of my specialties so we may have to research questions further and get back to the committee. I also point out that property taxes is a is a it's spread over 251 towns so we probably can't get you specific answers about our is every single category subject to tax because we would have to go and go and look the tax department itself doesn't list the properties, the municipalities do. And finally, even looking at the grand list. We, we often don't get the level of specificity that this committee may want in other words. If I run a shoe store or consulting firm, it, that's still real property, commercial property, and it would be listed in the grand list as commercial property, whether it's a shoe store or consulting firm. We, we can't zero in hone in on the grand list, as far as internet providers, or any one out any bit other business, probably to the level that you would be most helpful to you. The taxation of polls and wires. Okay, what's taxable who taxes them. Generally, there's, there's a couple different categories, but there's no, Jill correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the word internet appears anywhere in the property tax statutes. So it's not like we do not have a internet provider category of property and there's no specific rules internet providers. But with there are some other categories that that come into play here but following the underlying premise that all landed buildings are subject to property tax and personal properties, some, depending on the town you're in subject to municipal tax cable like cable TV provider who might also provide broadband internet through their cable network. The, the landed buildings for a cable TV provider or internet or cable TV provider would be subject to property tax and cables lines fixtures and polls would be taxed would be subject to education tax. They're included in the definition of non homestead property and education tax. Okay, if Comcast strings fiber or cable or whatever on polls owned by Green Mountain power. Who pays the property tax on that cable. I think, I think it probably depends on who owns them if Comcast if it's Comcast cable and they string it in a particular municipality, it would be subject to education tax cables lines fixtures and polls are subject to the education tax. If they don't own the poll but they own the cable then I imagine that is the value that they would list that they would on which they would be taxed in the town. There are some specific rules that are slightly different for telephone companies in Vermont. And it is possible that some telephone companies as defined also provide internet. Yep. And then. Senator Cummings you asked about the history. My observation of this chapter of title 32 is that it does not change very often, and it's been in place for quite some time. Unfortunately, before before 1947 I don't have a good way to research here at home that the statutes are current, our current style of our statutes really got started in about 1947. So that would be more like legal historical research that we might have some paper materials in our office but I'm not in our office. But, you know, I think that this has been the general structure for quite some time, maybe forever. I did review some materials. Not quite on point it's not property tax but we did have a franchise tax in Vermont on telephone and telegraph companies since 1882 that it went in in 1882. So we have certainly been identifying telephone companies for tax for quite some time. And I think that exempted them in the, in the, for the purpose of encouraging building out of that service that there certainly could have been one. Certainly could have been incentives to do that I know that there was, there wasn't that were incentives to do that I just, I don't see anything on the property tax side. The property tax area, suggesting anything like that. Okay. Any questions for Mr Baker. Thank you Michael. I was getting tired of looking at the top of your head. So you can talk. Thank you Mr Baker. I don't know if you have a question of a previous witness. I don't know if you can answer it but we were informed that the revenues from property taxes on telephone polls I don't know if it's limited to telephone polls has dropped substantially in the last few years. I was a concern about that. And I just don't understand how polls and wires whether it's telephone or cable whatever, get valued or assessed. And, you know, we hear a lot of talk about the desire to use those polls by some companies for various purposes, and I don't know if their value goes up and who does reassessment or reappraisal like we do with homes. Can you educate us a little bit on this. Jill. I can, I can start maybe Jill can can fill in some details. Telephone companies do enjoy a little bit specialized tax treatment. And that's because of our telephone personal property tax in Vermont which is a very old old tax also has not changed very much over the years. So for a telephone company and a telephone company is developed is defined as someone operating a telephone business. Pretty broad definition. Of course land and building subject to property tax, as usual, as you might expect, but the polls and lines. There's a special telephone personal property tax on those on that equipment. And that's a tax on the net book value of the personal property tax. And then their exempt from any municipal personal property tax and the personal property, the state personal property tax is on the net book value of those assets, which I believe the prior was correct. In the general statement that that's a that is a number that is straight shrinking over time. As those assets are older and over older. And my understanding is that there's not a whole lot of conventional telephone upgrades occurring right now I'm not, I don't have the technical background for that so I don't know exactly what I'm talking about when I say that I mean, I mean that the older, the older tell what I think as an old fashioned telephone line upgrades, so attacks on the net book value that the tax base on on that would and and is shrinking over time. So, there seems to be, I'm sure you could probably come up with or we could come up with some examples, without my produce some inequities, but in terms of a struck by you say there's no right for municipality to tax the telephone that holds. Is there an example of similar utility property that had that enjoys that exemption. I, I believe that's correct that if the asset is subject to the telephone personal property tax it is not subject to any municipal personal property tax. Is there any comparable situation like that. The only thing I can think of is utility property that's actually owned by the municipality and occurring in that municipality that would also be exempt from municipal tax. That's the only exam that's only similar example I can think of. Well, a starting point for, for me, or for this committee might be to do some comparison to how other states treat this property. Do you know off the top of your head whether other states have updated their statutes to to reflect the loss in revenue or the inequities of certain personal property of a utility being exempt while we all pay our own tax other businesses pay taxes on their personal property. I don't, I don't know specifically. I know we've made changes I think one of the issues is that the, who's the last person you know that put in a landline. They were rid of their landlines and going to cell phones. I know we've had the smaller telephone systems in a number of years ago, because they were regulated they had to go through full PUC hearings to do bundled programs they have to the lifeline connectivity and cell phones don't and void voice over internet. So if Comcast or any of those providers, we can't tax that right we can't tax internet. Anything going over there I don't know about cell phones do we tack and we came up with cell towers were vague as to how they got defined so the industry is changing the feds have tied our hands in some areas. And yet we've still got some regulated utilities out there and telephone. The service has been restored if everybody's not getting the same pop ups, I'm getting. So we're back online lives. Senator Pearson and then Senator McDonald. I'm the proposal that has come to us is to let the co ops build some infrastructure that will be used by the CUDs now if the CUDs could build it. We've all agreed they would not be subject to the property tax. And it's an interesting question because it's a it's a question of ownership. Technically but really the user, you know the person that's using it. It's already clear that wouldn't be tax so I guess I'm, you know, if the CUDs could contract with the the co op to do the work of building it. That would also not be subject to the property tax the trick is the co op has access to a very favorable financial interest instrument to be able to fund the whole thing. My question is, from your point of view, is there a concern is there an integrity issue if we if we give them this exemption for this purpose to me it does seem to jive with our desire to build that broadband and our desire to make it be fiber and to empower the CUDs. So I'm just curious if you would have concerns with this proposal if it has integrity to you. I don't I don't know a whole lot about this proposal and I frankly I don't know what a CUD is. It's a community community union district communications union district fiber fiber central Vermont fiber. We have defined them as municipalities. Okay. And I, I perhaps jail remix and chime in on this as well from the tax department's point of view, what we always really like to see is clear definitions of an exemption from tax or clear definitions of what is subject to tax. So, me personally, I don't have any concerns if if certain property was going to be exempt for certain use, as long as that would be workable for the company or the district the utility to identify what is within this exemption and what isn't. And then likewise for municipal assessors on the state to to do the same. Okay. One, one other comment I'll make about that is, I could see a problem occurring if they conducted both taxable and exempt business over the same piece of equipment. My thinking there is a cable television cable and a cable broadband modem or, you know, something like that where you're using you're using the underlying asset for perhaps more than one thing. And if those are if the tax treatment is different for those two things, I could see that being a complication for the company to sort of try to pro rate or calculate in some way, how, how much of it is being used for the taxable purpose or the exempt purpose that that could be problematic. But if the whole, if the whole asset is being used for one purpose, and we had a clear definition of that purpose and taxable or exempt that that would certainly satisfy me and probably the tax department. Okay. Jill, any thoughts. Hi everyone Jill Remick. I'm the director of property valuation and review at the tax department. I wanted to just go back and provide a little bit more foundation to one of the original questions about how utilities are currently assessed. If you do try to find information about utilities and the statute different utilities exist in different places and so it is. It's not sort of all really laid out very clearly and you can tell over time things have been added and amended so in some cases regarding like cable TV and electric it's pretty outdated and unchanged from a long time ago but then we do have sections in there specifically for things like solar and cell tower. So it's a partnership between the state and the municipalities. I think that's part of why this is so challenging and hard for us to give you folks definitive answers because you have it. We aren't able to report to you okay this is what broadband providers are currently being assessed at and this is what they're paying in property tax because the statute the way it is right now doesn't contemplate the term broadband right you can get it from your cable like I have mine through my TV cable that my house my mom in the Northeast Kingdom has a satellite dish and that's how she gets her internet so it's it's it's hard to quantify I don't want you folks to think we're trying to be evasive but. But right now you know as with a lot of the property evaluation then when there's something physical there's real property or personal property that's measurable that we can assess we can do that. I think what we're running up against here is that I do think. You know utility valuation in Vermont is a little right for some revisiting and freshening just in general to keep up with what's happening in 2021 where it really hasn't changed substantially for the past several years and. So I wanted to make sure that I just made that clear that that depending on the type of utility in the sort of bucket that falls in it's treated a little differently in statute. And either and every year we collect a inventory from all the utilities so to get it like the the polls and the lines and things like that we collect that every year from all of the municipality or all the utilities. And then we we have a formula related to what's called the handy Whitman it's a it's a national formula it's sort of a standard of what the inventory nationally is doing and that gives us a value. So then the municipality can either use that value or they can come up with their own utility value so if you have a particularly high value commercial utility in your in your town you may want to actually take the time to invest in having. You know a professional utility appraiser actually provide that valuation the state does have a partnership with the towns related specifically to the Trans Canada hydro so there is an expert utility appraiser who provides their expertise and they're valuing on those. It's not something that we have the expertise in house at the tax department to actually do that it's a pretty specialized field. So I'm happy to have this sort of come before you folks we can sort of start to unpack some of these pieces. But right now you know we've kind of built this the system you know the technology is moving faster than than the statute and the tools that we have to come up with proper values. In other states we spend a lot of time with our counterparts in New Hampshire as you can imagine property taxes is worth while investment for their, their valuation team at their tax department, you know they have a whole staff of folks who do utility valuation. And it's, it's really much more based on sort of an income approach on a business model it's almost like their team does more of an audit of their, you know, FCC filings and things like that and that's how they come up with the value and then they can they can apportion that. You know, based on number of ratepayers in towns or, you know, we're also kind of unique in that we divided by municipalities in a lot of places maybe more like the county or statewide so we have been doing a lot of looking into what Vermont could do better you know what tools would help us more accurately to capture what we need and also to get us some more training and how we can support the towns to come up with these values so utilities is definitely something we've been, we've been trying to dig into a little bit deeper. But yeah, to Will's point to depending on the type of utility it is, it is treated differently in statute, and it might be personal property that is taxed to the municipal level it may not be. So it's, it's worth a discussion. Okay, Sandra McDonald. Madam chair and it's interesting to know that utility may be ripe for changes. And we're discussing value here. broadband, at least symmetrical broadband has been valued by many in the recent years as the single most valuable thing we can do for economic development. So my question is from witnesses who've just testified, is there any reason why they think a law which said not withstanding current practices. This broadband to be defined as, as you know, symmetrical up to such and such or federal definition of broadband. Is there any reason why such a law would be overthrown by for being preempted or etc etc. And that's pretty much it. They have a reason to share it if they don't have a reason say they can say no. And the second question would be if we were to draft such a bill. If they come and comment on it, and whether or not they thought it was a wise and thoughtful way to achieve the number one valued economic development tool of broadband throughout the state of Vermont. Those are my two questions. And who is, who is your question aimed at. Well, we've had one witness said that they didn't say any reason why we couldn't pass such a law. Would we be preempted? Sure, I think I think the way that it could be effective and and implemented is to be really clear to your point about what the definition of broadband is and in so many of these cases the utility is offering multiple services. And how, how to parse out, if you are a Comcast or something that that uses it for telephone and cable and broadband, you know how you parse that out if you're treating them differently for taxation purposes. So as long as those things can be clearly defined so that we at PVR and then the municipality can quantify that value. I'm sure that the providers would love to come in. I haven't interacted much with broadband providers, but we've certainly had conversations with like electric telephone and other other utility providers. So I would assume they would also want to come in and speak about how that might impact their liability or their decision about whether they do offer broadband using their existing infrastructure or build out. So I'm sure there's others in the, in the industry who would love to participate in that conversation and have much more to say than I would. Oh yeah. Well, if Ms. Chair, I'm sure if we were to say that it is not to be taxed, then the value of what the thing is that isn't going to be taxed is would be interesting to discuss. But, you know, zero times something is zero. For broadband on cooperatively owned poles to be leased under certain conditions to provide broadband service to those areas. Now maybe some will tell us whether that would be a good idea or not. Okay. In the interest of achieving the number one goal professed by many for our economic development. I think we're the ones that are going to decide if it's a good idea or not. Okay, well then we don't need to witnesses to comment on that. Are we ready to present them with a bill that they can comment on whether it does and it's clear enough to do the job. Right. And whether or not it's legal. That's my question. I had one other example if you don't mind, I know it's getting late. One of your questions was just about how different entities are treated differently. I don't think there's any pocket that's sort of getting away with anything but certainly the sort of inventory and tracking of the resources is our biggest challenge at PVR in the town's biggest challenge if we don't know about it we don't know that we're missing that, you know, missing to identify that entity. One that comes to mind that I think is timely is the railroad corporate tax so we still at PVR value railroads based on their track mileage and collect revenue on that and disperse that among the towns based on the miles of track. And because of that those those railroad entities that's their payment of their corporate tax so they're exempt from corporate tax. There are ways to I think it might have been Senator Pearson who was asking about, you know, making sure that we're capturing the right, the right assessment through the right venue so there are other examples where that that goes in the reverse right that if they're, they're not paying real real property tax it doesn't mean they're not in another way maybe, you know, paying some form of of assessment on their property. I think it's going to make it more complicated I apologize.  Not corporate. Okay, so the answer is no then that's, that's not an issue from the co op point of view or paying taxes on this, or if it is an issue, someone please say so. Okay. All right, I don't know if it is if anyone knows that or not. Things have changed. The railroads are not the economic drivers and necessities they were 50 years ago 60 years ago. Things have changed for landline telephones and our challenges to make sure that our taxing structure is fair.  So with that, not seeing any other questions I'm going to say thank you to everyone. And we will see the rest of the committee here tomorrow afternoon. I think faith has posted the agenda. It will be up it's pretty full for next week to get any issues you'd like to have put on the agenda to me, and we'll find the space to get them in. And we'll just keep getting on.