I've been working remotely because my landlord's AKA, my brother

sister-in-law and their family came back from Mexico.

Neurovirus. Oh, okay.

So I am not seeing them, which is a blessing.

And Megan was nice. They're liveness stay with my parents

so I could avoid.

Further, any exposure. So

I was just repeating about the norovirus and exactly. Well,

I was in the, I was in the office yesterday

and then I came back down to my folks house.

Just a reminder. We're we're live now. We're live now.

It's just all avoid norovirus. That's a good PSA PSA

to everybody.

Okay. So we have everyone's here.

So grieving, I'm gonna call to order the January 7th meeting

of the Wellesley select board at 6:00 PM.

This meeting is being held remotely via zoom with the

following members and attendance.

Marjorie Fryman, Tom Felder, Lisa only, and myself Colette, Frank.

This meeting will be a live streamed@wellesleymedia.org and broadcast live

on Verizon channel 40 and Comcast channel eight.

And is being review being recorded for later viewing.

So the first item on our agenda is citizen speak.

Megan, do we have anyone for citizen speak tonight?

There is no one on the line for citizen speak.

All right. Great. So the next item on the agenda

is the consent agenda.

So Megan, have there been any requests to remove items

from the agenda? There was no request to remove any

items. All right.

So before we take this item up, I would like

to welcome here today. Val Collette, the pastry chef and

owner of Leite fur. Who's joining us here tonight. Sowa

and BI. Yes, I know there is a good, great

deal of excitement and time about this for French breaking

eight bakery opening up.

And I would like to, to welcome you and sort

of share our excitement about this whole project. I would

like to have staff briefly address some questions we received

about the select board's responsiveness to the application. So I

don't know Megan, if you are Corey, if you want

to just say a few words on that.

Of Corey addressed that.

Yes. Thank you so good evening, everybody. And good evening,

Valerie. Thank you for joining us tonight. Of course. I

just wanted to clear up some misinformation that's been going

around regarding the application.

The applicant first came to the select board's staff in

July of 2024 to inquire about what was needed.

To, in terms of licensing and permitting to operate a

bakery at 380 Washington street, the site formally that was

whites bakery.

Bakery K meager the sports services manager laid out in

great detail.

Licensing and permitting requirement for the CV or common Victor,

Victor, or license.

And the health and building department outreach that's required for,

for, for a restaurant.

Le Petit four also came back in the fall. So

Kate K outlined again, what is required and.

Sent a detailed email to the applicant as to what

was required and suggested.

Applying as early as possible. So as to not.

Have to rush right before opening.

To get everything all the ducks in a row before

the opening.

It is common for restaurants to get their CV license.

Before they go to health and building. So they kind

of get it contingent upon.

Health and building approval.

My understanding is that the bakery.

Bakery then proceeded to do some work on the space.

And then when it was in good enough shape.

They then requested a temporary certificate of occupancy in order

to open for the holiday season at the end of.

2024 through the health and building departments.

Because they planned on preparing the food offsite and then

selling it at the Wellesley location.

Without anyone consuming it on site.

They were approved by health and building, but both of

those departments.

Told the applicant that repeatedly that they were required to

abs obtain a CB license.

Through the select board in order to operate.

They finally contacted our office, the select board staff on

December 18th and 19th.

Those were the two days that all of our staff

were fully remote due to our move from our temporary

office space at 8 88 Worcester street to back to town

hall at 5 25.

Washington street.

We were, we were asked for an exception to the

CV license rule, which we unfortunately do not provide.

We told the applicant that the license would be on

the agenda for the next meeting, which is tonight, January 7th.

However, the business opened without a CV license on December 24th, 2024.

It was advertised all over social media, which is how

it was brought to our attention.

It was then

closed pending tonight's select board meeting. It was some confusion,

but that was cleared up.

We welcomed Valerie to this meeting, we appreciate her back

and forth. We just wanted to clear that up because

we heard that there was resistance from the town, which

is actually not accurate.

We were very responsive and communicative with the applicant.

If there was miscommunication, we apologized, but I've reviewed all

of, and I do as well. I do a apologize.

Excuse me. I reviewed all the emails back and forth

from Kay, meager, who is an expert in permiting a

licensing.

And she laid out in very clear detail. What was

required at over six months ago.

So I just wanna make sure that the members of

the public that reached out to us know.

That our staff did everything they could to make sure

many months in advance that the applicant had all the

information at their disposal.

No, absolutely. Sorry, go ahead, Valerie.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean,

thank you Corey, for, for the, the.

History here. It was a little confusing for me because

of the partial opening actually.

Because the first, it was very clear, you know, I

follow all the rules. I am, I, I.

I am known for following the rules, you know, always

communicating with the department. So.

It's very unique situation for me.

And when I, when I ask the question in July,

back in July and I had all the information, it's

true that.

I, I, I thought that I, at first wait until

the health department and building department to be able to

apply to the select board as well. So it was.

Perhaps here where I had the, I mean, misunderstanding.

So, yeah, definitely.

When we opened the 24.

I was confused with the passion opening because I had

the building department saying you no problem. The building is

a health department as well.

Because there is no, there was no seat and only

takeout. I, I thought it was okay, but.

I should, I should, you know, it was a mistake,

so, and right away, you know, I talk with Cory.

And we said, look, no, don't do that again. We've

closed. And we wait, we have to follow the, the,

the regulation. Like we, we have to, and it's, it's

totally normal. And we communicate as well.

With our clients saying we have all support of the

town.

But we have to follow the regulation and it is

something we need to do. So.

And, and we look to welcome new businesses and support

them and through the application process. So I think we

are delighted to have you here. We took a look

at your menu. I know that I am definitely ready

to come down and buy a few and then enjoy

the, the, so with that, unless.

There are any other questions or comments? I think we're

ready, Tom, for the motion.

Move to improve the consent agenda item.

You muted.

You're muted, Marjorie, still learning how to work on two

screens. Second.

We'll call Tom.

Tom. Hi Lisa. Hi.

Marjorie. Aye. N I C I as well. So Valerie,

you are now I think all set and we'll look

forward to you opening. Thank.

You very much. I appreciate and have a good night

and happy new year, everyone. Thank you. Best of luck

to you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. See you soon. Bye.

Okay. All right. So the next item we have on

our agenda is executive director's report. So Megan El hand

that over to you.

Okay. We have a couple updates tonight. Hmm. So first

I just wanna remind folks that town hall is open.

So town clerk, the treasurer's office board of assessors.

The select board, our veteran services, retirement and HR can

all be found at town hall.

Also as a reminder, our land use department. So planning

Z B a.

NRC and building departments.

Those continue to remain at 8 88 Worcester street, along with

our facilities management department.

So we look forward to welcoming residents back into the

building. And just to remind folks, we'll be planning a

formal opening.

At wealthy's wonderful weekend in may. We also wanted to

just take these opportunity to thank all the staff in

terms of moving back to town hall. It is a

huge endeavor.

So our facility staff, in addition to all of the

departments that are at town hall, who had to move

literally every file back and forth.

So this is our second move cuz we moved out

and moved back in. So it's been a tremendous amount

of work and wanna thank all of the employees.

Employees for their part in that, in the super organized.

And we're, we're just about ready.

To have everything in place, but we're, we're still fine.

Fine tuning a few things.

A couple other

reminders that our annual report is now online. There will

be a limited number of hard copies available.

At town hall starting next week.

The select board will be holding office hours on January 8th.

From 10:30 AM to noon. That's gonna be held in our

upper conference room at the town hall. So head up

towards the select board office on the third floor, if

you.

Wanna meet with Tom Felder on the eighth.

We are also just wanted to give a little bit

of a save the date. So.

Department of public works is beginning their preparation for Weston

road. Should it be approved at annual town meeting and

they'll be holding a construction update meeting via zoom.

On Thursday, January 23rd, at 6:30 PM.

They will be sending out mailers who are butters, but

will also post the link on the website.

So we just wanted to make sure we could.

Do a little save the date for that for interested

parties.

So we have two other items that we wanted to

announce.

So it was Collette and I took great pleasure in

presenting Walter.

Woods last Monday.

The post came, which goes to Wellesley oldest.

Resident.

And unfortunately, Walter hasn't passed away.

That Thursday following that, but it was a lovely ceremony.

We are so grateful that we were able to participate

in that and.

Share that with Walter's family.

And we're currently working with.

Officials in town to identify.

Well, our next oldest resident.

To do another post came ceremony. So it was a.

Heartening and special occasion.

That we were fortunate to get in before Walter's passing.

Walter was 106 and a half years old.

Just an incredible

resident and person

and based

on another wonderful.

Resident and person, we also wanted to wish a special

thank you tonight.

So Dave Cohen and I have worked with Stephanie Hawkinson,

our public information officer.

To draft a resolution for a special employee who tomorrow.

Will be celebrating.

Their 50th anniversary with the town.

Lifelong resident of the town who also happens to work

in our water department.

Dwight Smitty Rogers. I don't think anyone.

Call doesn't call him Smitty. So.

I'd like to just take a moment and read.

A resolution honoring Dwight Smitty Rogers for 50 years of

dedicated service.

To the town of Wellesley.

On January 8th, 2025.

Smitty Rogers will celebrate 50 years of service to the

town of Wellesley beginning his career with the department of

public works.

In 1975, rising through the ranks to become Wesley's water

treatment plant operator in 1981.

And general foreman in 1988.

Providing exceptional frontline supervision, oversight, and maintenance and on-call service

for all town water treatment issues.

Issues and Smitty has extensive knowledge of Wellesley's water service.

Operations. Some say he's never without a wrench in his

hand.

As clerk of the works, he oversaw the construction of

Wellesley's three water treatment plants from 1997 to 1998. He

continues to oversee and maintain all town Wells, including four

new Wells at the Morris' pond water treatment plant.

Troubleshooting that SCADA, supervisory control and data acquisition system to

ensure all treatment plants are operating correctly.

And he was a key contributor in the work to

connect wealthy to the Massachusetts water resources, authority.

Big faucet in 1988.

An instrumental in upgrading the M w R a Haggerty

booster station increasing the capacity by more than 1 million gallons

per day.

And whereas with his calm, demeanor, and capable skills,

Smitty is the go-to person for the water division during

tense types.

He is the last remaining D P w employee who

worked the historic blizzard of 1978.

And his quick response to a sewage incident at the

Boulevard, sewer pump station.

Helps save pump owners and prevented sewage from flowing into

the child's river.

And whereas

a loyal friend and valued member of the community.

Smitty never seeks the spotlight.

He's devoted to his 1975 Camaro LT.

LT has vintage Harley Davidson motorcycles.

Motorcycles and most of all to his wife, Denise.

Who I should know was a.

Former employee of the town as well. She has retired.

Retired, the couple met in 1973 and have been together

for 52 years.

And many, many day and night on-call emergencies.

Now, therefore be it resolved that the board of department

of public works, water division colleagues.

Town staff members and many friends convey our gratitude.

Respect and heartfelt best wishes to Dwight Smitty Rogers.

For his 50 years of dedicated service to the Tatham

ley and its residence.

And witness thereof and myself and Dave Cohen have signed

that.

I will also just note.

That I met Smitty.

Just about 23 years ago when I started working with

the town.

He and his wife, Denise have essentially become family.

To me. He has been at all of my special

occasions from my wedding to every christening and.

He will certainly be at my son's confirmation in March.

So it's a special

thank you for me to him for all his work.

He is the epitome of being a wealthy guy. Grew

up in town, has worked for the town.

And is just one of the nicest, kindest people who

will ever meet. So congratulations to Smitty Rogers.

Rogers. That's great, Megan, thank you so much. That's really,

really touching.

And it's interesting how

the paths of Smitty and Walter Woods, obviously cross with all

the M w E work. I mean, it's always a

small world, but it's a very small town. And with

that, people like that, you know, we wouldn't be the

town that we are. So that's, that's really lovely. Thank

you for, thank you. And thank you, Dave woods. And.

Sorry. I did Cohen and, and Stephanie for pulling that

together.

Anything else. And I can't top that, Megan, but is

there anything else in your executive director's update? No, that's

it.

Okay. So the next item or agenda is to prepare

for the joint meeting with the human resources board. So

just as a reminder,

at our December 17th meeting, I noted in the chairs report

that we would be holding a joint meeting with the

human resources board on January 14th.

To discuss the classification and compensation study, which I'm gonna

shorten to class and comp.

And the Colin center report.

And I advised the select board members at that time

to watch the HR board meeting of December 16th.

And I also noted that we would be holding a

retreat on January 13th.

And would use that time to prepare for our joint

meeting with HR.

Because over street has been a retreat has been rescheduled

to January 22nd. We're taking those items up tonight.

For discussion along with a discussion of funding of salary

adjustments.

Please note that this will not be the only opportunity

to discuss these topics. We'll take them up in our

joint meeting with HR in future budget discussions and future

work plan discussions, and whatever comes from our approach to

our work plan this year.

So the first item on our agenda for this is

to discuss the classifi classification and compensation study.

And I'm, I'm going to quote at the outset of

this, a few things that the consultant mentioned in her

presentation to the HR board.

This is an emotional issue. It takes a lot of

time and feedback is essential.

We have a draft report. We are in the feedback

stage and I certainly feel we need to take the

appropriate time. We need to execute this. What Megan has

described as a dynamic change.

It's long, long overdue. The hay system is old. We

are not aware of any other pier towns using this

outdated system. And so it's really worth the investment of

our time in the next stages.

So at this point, I'd like to ask Megan,

to give an overview of the findings of the class

and comp study and what the next steps for the

department heads in evaluating the findings are.

And what policy areas the board may want to focus

on. And then following that, will each have a chance

to sort of ask questions and talk about things that

we think we have to focus on.

And this is really, so we get a chance to

sort of prepare ourselves.

And have a more

effective meeting with HR. If, if we can talk about

what we're looking for.

It gives HR a little bit of heads up and,

and the HR director, some chance to have, you know,

some responses to that. So we can have a robust

joint discussion. So.

Megan a hand over to you at this point.

Sure. So as, as folks have heard us talk about

through the years,

we currently have a classification system known as the hay

system, which is comprised of what we, we.

Refer to as the 40, 50, 60 series. So.

Our 40 series employees.

Employees tend to be more on our clerical side of

the house.

Hourly workers.

Who are also

eligible for overtime. Okay.

Our 50 sixties series are our professional staff.

Who are salaried individuals?

Individuals. And so those three.

Series of individuals.

Individuals positions constitute about 30 different classification levels. Right. And

so under.

And that's based on the hay system, which is one

way of calculating.

In internal equity and placing jobs in appropriate levels.

So under this new point-based system, which is been a

trend for really the past 15 or 20 years that

many communities have moved to, I should know we've had

the hay system since 1950.

And haven't diverted from that.

So under this, we then convert to 15 pay grades,

whether that ends up being 15 or 16.

Or thereabouts, but, but right now the, the card draft

proposal is 15 pay grades.

Within that and grade one being sort of the, the

lowest.

Payment and grade 15 being the highest payments.

Payments within there there's each grade has about a 35%.

Range spread. So to the minimum and the maximum.

And then there's a, I forget the percentage between each

of the, the grade levels.

So as part of the analysis, you certainly look at

the existing structure that you have in place. But then

we did a deep dive in terms of.

What's called a jobs analysis questionnaire, J a Q where

the consultant.

You know, reviewed all the current job descriptions, met an

interviewed individual employees. So not just the department heads, but

the, the individuals who are.

Performing the jobs and ask questions about it, et cetera.

And so they've created this draft study that has been

presented one time to the, his, to the human resources

board. We have also had those discussions with department heads

and then you'll continue to have the joint meeting next

week.

As part of that, as we roll out any study

that impacts people's employment salary.

Categorization, you know, there's questions and.

There was additional data opportunities that people are taking the

opportunity to.

Include

and providing those. I think Dolores had a, given an

initial timeline of January 6th to provide additional data.

And so we are

she's been trickling that in from folks.

And trying to answer questions, collecting that data and forwarding

it along to our consultant.

And so, you know, if there's changes that will come

forward from that we're, we're still in that data collection.

Period with the expectation that, you know, this was a

draft and that we know there could be additional changes

to move forward.

Under that there is

the one of the major distinctions.

Is under the hay system, which I know we're, we're

used to.

Is the midpoint is the market quote, unquote, the market.

So we, we tried over the years to maintain market

what we've seen over the past two to three years.

Is our standing in range adjustments, our hiring ranges.

Ranges have been above midpoint. Right? So they've been typically

actually recent hiring has been more in the 112% range

for new hires.

Hires. So this evaluation is the 75th percentile.

That being said it is.

The range is, is that percentile not sort of one

point along that.

And so that is also.

It's it's just a change because you're not looking to

midpoint for market. You're really looking at that range, which

makes sense. When you're looking at you bring someone on

and through the life of a career, if they stayed

in that particular position without maybe escalating through.

Two other job categories, you know, you would expect someone

would start at a particular range, but if you've been

in the position for 15 years, you'd be obviously towards

the higher ed under the hay system, that doesn't really

happen. You, you try and keep sort of an, the

midpoint for mark. So it is philosophically slightly.

Different.

Classification plan just in, in terms of that.

Philosophical change in, in how it operates.

Operates. Okay. So I certainly had some, some questions. One

of them you just touched on, so I'll, I'll go

through my questions and points and then I'll turn over

to board members.

So one, one thing I'm, I'm trying to clarify is

the idea of market pay, which you just talked about.

So you said system, it was a midpoint.

And with this new system.

The full range is the market. So we're hiring.

Within the range based. And what I'd like to understand

is kind of based on what.

Is that based on the actual job itself?

You know, for example, there are several, several department heads

in one range, but they're really, really different.

And so their jobs are very different and I would

expect it would be a different hiring.

Is it based on their experience, their qualifications, a type

market.

Maybe that's, I'd just like to understand that better. I

think that really falls.

It's really a peer equity issue that the HR director

has the skills to evaluate and implement, which is really

something that the.

HR board will have to evaluate is implemented. And one

of the members of the HR board, Pam Cosa.

Did raise that in the December 16th meeting, it's, you know,

one thing to implement the ranges, but it's another thing

to really look at pay equity within the great, so,

and she did mention that that was a, a big

undertaking. So that's one thing I'd like to make sure

I understand better is, you know, how, how, how we're

gonna.

Assess and implement pay equity.

And then I wanted to understand, you know,

where the range falls. So it's my understanding that the

range is market and it's a 75th percentile. I just

want to confirm that. And I will admit that I

spent some time on YouTube watching statistics, the videos about

what percentiles and quartile mean, just to make sure I

understood it, but.

I want to understand that. Does this mean that we

are at the, the bottom of the top quartile? That's

a question I have for.

The next meeting and it, it seems like we've been.

If most of our staff are within the range.

Because we've been hiring above the midpoint recently, it seems

like the market has forced us there.

And so that's where we are for most of our

staff, but I just want to understand that that's actually

the case.

And that's certainly something that we've been talking about as

we've.

These past few years, we've identified that there is, I'd

say pay inequity across town. There are some levels of

staff that are paid in the top quartile. Some that

are not.

And, you know, it varies across quartile. So.

We really need to, as the board.

Determine where do we want to be in the quartile?

Do we want to be at the bottom of the

top quartile? Is that something we're comfortable with?

There are certainly trade-offs. If we.

There's only so much money. And so if you spend

all of your money compensating at.

The very top of the quartile, there's less money.

If anything for strategic initiatives. So us as a board,

we have to decide.

Where do we want to be in balancing?

Compensation initiatives and other things, but also trying to aim

for some level of equity in tone.

So that's certainly something I wanted to share with the

board.

I, if my, and maybe we get into this in

the next meeting, but if the understanding is correct, it's.

It's it's the top quar tail, but it's not at

the top of the top quartile. I do think that

that's somewhere we want to try and aim for.

Then

at what I'd like to understand from the HR vector.

So the next steps.

You know, can Dolores outline the HR director outline for

us?

How department heads are reviewing it. You've touched on it

tonight, Megan.

I'm responding was January 6th enough time to give them to

do that. Given the holidays, given the move, given the

everything was going on.

And

how are, I know that Dolores has some things that

she's thinking about to.

Think about equity across all of our employees, newer hires

seem to be at market, but our, our longer term

employees going to get to market or not to get

to market, get to where it should be in terms

of equity.

And how is she gonna handle that?

And then a couple other questions. Are, are we doing

compatibles with appropriate?

To schools. So for example, you know, it, HR finance,

things like that, there are certainly some positions that we

can compare.

And tone. And you know, what about MLP?

So, those are kind of my initial questions and thoughts,

but I'd love to open up to other board members

for their comments at this point.

Lisa

so, thanks. I, I had.

Some of the same questions, predictably.

I, I think this is the same question, but worded

a little differently. I, I was trying to figure out.

How the ranges

ranges established that I am assuming were established.

For the comparable communities relate to the ranges that were

established for each job category. And I, I know it's

complex.

Because there's so many other factors that go into.

Creating those, those ranges, but.

I, I, it would actually, I couldn't tell actually in

the tables, if those ranges.

Ranges represented the data from those comparable communities. So a

little more clarity around that would be useful to me.

I'm I'm imagining since all we were looking at was

the executive summary that the full report might be a

lot clearer around exactly what those numbers are. But.

And I guess in terms of.

Sort of our approach to thinking about it. You know,

we've been talking for a number of years now about

the.

Fact that because we haven't had a Cola.

In recent, you know, in the past.

20 odd years until a couple of years ago.

A lot of, as Collette was pointing to a lot

of our senior employees may be somewhat behind.

And it wasn't clear to me sort of how that

was.

Being addressed. I, I think that's sort of.

A corollary to some of the questions Collette was pointing

to.

And I do feel like.

This consistency across all departments is really important. I mean,

we've already noted.

In last year's town-wide financial plan, you know that the.

That this was sort of our intention of looking at

these non-union.

Town employees and trying to ensure that there was.

Consistency across.

All of our departments, considering that we know our school

department, for example,

is paying really top level salaries. And so how do

we create more equity?

Across all our departments. So I'm sorry if I'm just

kind of repeating that once some of the points that

Colette made in putting it in my own words, but.

And then I was also curious about how we were

gonna handle the six salaries.

Salaries that were mentioned as having been.

Below the range. And if that was something we were

gonna try and address.

At this year's annual town meeting. It, it sounded like.

The process.

Might take longer than

in other words, we wouldn't be ready for annual town

meeting to present the whole new.

Classification system and so forth, but I wondered if we

could at least address.

Those, you know, the ones that are clearly have clearly

been identified as being too low.

And the one thing I'll just add to that, Lisa

is we, we may be able to do some of

the.

Classification, but you know, it it'll be, I think it's

just a little too early to tell if we can

make that finish line or not, but.

I did talk to Dolores today, Dolores Hamilton, our HR

director, you know, that there is funds in the merit

pay for FY 25 that we might be able to,

you know, remaining within that pool that we might be

able to address.

Some of those significant

salary adjustments.

So I think

as we look at the totality of the plan that

we can.

Take a look at those items.

The other thing is, we've said from the beginning, when

we even started contemplating this, this likely is a multi-year

effort. So I, I just don't want that lost either

that sometimes we can't do everything.

Both financially equitably sort of in one foul SWOP, it

would be great if we could.

We're currently.

Holding as a board's aware $200,000 as a placeholder for

the FY 26 budget.

To address, you know, potential class and compensation.

Adjustments, but we do have some pool of funds.

Left over that might be able to be.

Used for some of FY 25.

Yeah, I do just wanna say I.

I really appreciated getting a little bit of a schooling

on the Francis Perkins workplace equity act and the.

MEPA and I, I mean, I had no idea what

any of those things were, so it was helpful to

kind of take some time to look, look all of

that up. And I, so I, I gathered that this

is not nothing. I mean, this is a huge amount

of work for the HR department. I just wanna recognize

that. And it's clear that.

There's a lot of

there are a lot of legal, you know, application of

legal standards that we're catching up to.

And I, I, I think it's important to commend the

HR board for really, and the HR department for really

taking that on, because this is, this is a.

Is clearly going to be a fairly.

Lengthy process.

I'm just gonna say, I think it also points to

how behind we were.

In addressing a lot of these things. And when we

get to the discussion about the Collins center report, I

think that's.

That's important to note.

Thank you, Lisa Marjorie.

So

I've just ticked off everything on my list that Colette

and Lisa have said, but I have.

A couple. And I just wanna say, I thought Joelle

and at the HR meeting in December, did.

A really good job. I thought she was clear.

And concise. I thought her presentation was.

Organized. And I also appreciated Tony Bent's concern.

That every, everybody have an opportunity to look about, look

at it and talk about it.

And that we're having a joint meeting next week before

any final decisions are made.

So I do also recognize that Dolores has quite a

bit of work ahead of her. One of my remaining

questions is you have a 35.

Percent range.

Spread from the minimum to the maximum in these new

groups.

Yet, if you look at the.

Old or the current grade of people.

The grades vary.

Within the new groups.

So I'm curious to know.

Do they have to go through all of those nine

job factors.

Again, to figure out

internal

equity among people within the same group.

Or do they already have an idea?

Where somebody in a higher group.

Might fall than somebody in a lower group.

That's something I'd be interested in knowing.

I feel really strongly that we get.

As many people, at least to the median, as soon

as, as we can.

And I'm glad that we've got some money set aside.

I'd love to see those six people brought up.

Beyond the minimum, if possible.

Maybe between the merit pay plan and the $200,000.

Even though all, you know,

all together. It'll take a few years, but.

If we can get at least those addressed.

In the first year, that would be terrific.

And I also just wanted to echo.

That I heard Dolores say that recent hires have been.

At market, but that we have fallen behind.

In longer tenured employees.

Employees and very happy that we're gonna be addressing that

as well.

Tom.

Tom. Oh, the wonderful thing about going last is many

of the.

Questions have been, have been raised.

Raised a few things that are a little different, I

think, than some of the points that have been raised.

Raised, and I, I do wanna start as Marjorie did

by saying that.

It was very helpful to watch the HR meeting.

It was an excellent presentation.

And quite frankly, if you watch it, you have great

confidence in the quality of the product.

That we've received through this study.

And so it changes the discussion a little bit from

questioning.

The recommendations in the study to implementation in the message

that.

We need to send to the community.

While we're implementing whatever the final decision is that we're

gonna make.

There, there are a couple of, of small things.

When I was looking at the list of comparable communities.

One thing that concerns me is that that was a

very sort of.

Sterile data-driven process.

Which doesn't mean that I disagree with.

The data-driven outcome.

But there is a subjective concern that I have, and

that is using.

Communities that have a

greater percentage of their municipal tax revenue, their municipal tax

related income.

From commercial enterprises versus residential.

So, you know, it concerns me to use Brookline.

In comparison to Wellesley.

Where we have to think about the impact.

Of these adjustments.

Which we have to remember is compounded it's I, I

realize we have a fund.

For the initial implementation.

But after that, it's a permanent part of the base.

Subject to the guidelines in increasing year, over year. So.

This is by no means suggesting that we don't need

to make these changes.

Changes, but it's a caution that I think we need

to be sending a message to the community.

That we're prioritizing.

That there's a reason why we're doing this at this

point, that we're aware of the impact.

Over time that these changes will have.

And that we're going to prioritize.

Expenditures and we're going to be mindful.

Of what the total budget impact is. And the total

tax impact is.

Going forward. So I do just want to be careful.

But I think, and I think this was raised during

the presentation by HR and I don't know whether it

was Pam or someone else.

But this point was sort of raised, which is what

kind of a change would there have been in the

final product?

If certain communities were eliminated.

I think the answer was not much.

But, and, and I

accept that, but I think there is a.

Subjective perception about the comparable communities that we use. And

I think we just have to be mindful of that.

I, I also

it it, I would like to know if we're going

to go from approximately.

30 categories to 15 or 16.

If, if, if we stayed true to what was discussed

repeatedly at the presentation, which is it's about the job.

And the qualifications that we're looking for are not the

person in the job at this time.

What do we do then about CLA job?

Classifications and the related

position that actually changed.

Classifications. Some of those may be in a lower range.

I, I mean, we, as we look at the classification

system now,

we've had conversations.

Where the aggregate group of people in the job classification

doesn't make sense.

And so I think we have to be prepared.

For if, if we're going to be accurate going forward

and not compound the historic problem.

The historical problem.

Are we prepared for that? What, what, what are we

going to do to the extent that that happens?

In in to the extent that it happens.

In going to a smaller number of, of groups.

I, I think the other thing that.

People are going to

look at is whether we're also in this entire process.

Ensuring that the entire organization is right sized.

Sized. I, I think there are, are parts of.

Of municipal government here in Wellesley.

Where we may need to initiate some benchmarking.

So that we're really looking at making sure that we

have the right.

Amount of personnel.

In that department, as we look to increase salaries.

Salaries over over time, whether that's a short period of

time or a longer period of time.

And I also agree. I, I think Marjorie mentioned this.

I, I think that we put our stake in the

ground at the median when we nego, when we.

Advised on the negotiation of the union.

Contracts. I, I, I think that if, if we're going

to.

Implement these changes July 1st, 2025.

I think we've made the decision about how far we

can go.

At this point and that it should only be to

the median.

Median. Otherwise we set up a, a very difficult dynamic.

Going forward, which is then we have the union.

Contracts and they want more.

And, you know, I think we just have to.

Be sure that we can afford.

What this is going to cost and that the town

can afford the, the.

Community can afford and support the kind of changes.

Changes that we are suggesting.

To me, one of the wonderful parts of, of.

Wellesley town government.

Is that historically we've had a deep bench of talented

committed.

People we want to keep them.

It's not just the simple practicality, the cost of training,

new police and fire.

It's the cost of losing people who.

Perform very well are valued in their profession.

And understand the way our government is structured.

It, it is different for employees to succeed in our

very decentralized form of government.

Than it is in a much more.

Hierarchical town manager form of, of government.

And that's a quality that we need to value in

our employees and we need to make sure they're being

paid so we can retain them.

So I, I hope my comments. Aren't confusing. I realize

they're a little bit.

Contradictory.

To other comments I've made. I I'm, I'm very impressed

with the quality of this work. I think it.

It indicates that we need to be working.

On pay equity and on making sure that we're paying

people properly.

But I do just think we need to manage.

The the

information that we're providing to the community about how we're

doing this and that we're well aware of the impact

on the budget.

Thanks, Tom. I will say, I think it's really important

that we can clarify.

What this means to be the range is.

At 75th percentile because I think.

What has happened is the market has forced us.

To be at

the top quartile for most of our positions, there's only

six positions under.

And so if we're there, we can't go back to

median.

Median. And, you know, we were moving to median in

the union negotiations because, you know, we were.

We couldn't hire people. We were in a really difficult

place.

I, I, I certainly wasn't satisfied that that was the

end of that conversation. And I think that when you

have two-thirds of the town paid at the top of

the top quartile and one-third of the town paid at

the median is unsustainable. And I think we open ourselves

up to risk clear. So our, I think we have

to discuss.

As a board, where do we want to be? And,

and I, I, I'm not satisfied with the median.

Median. I mean, we need to, we need to size

that out and figure out how we get there, but

I'm, I, I think that there's.

There's we need to understand what at the 75th percentile

means, because I think we're already above median for this

group of employees, which means we have a group of

employees. We still have some work to do on.

But just

I think that's been some great feedback to give to

HR.

And for us to think about before we have our

joint meeting.

The next item for us to talk about under this

heading is the Collin center report. Sorry, can I just

one thing to said, and I apologize for interrupting you.

Yep.

The question came up about the number of approximately 75

to 80,000. And that, that was the lowest end of

the, of the ranges that were being suggested.

I think it's difficult to talk about what our target

is or for the town to watch us talking about

what the target is without some numbers.

Associated with that. So I think it would be valuable

to understand what the actual, what that number would look

like at the median. And then for example,

at the, at the bottom of the top quartile, that

that's what I'm saying is I think that that number

is getting as if I understand it correctly, that that

gets us to the bottom of the top quartile for

the six, for the number of employees that we have

that are, are underpaid. But that, I think that's something

we have to get clarified on so we can ask

that question. Okay.

So the next item is a calling center re.

Report re review on HR and its bylaws. So the

cone center report was also discussed at the most recent

HR board meeting.

And has findings regarding the HR structure in bylaw, the

HR function and the HR policies.

And at the HR board meeting, it was noted that

the recommendation is really followed into two main buckets.

Buckets the, the bylaw and it's, it's the structure.

And then the technical and policy work that the HR

board has to do. So we are here to really

talk about the, the, the former, the, the bylaw and

the structure of reporting.

With the question really being.

Should we approach the question of the reporting relationship of

the HR director.

As a standalone working group formed by say, Dolores.

Dolores with some select board HR and other members on

that.

Or do we fold that into 10 government study committee

that we're just about to start considering as part of

the work plan and just as a reminder,

the HR director currently reports into, or has daily supervision

by the executive director.

Megan job under a memorandum of agreement, there are shared

responsibilities.

For performance appraisal and

setting goals between the executive director and the HR board,

but data D supervision is to the executive director.

So, and, and we did have a.

Aworking group that was formed.

To, to look at this before the HR, before the

call center report was issued, but maybe I'll hand it

over to you, Megan, if you wanna give any more

highlights of that, and then we can discuss as a

board, how we think we we'd wanna move forward with

that. No, I think you.

Definitely hit the highlights. The one thing I'll I might

just add to that is the HR board did have

a retreat earlier in the year. And one of the

things, and it was, I should note it was post

our annual tell, meeting the discussion following.

the discussion of modifying the fire department reporting structure.

At at town meeting. And so one of the things

they had talked about as a board was.

You know, maybe keeping this.

M O a reporting structure so that we can build

a record of success before going to town meeting.

That's really, I think you covered everything else.

There's certainly working down in particular policies is a critical

item that statutorily, you know, we wanna make sure we're

in compliance with state and federal law.

And so we are working.

With consultant to

bring the most critical policies forward.

We do have a placeholder.

On the warrant for town meeting, whether those will be

ready or not, you know, once you sort of get

your drafts, you still gotta go back to the board

and, and flush that out.

But we're trying to do sort of the most.

Critical time sensitive.

Items first, you know, in, in consultation with town council

and the HR board as well.

Policies being that number one issue.

Mm-hmm so I actually think, I, I would wonder,

Lisa, would you like to talk about this first, you

were very involved with the, the working group and may

have a perspective that we'd don't value hearing before we

give our own feedback.

Thanks. I so

I guess I would

I hear that concern that Megan was just talking about

with regard to.

You know, moving forward on the structure, the issue of,

of structure and, and to be clear, the recommendation from

the Collins center was to.

Try to have, try to change the bylaws so that

it reflected.

What's the, the current situation and.

I, I think I will say, I think it would

be a real missed opportunity to just let the report

kind of sit. I think.

It it's important to remember what the circumstances were that

led to the Collins report. So we had a very

dysfunctional situation.

That had resulted in a situation that was not productive

for town employees or, or the town itself. So.

That was how we came to.

To the decision, the working group and Megan really came

to the decision to.

Move forward and, and

commissioned the Collins report, the Collins center to do this

report.

And I would hate to see us.

Sort of say, okay, well, you know, the, the memorandum

of understanding is, or the memorandum of agreement is working.

Let's just leave things the way they are. It was

really never intended to be a permanent fixture.

It was intended to address.

A pretty dire situation. And so.

Having been very close to that situation. I think it,

I, I would be very sorry to see us lose

sight.

Of of how it all came about.

And I know they're not a lot of new folks

on the HR board who, who just may not be

familiar with all that history.

But I just wanna, I think it's important to underline

that.

This discussion around the reporting structure has been going on

for some years now.

And the memorandum of agreement has been in place since

August of 2023. So.

We do have a track record of success now.

And I'm not really sure what would keep us from.

Trying to codify that relationship.

Unless it's just a political reality that people think that.

It would be too difficult to get it through town

meeting, but.

That doesn't seem like a very good reason to me.

I think.

You know, the proof has been in the pudding. We

have the current reporting structure is working extremely well.

And, and

the class and compensation study points to.

As I was just saying all the ways in which

we had fallen behind under the previous system.

So, I, I can't imagine a world in which we

would go back.

In which case

I, I don't know why we wouldn't move forward in,

in making it clear to the town.

What problems we've solved.

Solved and why it's important to make this a permanent.

Structure.

You know, does that mean we wait until we've assigned

a, a town government study committee to address the issue?

That's certainly one path.

We do have this existing working group that Megan created.

That was really

formed in order to address this particular issue. And I,

I think, you know, if they're still willing.

Could conceivably move it forward.

Or could sort of advise on whether they think it's

ready to move forward.

But I, I would hate to see us just stop.

And, and let it sit. I, I think.

It need, the ball needs to continue to be moved

down the field.

Thanks, Lisa. I, I do think I, I do agree.

We need to keep moving on this.

I think I'd like to see it folded into the

10 government study work that we're going to do because

we can then.

Sort of have a focus on that one project. That's

gonna me multiple elements to it.

I think, I think it's interesting to that we have

this group that has put their shoulder to this work

has a lot of history and knowledge and has already

done a lot of the, the legwork in terms of.

What should we do? And why?

So, I wonder if that's perhaps something that we could

leverage in the 10 government study and have them maybe

as a subcommittee of the 10 government study to really

work on that single issue. There's gonna be plenty of

things to do, but I'd like to talk about that

further, but I think folding it into the 10 government's

study for me makes sense. So,

other members.

Tom, you know, as I listen to Lisa.

I began to think that.

It the process.

Of bringing this before town meeting.

Might benefit from

a a working group.

Looking at this, which may be simply.

A public process involving the people who have already been

doing this.

Or that group with some additional members, there may be

people who don't want to continue at this point. Additionally,

you know,

my concern, Colette, about folding it into the town government

study group.

Is what that timeline looks like unintentionally, that's going to

be a delay. We have to seek the money for

that committee. It has to be appointed.

What I was on the last one and we took

a bit more than a year and a half before

we were even ready to present the town meeting.

And I, I think we have.

I think certainly in our next town government study committee.

We need to have a focus.

As part of their goal.

On the organizational.

Efficiency of our current form of government. So if you,

even if you stay.

With an executive director for general government services. What changes

should we be making?

To align us with best practices and organizational.

Efficacy and efficiency.

But I think that begins to, if, if it just

gets folded into the town government study committee.

As tempting as that truly is.

I'm concerned that it pushes it out more than we

would intend.

And I think it's frankly,

not just this. We also have the question about police

and fire.

Although we, we have those settled for a three year

period.

But I think if, if, if we're going to.

Want to keep moving this forward.

I, I do agree. We can't just bring it.

Back to town meeting.

We, we need to bring it back through a study

group, through a group that isn't.

Isn't us who have looked at this and have really

considered, are making recommendations.

I think that's possible.

Without having to have a wait for the process of

a town government study committee.

Thanks, Tom Marjorie.

Yeah, I

I agree with Tom. I think if the working group

is, is willing,

it should go back to them. Many of them are

veteran.

Volunteers and town meeting members and have experience.

Extensive experience in HR.

And they've done the work with the Collins center.

Already I agree that it would be better coming from

a working group.

Than directly from us.

And I think there are other things that the town

government study committee could be working on.

Effectively while this experienced group works on that particular issue.

I understand Lisa's concern about not dropping it entirely.

But filtering it through a group, I think would be

very helpful.

On the other hand.

There are so many things that the HR bylaw says

the HR board is doing that they're not doing.

I'd like to see that change. Come.

Sooner rather than later to more accurately.

Reflect the current work.

Of the HR board.

The other things I think could some of the other

things could be folded into town, government study committee.

The, the prep work for that committee will be.

How we define the scope of what we want, the

new committee or whatever we call it.

To do, because I think it needs to be.

Concise and

not necessarily.

Limited, but bounded in certain areas.

Areas that make the work possible within.

Maybe a year, because as Tom said, the last one

took a long time.

So I, I would see if the working group will

continue.

And I'd like to see the bylaw change on there.

On their actual work.

The work of the, of the working group or the

HR board? No, no, no. Of the HR board. Yeah.

Okay. Lisa.

Yeah, I, I just wanted to add that. I, I

am.

In the Collins report, they made it clear that the

recommendation.

Was sort of, regardless of the form of government. So

mm-hmm, , I, I, I do think in the report

itself,

was very agnostic. I mean, explicitly agnostic about.

The form of government.

And, and making the recommendation on the structure. And I

think.

You know, the argument, it was pretty clear that this

is an internal facing sort of service department. Like.

Finance or it or something that.

And, and to me that argues.

Argues a, as we've been discussing for allowing the working

group to keep moving forward, as opposed to.

Waiting for a town government study committee, which at least

historically has been more geared toward.

Form of government.

Issues. Okay. Marjorie.

I'd like to go back to something Tom said, because.

I don't want us to get out over our skis

or the public to get out ahead of us.

And think that automatically we are going to.

Be looking at and making another recommendation for a change

of the form in government.

As Tom said, you know, we may very well stay

with the executive director, but there are other things we

can do.

That came outta the unified plan.

And other work that's been done over the past four

years to make our work more efficient.

And more synergistic.

So public should not get any ideas about what a

new town.

Study committee may or may not be looking at.

Yeah, exactly. We haven't talked about it in our retreat

at all. So we have not even.

Pen to paper on that, Tom, I just wanna say

thank you, Marjorie. I, I couldn't.

Couldn't support what Marjorie's comments.

Comments more strongly. I, I think if there's one thing

we've learned looking at HR police fire.

A lot of the issues that we've been working on

and solving.

Operationally within these departments over the past couple of years.

We've learned that it doesn't matter.

How the form of government is structured.

There are other best practices, organizational changes.

Changes that we need to make and can be made

that have absolutely nothing to do.

Whether we remain the best possible decentralized form of government

with an executive director.

That we can be. Yes. Which is our responsibility to

make sure that that is working.

To, to, you know, optimally.

Or whether there's a group who wants to consider a

town manager again, but okay. That, that is not.

Anything that I'm referring to at this point. And I

appreciate Marjorie. You're making those comments.

Comments. Okay. So this is our preliminary discussion on this.

We have one member that's not here tonight and we'll

come up. This will come up again.

At our next meeting, but what I'm hearing is there's

a preference for asking the working group, if they would

come back together.

Look at the results of this and see if they

would move this forward.

As an independent project, that's what I'm appealing tonight, but

we've got more discussions to have on that.

So the next item on the agenda is the discussion

of the funding upstanding in wage classification changes.

Changes. And the reason this is on the agenda is

we really need to talk about.

An alternative method of

solid adjustments going forward with the understanding that we hope

that these will be much less frequent given the new

system and the work that we're doing to bring people

to market.

And previously there was a, a small reserve that was

available for salary adjustments. If, if the departmental budget couldn't

absorb it, however,

that led to just an enormous.

Confusion, an endless hours of discussion.

Our boards, other boards advisory about why, why did you,

why are you so different from guideline? Because the previous

years budget wasn't really reflecting the actuals that were incurred.

So at this point at think at this nexus, when

we're doing all the, this work on each HR, the

structure, the P the.

You know, everything we just talked about, this is the

time when we need to talk about an alternative method

for funding standing and range adjustments. And Megan, do you

wanna see a few things about this and what your

thoughts are?

Well, there's

you know, depending upon what happens with the classification plan,

right. You know, if there's a pool of funds that

we end up setting aside, maybe as a reserve fund,

to, to then fund those elements. So, you know, historically

HR has been able to fund in particular, very small

departments. So if you were fully staffed,

and had a stand again, range or a job reclassification.

HR would obviously supplement that and make you whole.

So in past years, we've done some year round transfers.

Transfers when we've had funds available.

Thinking about the health department, where they had so many

different adjustments over the years.

But still that didn't make up that complete Delta.

Right in terms of

because they had vacancies, you know, because we're in this

perpetual hiring cycle.

That they would have vacancy so they could absorb those

costs. And then we're back at advisory.

In the subsequent year, showing that you're over guideline.

Now I've looked through different advisory books. So sometimes there's

sort of this baseline, okay. We're not taking this up

because it's just a known fact, but that's really over.

I would say certainly the past six years that I've

been executive director not been the, the case that each

year draws, well, you are over guideline and.

And where it's more of a accounting exercise, right. To

make them whole.

And so if we had those pool of funds, that

may be one way. The other thing is once we

have this classification,

new classification system, whether that's an annual town meeting or

fall town meeting, if we delay.

I have been tentatively talking to Dolores about, you know,

just changing the structure. Maybe you only.

Do those and have it.

Brought right before the town meeting. Right. So that they

become effective.

You know, post town meetings. So that there's funds that

are been, that are appropriated to that, to those three

classifications or, or, or some mechanism.

If you didn't have that pool to try and limit.

That carryover for the subsequent fiscal year. So we're, we're

not in that guideline situation. So, so I think there's

a couple methods you could employ.

But both always are gonna.

Involve, either town meeting, appropriating funds to a reserve or

town meeting appropriating those funds to make those departments.

Whole. So the fund factor.

Remains a constant and, and whatever sort of strategy you

employ.

So I certainly would be interested in looking at either

of the words to make it. I, I I've just

moshed inlined process Marjorie.

Yeah, I'm curious.

To know. And I've mentioned this to Megan.

Whether we could get a sense of how much of

the reserve has been appropriated.

Appropriated for salary for classification changes or salary adjustments.

Because if we have a sense of an average of

the past few years,

it makes sense to fund what we've been.

Experiencing because now that advisory for the past five years,

there's no advisory is taking supportive or unsupportive votes.

Votes on every budget and they bring in everybody who's

over guideline.

And these kinds of changes, make departments have to go

in and explain it. It might not take very long,

but we can obviate the need for all of those.

Presentations about why they're over guideline for small salary adjustments.

So I'd be curious if HR could provide some of

that information. So we know where the reserve has been.

Spent, I think it's really tough to make the small

departments.

Make up the big difference when.

Their people aren't being paid appropriately.

And I prefer not to make the employees wait.

Eight months, nine months, 10 months.

If we can provide

inadequate enough reserve.

We, we could certainly work with HR to try and

pull those numbers together.

Are there comments?

Comments, Tom, in, in addition to what Marjorie was just

mentioning though.

Know, Megan really addressed what I've wondered for a while.

Where she says, why aren't we making these changes?

Changes before town meeting. So that article eight can reflect

the process of absorbing a number of these classifications.

That, that makes the most sense to me. I mean,

that really is, is a very clean.

Transparent way to bring this before town meeting.

And have a positive, timely impact for the employee.

So the one thing I'll just note, so that really

works for reclassifications and for standing in range adjustments where

doesn't work is for hiring.

Above what you potentially had. So in particular for new

positions, let's just say.

Based upon our budget prep manual.

You would assign, you know, what sort of the middle

of the range? Well, under the hay system, you would

assign midpoint.

But if you end up hiring someone at 110% of

the range that doesn't.

Doesn't because the hiring cycle, you know, isn't related to

town meeting.

That doesn't capture those. So, so there are nuances to

it. It.

That would certainly work for Sangan range adjustments and.

Job reclassifications but it's really the hiring.

And the unknown timing of that, that.

Also

we'd have to look at.

Lisa

yeah, I would, I, I think for that reason, I

would support the pool idea. I mean, obviously if, if

we can time re classifications and standing and range adjustments

for before 10 meeting by all means, but.

I, I mean, we, the money is green, no matter

where, you know, it's, it's gonna come from somewhere. Right.

And, and as a, rather than this kind of weird

jury rigging thing that seems to happen.

You know, let's just acknowledge it. Establish a pool.

And, and then, you know, it can be reviewed. I

mean,

maybe the pool shrinks or maybe the pool gets a

little bigger or, you know, it can be adjusted according

to.

The experience over years, but.

I, it, it does seem like a, a sort of.

Hanging hangnail. that's.

That's been bothering town government for a really long time

that that could probably be addressed by these two pretty

straightforward solutions.

Okay. Great. So we have some feedback on that.

So

okay. So I think where I did go on the

next it of the agenda, which is building permit fees

and I'd like to welcome.

Tonight, our building inspector, Mike Grant to give an overview of

a proposed.

Update to the BU building permit fee schedule. So I'll

hand it over to Megan and Mike at this point.

I'll just maybe just give a brief overview that.

Probably about six months ago, maybe even a little longer.

Mike had mentioned to me.

That he thought we, we really need to look at

the building fees, just looking at comparable communities.

And he began that endeavor to pull all the data

that I know the board has received. I'm, I'm happy

to project whatever you'd like on the screen. And so

maybe I'll turn it over to Mike because it's a

very in-depth analysis that Mike conducted of our comparable community.

Communities. And when we did get that updated list with

regards to the.

Job classification study.

I did have Mike go back and, and look at

our comparable communities to make sure that those.

Communities were in there and Mike then updated the table

with additional information.

So Mike, why don't I turn it over to you?

And you should, you can go through your process.

And I know there's, there's probably a number of questions.

Questions and, and your recommendation, if you wanna give you

a recommendation, as well as part of that.

Sure. Thank you for taking the time meeting with me

tonight.

So as Megan mentioned,

you know, I, I brought this forward to her.

And as going through it.

To for edification. It's been a while since building permits,

all the permit fees in the building department have been

increased. You know, electrical fees have not been updated since

2007.

Plumbing and gas fees have not been updated since 2009.

And the building in sheet metal permit fees have not

been updated since 2011. So probably well outside of the

time that it should have been done.

So we looked at the, I was given 16 comparable

communities. I went out, pulled all their fee schedules.

Schedules provide, you know, put that into a spreadsheet form.

To provide to the, so I could analyze the data

a little bit more easily.

And through the analysis, it came clear.

That our fees were below comparable communities.

So we went through, I went through and.

You know, average stuff out and it came to.

Realize that our commercial permit fees.

Are comparable to our

comparable communities.

So there's, there'd be no change there, but our residential

fees were falling below. What comparable communities have.

And so a slight increase was.

Required there. We also found that our electrical plumbing and

gas permits and sheet metal permits were also falling behind.

So some increases were also done there.

In looking at the data.

We have a baseline finished square foot price.

For residential construction.

For new homes in additions.

Additions. I set that up back in 2011.

Because

it was hard to figure out what was a fair

price for the town and the contractor to be permitted

on.

It seemed like we were, you know,

contractors would come in trying to low ball the town

to lower the permit fees. So I was trying to

get a baseline.

And so it was set at $150, 150 per square.

Would've finished floor area back in 2011.

Well, obviously construction costs and things have gotten more expensive

over time. So.

Through the data.

Looking talking to the comparable communities, building officials.

Going online, looking at data.

We the town, the building apartment, our members of the

international code council.

Who write the building codes for the Commonwealth as a

base.

And they put out data each year in February on

what construction costs are.

So based off of that data, it seemed appropriate.

That the base construction cost per square foot should be

raised up by $50 to 200 a square foot.

As the quality of construction and Wellesley, as you can

imagine, is.

A slightly above average from the rest of the country.

So, you know, I'm proposing to raise that up to

$200 a square foot, and that is a base. That

is what we are not going to allow any contractor

to go below.

If they're building a house and it's gonna cost them

more than $200 a square foot, they're more than welcome

to use that price.

But this is the base that we will not let

any.

The building new or additions go below.

To make sure that the town is getting a fair

shake and we're not punishing the applicant.

And overcharging them for the services of the billing department.

So that is really the reason for that base.

Square foot price, as you can imagine, Wellesley is, you

know, we do build a lot of new homes in

a year. We do a lot of additions.

Additions. It's very hard to put a square foot price

on.

Remodels because this there's so many variables involved with that

and the square footage price just isn't appropriate. Cuz it

can be so many variables cuz you're remodeling existing structure.

You're not, you're not adding onto it. You're not creating

new space.

So the square foot price is only for residential.

New construction and additions.

Additions commercial. We don't really have a problem with commercial.

Most of the new buildings are built are multimillion dollar

buildings.

Buildings. And a lot of the remodels that go on

the extensive remodels, we have projects over at Wellesley college

that are multi-million dollar projects going on right now in

the town. So we do, we don't really feel, or

I don't really feel we have a problem.

With the commercial side. So we, we, we.

That as a baseline, but if we got into a

jam.

And not realize or having an issue with a contractor,

we certainly can always fall back onto the international code

council.

Co-counsel documentation that is out there to help us come

up with a square foot price. If we're running into

a problem.

With contractors for new construction, the, the.

The co-counsel does not

data does not go into remodeling. It's only for new

construction. So.

You know, so some of the.

Some of the increases that we're looking at. Like I

said, we're gonna increase.

Residential new construction, additions and alterations up to $15 a

thousand.

A square foot of estimated cost of construction.

The commercial construction, no changes are required.

Required for miscellaneous permits, we're gonna increase for intense trailer

signs, awnings and stoves. We're gonna raise up from 35

to $50 per unit.

Residential roofing. We're switching from a flat feet.

To $15, a thousand of estimated costs, which brings it

in line with the residential.

That was found to be fairly low.

And most communities go to.

An estimated cost of construction.

Fees fee type. So we're switching that over.

Retaining walls are switching from $35 flat fee to $15

a thousand. Again, most communities.

Use a estimated cost construction.

Basis. So we made that switch there.

Sheet metal permits residential.

Are adjusted to $15, a thousand.

To bring them in line with comparable communities and commercial,

no changes in the sheet metal fee, as they're consistent

with the comparable communities.

Electrical permits the residential.

The electrical permits are a flat fee-based.

Fee type.

For the Wellesley, it seems to work well for us.

So the fees will increase by 20 to $50 depending

on the permit type.

Multifamily will have similar increases applied.

Temporary services like for construction trailers or tents or carnivals

will increase by $25.

And commercial fees again, will not shift because they're in

line with the comparable communities.

Plumbing and gas permits, residential.

The filing fee will increase from 30 to $50 and

the fixture fee will increase from seven to $8.

Commercial the filing fee.

With, with plumbing gas, we did find that the commercial

was slightly lower.

And so the filing flee would increase from a hundred

to 125 and the fixture fee would increase from 12

to $15.

So with these increases.

Increases. It's our feeling that this will better reflect.

You know, the services that the billing department provides and

give a fair.

Permit fee structure.

To the town and to the applicant.

That's applying for those permits.

Permits. Thank you so much, Michael. That was a really

in-depth presentation. And I have to say thank you for.

The packet, it was so detailed and I really liked

that we had a spreadsheet plus a bigger version of

the spreadsheet for my old eyes. Although I will admit

that may have gotten my magnifying glass out.

So I think that I, I'm certainly very supportive of

the proposal.

And support moving forward with a public hearing as the

next step for a number of reasons. And as you

mentioned, it's been quite some time since we reviewed an

updated phase.

To be in line with peer communities and this a

good practice. And I fear we to spread the cost

of the town's operations. It's clear that a great deal

of due diligence was conducted and the depth of the

data and the supporting documents that we had. I mean,

there was a everything that we could want to support

what you given us to the tonight.

I thank you for

explaining the, the, the, the, the base.

Construction cost. That was the one thing that I had

a question on. Were you raised a, the.

You had the data from Belmont Needham and then the

national data. So I was wondering if there's more data

than that, but given the way that you've explained it,

I I'm, I'm not sure that I need more data

on it, but that was the only question I had.

Is, was there more comparable terms for the, that, or,

or not, but that, that I, I understand what you're

saying. So I'm very comfortable with the number of.

You've come to, but if, if there is more data,

you can share that with us.

The the, believe it or not, the data is very

limited out there. Mm-hmm one of the things I

did was a chat GTP.

GTP believe it or not. I do use AI on

a regular basis.

To help me out, cuz it's very quick to go

out and do a search for data.

Mm-hmm and one of the things that came up

during that chat GTP data.

Was that in Wellesley?

Based off of what it was seeing out there on

the internet.

Was that the estimated cost construction for square foot was

a minimum of $250 a square foot.

For a mid-range home.

Obviously in Wellesley, we have a lot of high-end homes

or upper level homes.

Homes. And it went anywhere from 250 up to, I

think it was 400 or $450 a square foot.

So after doing a little math,

you know, the first number I came up with was

$300 a square foot. And that just the, the numbers

that were coming up were seemed exorbitant.

In relation to the permit applicant.

So as a result of that, I, I had a

conversation with Megan about that.

And we sat down and talked about it and I

went out and did we agreed to do in-person interviews

with the comparable communities?

And pull from other sources.

So there's really not a lot of data out there

about construction costs per square foot. So.

This is really the best that I could find out

there. It is minimal. I, I recognize that, but it

was the best I could find.

All right. That's great. Other board member comments.

Comments, Lisa. So I also really appreciate, I mean,

you were clearly spent a lot of time trying to

mine, whatever data is out there. Michael and I, I.

Really was not familiar with the nuances of how we

assess these, these permit fees. So I really appreciated.

The explanation too, about the difference between.

New construction and how you evaluate that versus alterations to

existing residential structures. I.

I didn't know there was, you know, that they were

treated differently and it makes perfect sense. Once you explain

it.

I guess the only question I had was I, I

do think.

It would make sense to sort of Institute a regular.

Evaluation of this because it sounds like, you know,

one was looked at in 2007 and one in 2008

and one in 2011. And.

So I just, I'm just gonna suggest that as you

go forward, that we kind of establish some regular.

Schedule for reevaluating these fees, like every five years or

whatever you think the appropriate.

Time is even though it's a huge amount of work.

It does seem like

yeah, whatever that time period is, we ought to have

one, so that there's a little like teaser on your

calendar or something.

But I, I also fully support the idea of moving

forward with the public hearing. I think we're likely to

get some feedback about this and.

Wanna give the, give folks a chance to, to voice

their thoughts, but thank you very much.

And, and I just wanna be clear that I support

your, your recommendation.

Based on the information you've provided.

Provided. Thanks, Lisa, Tom.

This is just a

a, a very detailed exercise, which I appreciate.

To support a realignment of our fees.

To be consistent with comparable.

Communities, it will result in increased revenue, but that's not

the purpose of this exercise. It's simply to keep pace

with what other communities.

Are charging. And I think that's an utterly fair and

reasonable step to take.

Thanks, Tom. Marjo.

Nope. Yep. Thanks, Mike. I really appreciated all the work

and like, Colette, I really like the 11 by 17

format. It made it a little easier for me to

read.

I was also not quite as familiar with how your

pricing worked and to have the opportunity.

To look at so many different towns and cities and

how they do it.

Was really instructive.

How do you

approximate by

square foot or thousand dollars.

Of

work how long an inspection is gonna take.

Well, it depends on the project, right?

So if we're talking a new house,

so, let, let me put it out the, this way

to you.

Typically, we do inspections Monday through Friday.

And we do them from 10 to 12 and two

to three 30.

Now the maximum time that we can.

I spend or give the inspectors is, you know, in,

in that morning time.

Per inspector, we give them four inspections per inspector.

So that means the time to go there. Look at

things, spend the time necessary.

Drive there obviously.

Get to the next one. And so we've found that

four inspections was an appropriate amount of time to get

there. Now, each job takes a different amount of time.

If it's a whole, how whole house gut remodel.

That's gonna take more time than a bathroom inspection was

mm-hmm and so.

You know, it all comes out in the laundry.

So there's really to say there's a specific amount of

time. It, it can be complicated. And I can tell

you numerous times been on site.

And the car, you know, you're, they're doing a bathroom

inspection and the contract goes, Hey, I got a quick

question for you. and as.

If you work in my profession, there is no such

thing as a quick question. Mm-hmm .

So, you know, so it factors in those kinds of

things.

So, you know, a new house could take you 30

minutes.

Could take you 35 minutes, depending on the size of

the house to walk through the entire thing.

And, you know, point out any deficiencies.

Not find anything, you know, it's, there's so many variables.

Variables. So we've found, you know, in that morning, like

I said, we do four inspections in the afternoon window.

We've found at three inspections per inspectors, the right number.

To give them enough time. So they don't feel pressured

and take up any slack that may, that someone's got

a question.

And so we can provide that customer service out in

the field.

Wait. That's very helpful. Thank you.

Marjorie and board one other thing, I think that's really

assisted. So as you all know, so before the inspectors

go out, what are the, the, before the inspection, the

plan review is, is really what takes a lot of

time and detail to see that what they're proposing to

construct meets.

Meats the building code and what's really been terrific.

And they all have iPads now. So the other thing

that I think is assisted with the inspections is all

our plans are digital. And so before, instead of having

like 10 sets of plans in the.

In their vehicles to go in, not only they may

have markups on the plan that when they're then in,

on the inspection, they have their iPads, that they can

literally have the plan in hand, which I think, you

know, Mike's been a leader.

The the entire building.

Department's been a leader in our digitization efforts.

Efforts, but I do think that's also, and you correct

me if I'm wrong. Mike has really been a beneficial.

To both finding errors or tracking where, oh, I saw

this on the plan was wrong. I asked you to

correct it. I'm out in the field. You still didn't

correct. It.

You know,

it's our, our electronic permitting has been helpful in that

way. It's also helped us if we're out on the

site and someone.

We are seeing something, for example, one of the things

that come up quite a bit.

Someone's done some sheet metal work and there's no sheet

metal permit.

We can see that instantaneously by looking on the online

per you know, out in the field, on the iPads.

So, you know, there, there are a lot.

We can see a lot more than we used to.

I can I'll say it that way. Right. And the.

Information in essence, you have your office in your hand,

out in the field.

And so we can look up a lot of information

very, very quickly.

And access it very, very quickly.

Cell coverage in town, as you are all aware, isn't

that great. We do the best we can.

But, you know, for the most part, it works very

well.

One of the things Colette, I did just wanna, which.

Mike does not have in his memo, but he and

I have talked about is, I don't think you have

it in the memo.

Is what we would want post a public hearing. If

the board's amenable to moving forward with the fees after

that, when we would want to start this, start the

fees.

So after discussion with Michael.

We're suggesting April 1st.

As a starting point for the board's consideration that might

obviously shift based upon the public hearing date.

We wanna obviously have a give people time if they,

if contractors were working up.

Proposals, et cetera, you know, to also.

Account for those that potential time window.

But if we were gonna modify the fees, we were

thinking.

You know that it could impact the.

Last quarter of FY 25 as well. So I, I

just wanted to raise that, not to answer tonight.

But for the board to consider.

Okay, so that what I'm hearing tonight, Megan is full

support to move ahead with public hearing and take this

to the next step.

And Michael, thank you so much for coming tonight and

thank you for all the work you did. It was

great.

Thank you for your time. You're welcome. Thank you.

Alright. So the next item on our agenda is annual

time meeting preparation.

And we are reviewing the article list first. So, Megan,

I dunno if you want to sort of, you know,

highlight in the articles, you want to get some feedback

from us on, at this point.

Yep. Let me just scroll to it.

Were Corey and I had a warrant meeting with town

council.

So we are certainly working our way through that.

Oh, here we go. Sorry. The only ones, you know,

there's a few that I know we've preliminary talked.

About, and I'm gonna reach back out one in particular

is whether we hold on the.

The fee for

permits. If you haven't

haven't if you're not up to date with your taxation,

I think we just need some more work on that.

I just don't think it, I think we're in January.

And I just don't think we're, we'd be ready for

annual town meeting.

On that particular item. So that may be one I'd

recommend, maybe even just pulling from the warrant.

And preparing for Dex annual. I don't think that would

be a special town meeting article in my mind. I

really feel like that's an annual town meeting article.

We are gonna count councils working with Corey on some

of the special legislation.

And

everything else. I think we're okay on.

Oh, the only other outstanding one that I'll just raise.

So the housing development corporation will be meeting.

In the next couple weeks too. And they're just.

Discussing what we'll move forward, whether they do wanna move

forward at this time with the rezone and affordable housing

trust.

So those one, both one or the other may potentially

fall off on that. So, but that is still in

discussion with the housing development corporation, who would be the

sponsor for those.

And then the other thing I did just wanna flag,

we did receive two citizens petitions.

Petitions one is an amendment to a zoning proposal, which.

The planning board will be taking up.

In addition, they have to weigh in on zoning. So

it's not just that.

Because it's zoning, they're gonna take it up to under

state law. They're mandated to make a recommendation on any

zoning proposal before the town.

And then we did receive a citizen's petition to adopt

P paid family and medical leave.

And as part of that to also to also authorize

the FY 26 budget adjustments to fund that provision both

for the town and the employee contributions on that.

So that's a significant

article. So I know historically.

The select board doesn't weigh in on citizens petitions. This

is one we cannot ignore. This has a tremendous impact.

Arguably to both your negotiation capabilities with all of the

unions, which have different leave provisions.

Paid and unpaid.

This would mandate payment of leave.

With non-use of

sick time to account for those leaves.

Leaves. So this will be the citizen.

Group will be presenting that to advisory.

On Wednesday, I have already reached out to the.

School department, you know, to, to start pulling data.

As well as our HR team. So we will get

back to you with data on this.

but this is, this is something that we'll have

to focus on. We may even want to have the

citizen to schedule them to come in and present.

But

and, and I did just look up the Commonwealth does

have a calculator page, you know, that you would calculate

what.

The benefit to the individual may be based upon with

the.

Salary rates because it is sort of a tricky calculation.

If, because this proposal is to adopt the state statutory

provisions.

So it is a bit of a tricky calculation, but

there is a calculator.

And so that that can assist us, I think, in

a assessing the cost or potential.

Costs because obviously it'll be.

It's a, it's sort of an annual case by case

basis based upon your number of employees.

Employees. And so, you know, I think there's a lot

of different elements that would impact the select boards.

And from your budgetary authority, as well as your bargaining

authority that you would have to contemplate.

Okay, thanks, Megan. I, I really put this on the

agenda tonight, just to exactly what Megan said. It's not

typically our practice to discuss citizen petitions.

Petitions, but I wanted to raise this item to bring

it to attention.

And to sort of alert board members that will need

to discuss it in the future, but there's a lot

more work to get done before we're ready for that.

So I don't really propose, discussing that more tonight.

But I would give you a little bit of feedback

on the other two things. You mentioned, Megan, I'm completely

in agreement.

If the one article isn't ready for the permits, if

the taxation's not up to date.

I would just pull that rather than have no motion.

And I think we'll wait to hear what w HTC

have to say on their.

Articles and then, you know, decide, you know, what to

do with that.

I don't know if there's other comments from board members

on the article list right now, Lisa.

I just, can you just say again, Megan, when the

citizens petitioners are.

Going to advisory. I believe they're scheduled tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

Okay, thank you. That, that was the only question I

had.

Okay. So, so

so the next item, the agenda is the tone made.

Financial. Oh no. So the operating and capital budgets.

Budgets. So

after our discussion tonight.

With a little bit later on than the agenda, we'll

have a, a direction on free cash.

We've talked about building permits and some of the strategic

initiatives that we.

We'll talk about them later on in our meeting today.

But.

We'll be able to see the roll up.

After tonight's discussions and see if we can close the

budget gap. So we'll have some discussions tonight that will

help, but we're not done in any way with the

operating and capital budgets.

Budgets, but I, I want, I, I certainly have some

comments. I want to make me, I dunno if you

want to tee up and Don wanna see, or if

I can just go ahead with my comments. Well, why

don't I just tee up and do a quick look

at Paul and tee Tiana are, are here for north

finance department to answer any questions. Let me just.

Tee up. We've seen this before. This is not inour.

Hold on. I just lost you. So.

While you're pulling that up. I just wanted to see,

welcome to Paul and Tiana.

So

when we did our guidelines and projections, this is the

format. So just to show you sort of where we

shake out on here.

So we're projecting with regards to property tax two and

a half percent increase, plus 1.7 million with regards to new

growth. So we have ticked that down from where we

had, I think one of the initial projections, how does

that 1.8?

Million

this is also our initial.

Last year, we used 2.25 this year to close the

budget gap. We are proposing to use 2.75 million.

Dollars in terms of free cash. So I did wanna

call that out from an operating standpoint.

This current budget is also reflecting.

The superintendent's budget. I know the school department they're, they're

discussing their budget tonight.

And so this is still showing that overage. I do

think they're likely coming in line with the, with the

guidelines.

But this is still showing that over to this particular

projection.

With regards to cash capital. And this is showing.

The projections based upon our individual guidelines. I, I can

tick back and show where folks are on that.

With regards to cash capital the board, as you may

recall in setting the guidelines at the low end of

our capital financing policy.

At which is a 6.2 to 6.8% range. So we

set that at 6.2.

The way, the cash capital ended up shaking out based

upon, you know, some, the push and pull, which happens

on an annual basis.

Without cutting anything from our cash capital list.

We came in at about 6%. So that's about a

$360,000 Delta.

From where we had projected.

We have been that's that under our policy.

So meaning we set it at 6.2, we came in

at six.

So that $360,000 has been to the good of the

operating.

Which, you know, long-term sort of diminishes where we, we

are in terms of our capital layout.

We're also lower on debt service, cuz we've been using

a lot of free cash.

Over the past several.

Years, you know, to catch up on capital projects and

we've been flushing cast because of.

For multitude of reasons, but largely because of our return

on our.

Investments our interest.

And so as part of this.

We're we're slightly down here. We are gonna be borrowing

obviously for what? The Warren H V a C we

have some borrowing items that are coming forward to annual

town meeting, including Weston road. And then in the fall,

the R D F admin bill building. This is CRE

creating capacity with inside the levy.

But the other thing the board had in our previous

iterations, we had traffic and parking shortfall. We have taken

that rather than just a supplement.

The funds from free cash to screw that up.

We disperse that through, back into the general.

Fund within the police budget, the treasurer's budget and department

of public works budgets.

Budgets updated budgets are online on the town's.

Wealthy ma.gov/twenty.

25 budget book.

Paul has updated those and, and we've placed them online.

Health insurance.

Where

still carrying high on that. Plus there's a.

FY 25, 1 million supplemental.

And so all in all we're about 648.

Thousand dollars with regards to a deficit.

So again, this projects, schools over a guideline.

Now we just talked about the building permit fees. So

if we were to adopt those fees,

conservatively, we could estimate about a $500,000.

Increase in revenue in terms of our.

Building permit fee. So it, it would be get very

close to.

It would close the gap there in terms of our

deficit.

And assist us in doing a couple things.

Lowering potential free cash that we would be using towards

the operating.

We also may wanna potentially add some additional funds to

abatements. If we pass the heroes act, which potentially, you

know, we don't expect that to be a huge financial

impact.

Because we currently have 44 veterans in the town that,

that currently take that statutory youth.

And so, you know, there's a couple different ways you

can do that in terms of looking at the existing

pool of funds.

So happy to maybe stop there, Colette and take questions.

Questions. Yeah.

So I, I just wanted to kind of run through

a few things.

You know, with the current data we have in the

packet.

There are a few select board departments that over guideline,

and I just wanted to touch on them again and

again, this is not the last time we'll have this

discussion.

The, the select board office is over the proposed over

the guideline because we're proposing a new position to help

with the critical areas, area of communications.

So that is a strategic initiative we've been discussing for

the past three years, but didn't really have the capacity

to put forth.

Given other budgetary constraints and other competing needs.

So I do want to highlight that we made some

difficult choices in building our budget.

Including the elimination of a clerk position as we prioritize

the need for communications over.

You know, other work, the fire department is over with

the proposed edition of two new positions to fully staff

that department.

Following reductions in several years ago that, you know, ultimately

couldn't really be absorbed by the department.

Again, that's something we've been discussing as a strategic position.

Initiative for several years. And we've been facing that in

over three years.

There are some departments that are slightly over guideline for

what I certainly feel are matters within good reason.

And if we had more specifics on that at the

time of the all board, we would've set the guideline

to reflect those costs. And specifically I'm talking about.

The treasurers and the CEO, a, they have some 40

series employees that have a step that we just didn't

encompass in the guideline.

And there's some very small.

Expense overages that are just because the department is expense

is so small, you know, it could be like, you

know, a couple hundred dollars, but it just looks crazy.

We're Suburbans veterans district. We were.

Planning to hire above the midpoint, but that we're gonna

have to go back to hiring at the applicant, took

another position, a higher paying position somewhere else.

And then there's some non-SEC board departments that we have

to think about.

We did have some good news. Great news today from

school committee.

That they feel that they can make their 3.2, five

guideline with some, you know, lip breaking news that they

had and they, they make that guideline and they can,

and that within that guideline, they're doing level services.

Services plus other critical needs plus strategic initiatives.

Initiatives. And I just wanted to have a, a little

bit of a discussion here.

As a reminder, the approach we've taken with the guidelines

for school committee and, and our, and our small working

group was.

You know, what is it that you need for level

services? And let's set the guideline. That's a reasonable guideline

for you to achieve that.

But we really wanted to take an approach this year.

That was an all town approach and see.

Once everyone has a level services needs attended to.

What can we, what can be working for strategic priorities?

And we want to make sure we share that through

the town. And so it might be the case that

we can.

No meet everyone's strategic priorities have been brought forward.

And, and still close the budget, but I think we're

not quite done with that discussion yet. Although they've come

in and guideline it's encompassing these priorities that they're.

There are other priorities in time that we hadn't included

in the budget. I think, I think we have to

come back to, and I'm talking about.

You know, celebrations and the cultural council.

The board of library, trustees is above guideline.

And I, I have to say, I don't know too

much about, you know, what that additional position is for.

At the all board meeting, the board of library, trustees

mentioned the thought they needed three positions.

Positions one custodial and two other positions.

Positions, there was one discussion.

Following that where the

discussed that maybe it wasn't new positions. It was additional

hours for existing positions.

Positions. And then the, the board of library trustees had

their, had a retreat to discuss the budget, the retreat

wasn't televised. And I don't think the minutes are available.

And so we don't have, I don't, I don't feel

like I have a good handle on what that is.

And I I'd welcome Margie liaison to talk about that.

Because that's a strategic priority.

We need to figure out, can we fund that as,

as well, as long as these other priorities.

And still close the budget along with other things we

want to do. So Marjorie, if you have something to

add, that'd be great.

Yeah, thank you. At the December 10th meeting and Collette you're

right. The November 19th meeting was neither recorded nor.

Had published minutes.

But they referred.

During the December 10th meeting extensively to the discussions they had

had.

About this new position on November 19th, which is not transparent

for us, but it's a new librarian.

Who will also be working on social media and communications.

And the point was made that communications is a strategic

priority for a lot of departments in town.

And they really feel that with the loss of the

townsmen.

They need to

do more work in communications and on social media.

So the person will be doing both.

Librarian and social media.

And that was all the information provided at the meeting.

Then there's the board of assessors has a tiny overage,

but it's just because they have a tiny budget.

You know, planning is over because the want to do

more.

Mailings given all the feedback that we had at special

time meetings. So they want to communicate with more mailings.

Mailings, you know, HR board is, has a Delta. It's

a tiny, it's a material.

And I think recreation is slightly over because of the

creation of a revolving fund.

But with all those things.

I think we are gonna have a discussion.

A little bit later on tonight about the use of

free cash and what we want to do with that.

I certainly am not. I'm a little uncomfortable with where

we're, where we are with free cash at 2.75. Given

what Megan has said about where we are with.

Debt finances in at 6% versus 6.2. So we're, you

know, if we are using free cash, we had over

the, as a reminder over the past year or two

years, we've updated our financial policies. And one of our

goals is to really meet with best practice, which is

not using free cash to close the.

Budget. And as we had.

Come to having more capacity.

From the reduction in what we contribute every year to

OPAB. We had used that to reduce our free cash,

to balance the budget.

So if we had followed that trajectory,

last year, we reduced free cash to balance a budget

by 250,000. This year, OPB reduction is a hundred thousand.

We'd be at 2.15. We're at 2.75. That's a big

difference. And I'm a little uncomfortable with that. So one

of, one of the goals I'd certainly like to talk

about a little bit later on is.

Can we do something to it, just free cash so

that we're not digging a bigger hole for us next

year on capital.

But, and then, you know, once we've evaluated all those

things, then we can see.

Can we close the budget and, you know,

what can we share out for strategic priorities? I think

if we are sharing strategic priorities,

we have to put celebrations and cultural council back in,

but I take other, I take other board comments at

this point.

No one.

Okay.

So if there's no more comments, that's fine. I mean,

I think I've just talked behind logs off a donkey,

so it's fine. The, the next item on the agenda

is, is really the, to discuss the tongue bite financial

plan.

And so one of the things that Megan's looking for

feedback from us, and again, this is our first discussion.

Is future strategic initiatives in the time weight, financial plan.

And just as a reminder, over the past several years,

we've kind of modified the time, weight, financial.

Plan format. So it really has an introductory letter.

With a significant initiatives and, you know, things that we

really wanna bring to the, the four with time meeting

members and the public mm-hmm and then the detailed

report behind it really gets into the main drivers and

the capital plan. And, you know, it's diabetic, very extensive

documents. I'll a lot of information on every element of

the budget.

But some items I would like to get the boards

consideration and feedback on in the, as a key items

for the introductory letter are as, as follows.

Follows. And it's something we've been talking about.

All year, but I think with the.

You know, with the loss of the townsmen, we, we,

we need to find as many opportunities as we can

to talk about these things.

There are a lot of significant asks stem coming down

the pipeline.

And as I said, I'm concerned that the not well

socialized and we're gonna spend a lot of time and

resources, both financially and staff time.

Moving items forward and we don't have a good understanding

of the community's buy-in.

And so specifically I'm referring to.

The latent cost of development. So as, as we develop

across town,

we UN, we understand already that we probably need to

have one more fire station, possibly two. We certainly have

a fire station that doesn't meet our needs and we

possibly need a fire station at, at the lower end

of town on route nine.

So we'll have a fire station master plan. That's in

process.

That's gonna cost both capital, probably operating.

And we need to start socializing that.

There are various asks from the school department, including.

Climate control, which will have a capital and an operating

aspect.

There's consideration of universal preschool.

Again, capital and operating, and we need a, a clearer

understanding of the operating costs. In the out years, we

have the fantastic school budget book, which is award-winning and

it gives us some indication of what the, those costs

are gonna be.

But they're above 2.5%. And what does that mean? Does

it mean we have to have an operating.

Over override or we can we meet that with new

growth? Where are we? And in the future with that,

we also need to talk about the cost of implementing

the classification and compensation study.

And any follow on from that as we try and

build better pay equity.

Across ton and schools. We also need to talk about

potential operating costs for the council and aging initiatives as

they look to more meal offerings.

Offerings the outcome of a needs assessment.

And, and becoming an edge brand of the community. What

does that mean?

We have more pond capital project.

We have the D P w master plan, which is,

you know, evolving as we sort of think. Do we

really want to invest a lot of money in.

Updating an old building should be building new building. Should

it be a, a turn LANs? What are we thinking

there? That's evolving.

And then, you know, the potential cost of the citizens

petition.

I think it's really important for the town to see

all of these asks and understand that, you know, difficult

choices will have to be made.

It's just simply not enough funding to go for all

of these items. And we don't really understand the capacity.

At the moment for taxpayers to keep passing debt, exclusions

and potential operating overrides, it's just an unknown.

And as I started out with, we we've seen.

In intern meeting that would really suffering from the lack

of the townsmen. And I'm just really concerned at the

boards are ahead of the public on this. And we

need to sort of think about ways of messaging. So.

That's my take on think messages for the timeline financial

plan, but I'm really.

Asking other board members about what the.

What they would like to share Lisa.

Well, that was a lot .

I'm gonna try and not repeat anything that you said.

So for one thing, I think I do think we

need to, to hit on the, the theme of communications

themselves.

Like that is a budget priority. I mean, it's why

we are adding that position. And.

I think it's important.

To highlight, especially given the feedback that we got at

special 10 meeting and, and elsewhere.

What it is we are doing to try to address

this gap.

That's arisen through no fault of our own and, and,

and the new expectations.

That town government will take on the role of communicating.

A lot more about what it's doing.

Because that hasn't been a role we've.

We've been asked to

occupy in the past and because they're.

Is such a lack of.

You know, coverage of our activities were the burden has

really shifted.

So I, I think that's a really important thing for

us to talk about.

And

you know, look, I was looking at last year's town-wide

financial plan where we talked about.

Compensation and our initiative to try and address the town

department salaries.

I, I think we need to sort of say where

we are with that. I, I think you hit on

this Collette, but.

You know, and, and I was thinking about the con

center report and the class and comp study and wondering

if.

There might need to be a separate communication.

To town meeting members that talks about those things, because

we actually highlighted those in our letter last year. And.

So I was just wondering, like, maybe that's a separate

letter from the HR board and us or something. I,

I don't know, but.

I just wanted to raise that question. How, how are

we going to make sure that we circle back to

town meeting members about.

Not just our initiative, but.

Those studies in particular and what's happening and what the

status is.

And then I also think it's worth mentioning the resilience.

Issue, you know, we, we are have on our work

plan, this energy transition and climate resilience working group.

With the M L P and the M L P

board.

And there may be budget implications to that going forward.

We just don't know yet. Obviously there.

Once the work of that group is underway. We'll have

a better sense, but.

I definitely think it's worth mentioning.

Because it could have budget implications.

Okay, I'm just sorry. I'm just looking at my notes

to see if I got it all.

Yeah. I mean, I think overall.

We really do need to.

Talk about the need to balance.

Ongoing strategic priorities for the whole town.

With these ongoing strategic priorities for the schools.

Because

I I understand how important our schools are and I

fully support.

You know, funding them at a reasonable level, but I.

I do feel like over time.

We, there has been a bit of a, an imbalance

in the.

Priorities placed on strategic priorities coming out of the schools

versus.

Those coming out of the town and I mean,

you know, resilience. I'll, I'll just focus on that one

for a moment. I mean, that has to do with

public safety and, and protecting the population. And, and so

I, I just think that's, that's something that we might

wanna highlight is that we, that is a.

That's a tension in the budget.

Every year and it's just something we need to keep

looking at going forward.

Thanks, Lisa.

Tom.

Tom. I

I think it is.

Very important that this be laid out. I couldn't.

Couldn't agree more that there is an opportunity to socialize.

The length and depth of, of this list.

And I think the town needs to.

See this list in

total to really understand. I think sometimes.

Again, in our more siloed form of government.

Individual elements within town government.

Are really at Liberty and it's appropriate.

To be putting forward to be, to be acting as

proponents for.

Those capital expenditures, those programmatic expenditures.

That really are specific to their.

To their role.

And, and that's a problem because then people don't see

the next one coming.

And I, I think that that is a, that is

a terrible problem for us.

Responsible for article eight in the long run.

Trying to balance a budget that has these individual pieces

being out of do it.

I think that

it is always a challenge in writing a document like

this.

Not to appear to be supporting all of these items.

Or not supporting them.

But to be laying out that these are on the

table and under discussion, there are some of these that.

I strongly agree with that, I think are top priorities.

There are others that.

Are less important. And some that I simply don't agree

with.

I'm not sure it's my place in, in a, in

a town-wide financial plan to.

Say how I feel about them, but I think it's

important not to leave the reader with the impression that

because they exist in this document, they are some, at

some point gonna happen.

Because that's what the whole process of town meeting.

Is about the proponent has to come forward and make

the case. And.

Talk about why it has value at being.

A greater priority than something else.

So I think that's the challenge that I see.

For us in drafting this particular plan.

Is how do we put it out there that these

exist out there?

As projects that are under consideration.

Here are the implications.

But we're taking no position on them.

That's what our process of government through town meeting is

about.

Thanks, Tom. That's super helpful.

Marjorie. Yeah. A couple of things. First of all, thank

you, Colette, for that list. There's a couple of other

things that.

I might suggest you wanna include.

One is something, anything that might arou arise out of

the town government study committee?

We also wanna start looking at the north 40. I

don't know if we're gonna need any professional services.

Services to help us with that.

I also have a concern about how broadly.

The information is shared because the town-wide financial plan goes

to town meeting members.

But that's such a small subset of the town.

I wonder if we might wanna think about getting it.

To more taxpayers.

Taxpayers because everybody is gonna bear the burden of all

these programs.

Programs and 240 people are not representative.

Of everybody else in their precincts.

Precincts, I think that's it for now.

Yeah, that's a good point, Margie. I wonder if we

mail out, we sort of cost out how much we

cost to mail the letter like advisory does. Yes. Yes.

And then, you know, tell them.

That. Where do you find the full report? Mm-hmm .

Okay. That's helpful feedback. Yeah. Or, or whether there's another

mailing that, in which these exactly inserted, whether it's tax

bills, that'll take care of any capital utility bills. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Or, or whether it's the, I, I don't

tax bills.

There LP bill online, but yeah. Pardon? Sorry. Interrupter.

Oh, that's okay. And so in terms of trying to.

Think about socialization and also making sure that we get.

You know, Mia, I'd like to make sure I get

my facts straight. When we're doing this letter. I have

asked school committee to hold the joint meeting with us

so that we can talk about the items that have

been put forward by school committee.

We're hoping we can schedule that in February.

However, we need to have the bones of the timeout

financial plan before that.

So the we're gonna have a small group meeting with

school committee.

Just the same small group that we do for the

budget negotiations.

Next week. So we can kind of flesh out a

little bit, this, making sure that, you know, we've got.

We just wanna strategize about how we put this into

this time. Financial plan.

So that's in process. So that I think is.

That's that item on the agenda. The next item on

the agenda we have is the use of free cash.

So Megan, do you wanna bring something up on that?

And we can walk through that.

Sure. I just updated.

Hold on. Let me just blow this up before I

just noticed.

Noticed right before the meeting, one thing missing on sort

of the list that we were recommending. So I just

amended this.

Okay. So keep in mind the use the implementation of

this free cash is in addition to the 2.75 million that

would be proposed for the operating budget. So here we

have several capital.

Funding.

Capital project proposed for funding with free cash. The feasibility

study for the air conditioning at the schools. I noticed

that hadn't been, it was on our list, but the

reserves I did noticed it was missing from this list

in terms of application free cash. So we have a,

a fire engine which we'd recommend using.

Free cash. The feasibility study.

We're also proposing team rooms.

Potentially use

pre-cash we would borrow D P w street rehab, which

is, this is the Western road article that would be

going to town meeting.

We have Honeywell tennis courts.

High school, Honeywell field.

Irrigation and playground reconstruction. That is for.

We did four playgrounds last year, as you might recall,

for $2 million, this would be the next four.

And then the R D F admin building, we would

include this in the town-wide financial plan. This would not

be funding.

But just in terms of looking at your overall reserves

and.

Capital financing policy. This would be in the fall, but

keep in mind that so falls within FY 26.

So we're accounting for it here. So within that, it's

about 15.2 million.

In capital items and projects of which 9 million would be

borrowed. And we're proposing to use six point a little

over 6.2 million.

In free cash.

What that does. Hold on. Let me just pull up

our other table. One moment.

Two. I just wanna show you our reserves estimate.