So, beginning tonight, my colleagues on the council and to all of the town staff who's here tonight, and to members of the public, both in person and on the Zoom platform, we'll start our meeting tonight with a call to order and pledge of allegiance to the flag. So I'll call to order the special meeting of May 5, 2025.
Thank you, joining me on the day of tonight our town clerk Lee Cardi to my right by President Michael Donigan.
I'm President of the Council Mark Schwager, Councillor Karen Cornthall, Councillor Rain of Engelhart and Councillor Michael Zurella will be joining us shortly.
So, tonight we have a single item on our agenda under new business.
This is the presentation from the town manager and discussion by counselors on the proposed
operating budget for fiscal year 2026.
So tonight we're continuing our budget process for the fiscal year 26.
Our town manager Andrew Naughty will present his proposed operating budget followed by council
discussion.
The budget was publicly posted on May 1st as required by town ordinance, and tonight marks
seats its official public presentation.
Manager Nada and his team have been developing this budget since before Thanksgiving, incorporating
various inputs, including most recently the town's proposed six-year capital improvement
program, which the council reviewed back in February, and the school district's 2006 budget,
which was submitted to the manager on April 15th.
This evening is the town council's first opportunity
to review the completed proposal.
For residents who would like to participate,
we will be holding one or more public hearings on the budget.
The first of which will be held next Monday, May 12th.
At is it six, 30, Lee for the six o'clock PM
in Swift Community Center?
After the public hearings are completed,
the town council may approve the managers
budget as presented or decide to add or subtract funding to various components of the budget.
The council must vote to adopt this final budget on or before June 10th.
So I'll ask our town manager to bring up his presentation and begin his discussion.
Great.
Thanks, Dr. Swagher.
Members of the council, we're back again, the budget season seems like soon as we finish,
we start a low for, at least to us it feels that way.
So what I'd like to do tonight is I think there's always some confusion amongst the community
in terms of kind of what the process is, when decision making occurs, when's the best night
to come to talk on a given issue or evaluate certain programs in the community?
And what we try to do is be as open and advanced with the dates, one of the dates for next
Monday that Dr. Swaker just mentioned on the 12th to get those get that information out to the
public so they know when to tune in, when to tune in from home, when they think they need to be
in the room to comment on the issue. And we'd like to take our time tonight. This budget was just
presented to the council in the community just four days ago. So there is no expectation
than other than Karen that everybody has read the full document. I need all 200 in some on page.
But it's an opportunity for us to just say this is how it's structured for us to articulate exactly what went into it.
And then I'll stop at that point. It'll take me a couple of minutes just to run through a review of what's in each section and how we organize the budget document.
And then we've got an abbreviated presentation that will run through at a very high level.
that Trisha and I will cover in terms of just highlighting those key aspects of the budget that I think would be most pertinent to the community.
Now, what we'll do at that point is we'll kind of wrap up tonight.
We'll be happy to answer any questions that we can from the council.
But you know, my recommendation always has been as based on the structure that we have in place of the meetings on the 12th and the 19th,
which will be a combination of various departments,
presenting in some level of detail.
Their budget programs will be able to really dive
into those specific aspects of those that would be
the more appropriate time to do that clearly.
We can answer some questions tonight
if you have a burning question.
I think the other thing for tonight is that if there's any
particular area in the budget that you know,
you are looking for some heightened level of detail.
Let us know what that is, and we'll be sure either Trish and I, or a given department head, will be prepared to be able to dive into that level of detail at the appropriate time.
So for the next two meetings, we'll be covering individual departments, plus other key areas within the budget.
Could be a discussion on revenues, could be future projects, could be debt service, could be school construction.
can be a number of those things that somehow affect this proposal,
and then you have two additional
meetings that are booked, right? So these are both council meetings. One of them is the Tuesday
following Memorial Day, that's the 27th, where I think would be at a point in time, where we probably
substantively could start to talk about changes, things that you might want to consider going forward,
tax impact, setting of rates. They don't have to be decided on the 27th, but that would probably
be it's a normal council meeting but we'll also have budget discussion a time when those kinds
of topics would be raised in some substance at that point and then you've got we don't have
a meeting the only week we don't have a meeting schedule is the first week of June which
would be the second but we have one schedule normal meeting on the ninth so should you need another
meeting to discuss any particular issue we could book the second on a Monday or another
finalization to some of those key opic points, changes, specific questions of given departments
that we may have in other projects and initiatives in town, setting of the tax rate.
You'll see the proposals that we've made clearly for those that don't follow municipal budgeting.
This is just the municipal, the professional staff, on the my direction, our proposal to the council.
Nothing is defined. Nothing is approved in the budget, so as we've opted to present to you
breakdown of residential and commercial tax rates and other impacts that clearly is under the
auspices of the council to consider modifications to that as you've done in the past.
So, and there really isn't going to be any decision-making.
That's another piece that I think is lost on many in the community where we're having a budget
hearing at followed a last big discussion that council's going to make a decision Monday night.
So that should not happen until final budget adoption, which is most likely going to be
on June 9th. So you've got basically a month of meetings to be able to provide input, perspective,
the counsel to digest the full budget to hear from all our department heads and staff that are here.
And so I would be remiss if I didn't think everybody really here on behalf of the
town professional staff. This 230 page document doesn't put itself together. I think the staff
did a fantastic job in doing that. I think what you don't see is a lot of compromises that occur
every year, we're somewhat quiet about it because we really present our budget to you with one
voice coming from the manager, but really there are perspectives and insight and priorities
and needs, and all of those things are included. We try not to push that across the table to
the council for you to debate those issues, but we really deal with them professionally and we present
to you a budget that we think is workable, and that still advances all of the individual service
areas, whether that's fire, PD, finance, IT,
services and a myriad of other services that the town provides
in our clerk's office and finance and some of the core
services that really help make the town tick.
So I want to just publicly thank everybody for that.
What I'd like to do now is kind of work through the main
document and I'm going to do this in a very high level and just kind of
talk about the individual sections that the public who may
or may not find the time to actually look at the document
or get through it.
They'll know the kind of topics that we cover.
And what we're still trying to do,
it's a work in progress.
The document's not perfect,
but I will say I think it does get better every year.
And what our goal is to provide a comprehensive document
that gives you somebody who really wants to dive in,
gives you a perspective not only on what an individual
department or service cost you as a taxpayer,
but it also gives you perspective on other things happening,
locally, regionally, in the state, and nationally, that show up in labor information.
They show up in comparisons of the town of East Greenwich, as well as the state of
Rhode Island.
And lots of other nuances from organizations, well, from economists like Len Ladaro,
who's a violin-URI economist, as well as through right-packed around a public, expenditure
council, and other entities like that.
That's not to say that we agree with their findings or disagree, but I think it's important
I, other entities that are purely focused on the Rhode Island economy in the Rhode Island local and state budget. So you'll find a lot of that information as well.
So I'm going to just run through the sections section one, which starts on page, which runs through page 165.
It's a very large section. It includes a glimpse into the municipal organization, includes organizational charts, staffing levels, a program introduction for this budget program.
labor information, budget and economic information, locally and statewide.
The community of East Greenwich at a glance, historical information,
plus added details on our school district, our school construction initiative,
proposed budget and fund balance reserve use, as well as a comprehensive look at various town council's goals and objectives.
at that section one section two through page two dash 34. That's a 34 page section
includes the manager's message and ongoing future project considerations. This includes
about 8 to 10 major projects that are either ongoing or step to take off in the near future.
The message includes a focus on community objectives and long-term goals, general fund
overview, future planning considerations, including the school construction initiative, the
Highway Garage Replacement, the street lighting program, which is almost at its final stages
of the installation has been completed, but we're still working through some bugs with the
state of Rhode Island regarding them taking over costs for all the state street lights.
Comprehensive plan, tenure, update, the ad-adaption, and resiliency to national hazards, the
of front study and improvements, community services, master plan and improvements, municipal
energy aggregation program, Main Street Rehabilitation, ARPA Project Funding, plus public
engagement.
There's a lot of other things I could have included there, like our parking study, which
planning director is finishing up, we've got our two studies and both public safety that
have been finished, but we've yet to have the consult to come back and report to the council.
So there could be 15 to 20 major initiatives that we have, but we focused on a handful.
It's probably a, again, it's a 34 page section as it is, so we needed to, we need to
run the line at some point.
Section three is a 45 page section includes the budgeting process overview, the budget
calendar, basis of budgeting and accounting controls, operating budget policy, revenue practices,
debt management practices, reserve fund practices, accounting, auditing, and financial
The reporting policies, our capital program, the funds structure, including governmental funds,
general debt service fund, capital projects fund, proprietary funds and permanent funds
and fund structure in general.
And in depth, look at the general fund revenue summary by category and source, expenditures
by area of service level, expenditure by use type, expenditure for all funds, capital program
CIP debt service detail, consolidated debt, general obligation bonds, and wastewater bonds, debt ratios, and debt per capita.
We finished that section up with a position allocation and pay schedules for all full-time employees on the municipal.
Section 4 is an eight-page section, which really starts to focus specifically on town departments.
Each section is structured in a very similar way, which focuses on emission statement, the functions of that department,
goals and objectives and their expenditure statements tied to the budget request for this coming year
in FY26.
We run through sections 4-13. This is specifically speaking about the town manager's
office, prevention and support services, the town clerk's office that includes canvassing,
probe municipal court as well as the town council and legal services.
Section 5 is a 24-page section, including the Finance Department, Information Technology,
Planning Department, and Community Services that includes Parks, Recreation, Harbour,
and Human and Senior Services. Section 6 is a 5-page section, including the details on the
Police Department, including Administration, Detective Division, School Resource Officers,
animal control patrol officers dispatchers, fleet maintenance, accreditation, and administrative
support. Section 7, it's an 11-page section, include the details on the public works department,
including engineering services, building inspections, buildings, highway, the highway division,
Code review, enforcement, public education, plan review, inspections, and fire alarm services.
Stations 1 and 2, fleet maintenance, firefighters, EMS services, fire alarm services, command staff, and collateral duty support.
Section 9 is a 3-page section, includes non-departmental functions, this includes functions, including municipal insurance,
unemployment insurance, work as compensation, fun contingency and outside agencies, as an
example.
Commerce contribution that the town makes annually.
Section 10 is another five-page section, including the school district.
This information includes the school committee, staffing, or chart, expenditure statements,
revenue for local and federal sources, and the proposed budget detail, as presented in
approved by the school committee.
We will follow up with not only the council members, but also other public, I'm sorry, for the council members, but also public boards and commissions at large resident population as well as other programmatic questions.
There'll be a lot of questions that come from various sources is a significant amount of overlap that involves and it kind of emanates from those questions as presented based on the source that they're coming from.
So as we work through each of the meetings, we'll do our best to focus and target our responses
to address questions that you have.
And actually, Trish and I will try to do starting tonight is questions we've already received
topics we hear being discussed in the community, you know, as we start to work through this
initial presentation, we'll try to start to answer some of those questions early on that
we already know about, that a slide may lend itself to discussing and then clearly we have the
time for the rest of the meetings this month that's dive into much more detail.
I'm going to pause there where now we're going to stop and we're going to kind of move on to the presentation,
which will really bring us through what I think are some of the highlights,
and some of the course statistical data that for comparative purposes that you'll see as the spreadsheet
adopted and projected for 25 and then the proposed for 26 and there are certain slides that go a little bit farther
farther back than that. Andy, and I couldn't tell you what page it was on, but in the beginning
when you were talking about, I guess, establishing the budget you mentioned, obviously, obviously economic
challenges that we're going to have this year within for structure and education. And you said,
And I think you said this is sort of a negative to look, we look backwards to make financial decisions.
And could you just elaborate on that a little bit?
So I think that was in the budget document when I talked about processes associated with budgeting.
And I think it's an easy trap to fall into in government, right?
It's the only look backwards, right?
You look back and say, this is what I spent at this given period of time, this is the structure,
this is the process we've used, these are the radius of individuals and agencies and others
that I source my information from, but at times it can be, and there's value in doing that,
right?
Because what's the value?
The value is trending, you can look back, but so that's one of the values and there are
several that I've highlighted in that section within the larger budget document, but I think
what gets lost in that is your adaptability to look forward.
So that's a little more risky for municipalities
in the state of Rhode Island to be looking forward
and not having as concrete a basis
for what had already occurred,
but that makes a big assumption
that what's happened in the past
is gonna repeat itself going forward.
And so clearly, I think we've got lots of examples
every single year that that's just not the case
and not only is our community changing,
our demographic is changing, the type of services is changing, Tim Wheeler will tell you technology
is changing by the minute, the way we deliver services, how we engage, of the public engages
with us, programmatically Andy Weidel tell you that the services that our seniors need and others
are youth populations need and what they're reacting to, where maybe 20 years ago they reacted
to one type of program are different. So we have to try to be creative and be out in front at times
as well. And that can be a little bit risky, but I don't think with the changes in which a great
example is how people communicate with each other are so different today, right? So we still
have to react where we don't just get the phone call like we used to get. We get a myriad of
impacts and responses from people. Some of them are well grounded and there's a basis for a lot
of them are not. They're just people's opinions, but we still have to process those and process
those in due course and be respectful in terms of entertaining them and working through and researching.
In this presentation today, to talk about the pros and cons about both looking back and looking forward.
Andy, is that more of a philosophical, like from Faulkner's Requiem for a nun? The past is never dead. It's not even past.
Not necessarily. So, no, it really comes from a lot of the professional information that I research and work with colleagues from around the country and kind of what some of the greatest challenges of government are.
And if you only look back, which is very hard to be proactive moving forward, you know, it's like as recently it's kind of like responding to the emergency after it happens.
But there are categories, right, where.
That's right, where they're more stable, right?
Exactly.
That's what we're helpful on other areas.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, much more stable.
And I think, you know, the more professional work that we do behind the scenes, the more we can rely on
and trending, and backward-looking trending, and projecting forward, but there are some that
that's just we don't have that luxury, and so we really need to branch out.
But some of it is philosophical, Mike, in terms of management, different management approaches,
and how we really think we should, I don't think you can rely solely on one without the other.
I think you need a little bit of both, so and I don't, you know, a lot of times in my profession
in here in Rhode Island.
I see a lot of trending, lowly-looking backwards, so it's very hard to advance a community
community, if that's all that you do. And plus there's the human element, right? So as we know,
since COVID, our population in East French has changed quite a bit. There's a lot of new people
that live here, right? Who didn't live here, who haven't lived here for 30 years. Still have a
lot of those people as well, who live here for a long time. So now it's trying to take, everyone gets
the same vote, right? So it's, you need to take all those different perspectives, and you need to find
an even medium where you can still get to advanced community. I think being respectful of the past,
but being cognizant that you know government today at the local state national level is different
than it was just a few years ago. So keep changing.
So Lee is going to kind of run us through
the presentation. We just start off with a little background on the budgeting team.
Thanks. We have reviewed the budgeting process in timeline and this is a snapshot and a summary
of a lot of the information that the council has seen a number of times regarding our annual calendar.
We look at long-term capital investment, we look at the annual departmental budgets and what in the timeline is associated with the one that process starts.
Capital starts back in November.
We finish up our initial presentation before the council in February.
The departmental budgets don't really in terms of operating, don't really start until January.
And they're really wrapping up in March prior to receiving the full departments proposed budget on a before April 15.
Then you've got through another process, which is highlighted in the third column, you've got
a management team review where we work with individual departments and other stakeholders
and kind of work through those and refine the overall proposal as we gear up for budget
submittal council review and public presentation, which we're starting this evening, which
emanates beginning the May 1st, honor before May 1st delivery.
So when we delivered that budget, what occurred on that day, on the, and it's very rare that we're going to be finished.
Are in advance of May 1st, so it's always right around May 1st. This year it was on May 1st.
We folded that to the council, we folded that to the school administration before that this document to local media.
And then we also published it on the Secretary of State's site as well as our own website.
So, that we felt met the initial, I think on Facebook as well, we also posted a
time-light Facebook about 3,000 followers on that page.
So, that really sets the tone for just two additional dates of importance.
One is having a first public hearing on it before May 15th.
So we're set to have ours on May 12th, and then we'll be the Council's final adoption
on it before the 10th.
Next page just gives you some high-level highlights in the overall program.
looking at the overall fund balance, which is falling within the acceptable range that we have
right now. We keep a very broad range and Trisha and I understand that our fund balance policy
it's back to 2008. It needs an entire need of an update, but we still function and we follow
the direction as provided by GFOA. So their guide is 10 to 17 percent for, I will call
a standard communities, but communities that may face other potential risks the number gets higher.
So it approaches 17 in some communities. It surpasses 17% overall.
Capital accomplishments.
You know, if you remember just a short time ago back in 19, we had a $100,000 annual capital program for a few years.
That had been reduced from a...
Eight to nine hundred and prior years. But I think once things have settled, we have now over multiple years, grown the annual pay-go capital program back to 1.1 million this year.
It's a hundred thousand dollars increase over last year's proposal at one million.
In addition to that, we've taken advantage of surpluses generated from increased revenues at year end.
And so we've been averaging about a million and a half dollars in expenditures, which is we're starting to kind of fall into that line.
We were able to keep up with our fleet replacement.
We're able to keep up with other building projects, sidewalk road repairs and things of that nature.
We're not quite there, but we're getting, we're getting much closer and we list a number of other projects that we fund using our capital annual pay-go capital.
Collections really have been incredibly consistent and strong in and around that 98 percent, which is something that we want to be able to rely on.
And we attribute that to nutrition, her finance team for making all the necessary adjustments plus.
And we were just talking a short time ago about the integration of technology into that area, which has really done a tremendous job in lightening the amount of the public who used to feel they had to come into the office.
We're now they can conduct their business more conveniently from their home, just jump on their computer.
Some services come with an added fee, some do not.
But that has been help in terms of our rescue billing, our meals and beverage program, our building permit, revenues, exceeding revenue expectations, as well as a number of other areas.
I think in some areas where you think you were customarily expected to be included would be our
town clerk's office, which has really dramatically improved, and you'll hear more about that
at that time when Lee works through her department in a coming meeting community services.
I think is now kind of like hitting the lottery as Andy describes it in terms of if you're not ready
to go and online when programs open up, the programs fill within minutes, which is an incredible.
And really shows us in terms of our analytics that there's still much more demand in terms of our young community and our older community that live in town for certain types of programs.
And the final note here is just public safety investments as we've been talking with the council recently.
Major investments in an old antiquated communication system that probably should have been upgraded 10 years ago, if not more, is, you know, put us in a position where that first domino, the council supported us.
fallen and actions being taken to upgrade both our public our police and our fire department
communication system is critically important and we appreciate the council's support and making that happen.
Any quick question on that? Is that the program where you lost some grant funding?
Correct. Right. How much we lost a lot? Yeah. We originally applied for over a million. I
think our request was a federal appropriation. Yep. Which we lost that funding. And we had a pretty
pretty reasonable confidence level on receiving that, right? So that's what we built that budget
item on. So it's not just that as we build this budget this year, it's not just the loss
of funding for the schools from the general assembly. It's we lost that and we still have to go forward.
Understood. Yeah, and it was about at early on in the process, we felt it was going to be around
a two million dollar project. The town had already budgeted and funded over multiple years,
about a million of that. So the original request for over a million would have funded the second
aspect really phase 2 and 3. Since that has moved on, the council had authorized. We're going to
unbalanced reserve to front and then we will pay ourselves back with through surplus dollars
over the next few years funding. But it's not a project that any of us professionally felt
good weight and it will still take us about a year. It's going to take five to six months just to
get all the equipment to get everything lined up between them. Jim and Colby working on the lead on
project taking a lot of the management of it in house, saving us a lot of kind of general
oversight costs. So I think we've got a good plan in place, it'll just take us about another
year to really get it all implemented. So they are continuing to bandage together the system that
we have. They feel confident that will be okay during this time period, but it was really,
we waited as long as we could and it was disappointing, but we'll make future applications as well
try to recover some of that funding, if we can.
Not that hopeful next three years, but maybe after that,
we can get some funding restored.
I will say from when we first started working together,
you have become much more hopeful.
Over those six years, right?
Well, say the truth, our federal delegation
is on a really good job for our community.
And when you talk to them, and they're all in despair,
because there's really no seat at the table for them.
That's right.
to deliver good government for their states.
Thank you.
You
Not that hopeful next three years, but maybe after that, we can get some funding or stolen.
I will say from, I think, from when we first started working together, you have become much more hopeful.
Over those six years.
But the truth, our federal delegation is on a really good job for our community.
And, you know, when you talk to them and they're all in despair, because, you know,
there's really no seat at the table for them. That's right.
The liver, good government for their states.
Thank you, you know, you need to have a good sense of humor to get through someone, especially a bunch of process annually, so we try to
five kids in a dog, I have that.
The next couple of pages really just focus on metrics.
Putting together it runs through police and fire and public works and community services and the library and it breaks down various metrics and we try to utilize these metrics annually.
we look back. We're probably not using them as much as I would like, but I think as our organization,
the culture starts to change and it continues to change. A lot of our decision-making,
like I said, will not just be looking back at trending, but we'll be looking at analytics and
metrics as we go forward to just better focus us so that it's more of an exercise than just adding
a 1% or 2% or 3% increase to a given light item, which is really not based on anything,
But we're going to go back and we're going to look at our EMS calls.
We're going to look at our PD runs of different types.
We're going to look at coverages in certain parts of town.
We're going to look at all of those elements as it would apply to really every department.
So the next right there, great.
Trish, do you want to run through this page?
So basically what this is showing you is just a summary of salary benefits in our operating expenditures.
from the 2024 Actuals, as it ordered figures, the 2025 estimated figures, that's what I'm projecting for year end and then compared to the 2026 budget.
It's just a roll-up of all salaries, which includes your regular salaries, your overtime
accounts. It also includes dispatch, so it's not just regular full-time salaries.
That's holiday pay included in there. Obviously the benefits are the benefits, the
like the retirements, health insurance, dental insurance services are all the outside services
that we procure related to the buildings related to all of our equipment maintenance contracts,
areas and supplies are just that, all the materials and supplies throughout the offices.
capital outlay is all the major and minor capital. This is pay-go plus all the minor accounts
like purchases for computers or printers or associated with a capital account. And our
other miscellaneous expenditures. That really is almost like a catch-all for items that are
accounted for in services, materials and supplies.
The bigger budget, obviously, will give you
a lot more details in other miscellaneous expenditures, but this is just right here, it's just
a summary of the overall municipal budget. And then below that are all the revenues, the tax revenues
and all the other revenue sources that we receive included in the other revenue sources would be
It would be rescue billing, all of our licenses, fees,
departmental revenues that we collect.
That's what this page is telling you.
Do you have any questions on that?
Sorry, I just, I'm may have spaced,
but why are there no more transfers to capital?
We're not. We're just doing pay go or.
So, um, yeah, so those are done at your end.
Okay. Those are done at your end.
So that's why it's booked as an actual.
Okay. So, you know, at the end of the year, I typically, in June, I prepare year and transfers.
Okay. So at this point, I don't have yet available for you.
But it's typically been about between 5 and 600, 700,000. That's what we've been transferring.
And most of that is actually related to the street lighting project.
If you remember when we awarded that, that was a return on.
It's a little bit lower than it's been 24 actuals or 25 estimates. Is that just caution or is there a source that is not coming?
Well, a portion of that is this year in 2025, we received the statewide tangible tax phase out amount that was not originally budgeted.
And it wasn't originally budgeted because they did not approve that until June 25th the last date of the legislature.
So we had already adopted our budget and we did not recognize that as a funding source for tax appropriation because as an other revenue.
Because we actually was seeing a loss until they changed the legislation.
So because of our values went up, so the original legislation read along the lines of they compared it to the prior year.
So if you were recognizing a loss from the prior year, that's what they were going to reimburse you at.
But they changed that in the last meeting of the legislature to just say whatever your loss was based on the 50,000, not compared to the prior year.
So, and so what happens for 2026, that becomes another revenue source, our increase in our tax levy.
Oh, it's higher in the estimated column because that's where we're actually recognizing the statewide,
So we're recognizing that now in estimated 2025, that's why it's much higher than what was adopted.
It's not ongoing.
No, it's annual.
We're going to get that 546,000 every year until they change the budget.
Same with Motivico phase out.
But we're slated to get that annually.
Obviously, up until the governor has some reductions in his budget, so I'm sure that's one of the numbers.
but the estimated is higher there because that it wasn't budget originally there.
Thank you. The only other two things on this page that actually show some consistency is when you
look at the percentages as provided. You can see generally salaries and benefits are averaging 75-76
percent of the overall general fund budget. You find services are consistently at around 12 percent
materials and supplies are in the fours and you find other expenses are in that two to three percent range.
So there is some, you find that consistency as you look across the various topics.
Both at the top of the page, you find you see that out of the 20 and a half million dollar program
about 18.7 million is tax-supported and the rest is generated from all of the other revenues that we were commenting on
that are generated from the various departments.
So you can go to the next page.
Here we just captured kind of the highlights that a lot of people like to focus on.
So the proposed tax levian, I think we talked about this at length,
and received meetings with the council this year,
the town saw its first exception through that.
Trish communicated with the divisional municipal finance received approval
from the state just recently for a 4.93% increase
or 3.0, just under 3.2 million dollars.
As the council is aware, and the community is most likely aware, there's a full percent tax-level limit.
Unless you exceed that for an eligible reason, and this year we would be exceeding that, because it's the first year.
You'll see this later in our debt slides, the first year of incurring debt expense associated with the school construction initiative.
So, as Chris prepares to issue debt and we prepared to meet with S&P and Moody's in the coming week,
bond rating firms that there'll be an interest expense that's probably in the vicinity of about gross
about 3.5 million and net about 1.8 million, which will show up in a schedule. So we needed that room to
to see the 4% cap for that eligible purpose.
In addition to that, our proposal,
again, up for Council consideration and discussion,
is an increase in the residential property rate from 1473 to 1546,
as in the prior year, we had a reduction from 2185 to 1473,
This is increased from $24.93 to $27 this past year or about 8.3% and we've recommended that that stay stable.
But again, that's a discussion, a more detailed discussion for the council in the coming weeks. Personal property tax is stable at 4550 is that has been set.
And our tax will be funded programs are just under 68 million.
In addition to that, our school department transfer that we're recommending is 4% which is the maximum under the state law.
At this particular time without added council action, that's 1.65 million or total of 42 million,
in 1964, 65 for 4% transfer to the school department.
General fund at 18.7 million, our debt service at 4.2 million,
which is an increase of about 20%.
But there are, as you see later on in the slides,
that true cost is about 6.3 million,
but we do have revenues that come in,
which lower that amount as was done in the general fund.
You'll see a $28 million program,
but only tax support of 18.7 million.
In addition to that, the library, which is a transfer,
also is proposed to increase by $10,000 or $1.7 to just
under $600,000.
Next slide, Lee.
So I'm going to run through a few of these slides quickly.
And then I'll have Trish run through a few as well.
As she developed the vast majority of all the slides
in this information.
Overall, all budgeted funds, including proprietary funds at wastewater, are just over $90,000,000, $90,000,000, $5,083,000,000, and $45,000.
It's an increase of about $3.6 million or 4.1% from 2025.
General fund is noted as at $28,000,000,000.
As we went through the department, requests we like to include this information.
Department requests were just between 29.1 and 29.2 million that was reduced by $627,000.
And so a lot of times we talk about kind of what departments feel they need and they want.
So I think as we go through the process, although the next two meetings, I said I'd be happy to have our department head,
talk to you about some of the compromises that we've made, how we've restructured schedules,
things that we've viewed to be important. If we don't feel we can fund them this year,
we've set up different funding patterns over a multi-year period to be able to fund them,
but that we also go through an aggressive exercise of reducing the initial requests that come
in from all departments because we really don't think. As you can see, if not for that school
construction initiative. We'd be under the 4% but we'd be close. And so we're still hovering around that number just in terms of maintaining cost controls with inflation and other things that have been affecting affecting this operationally our debt services at 6.4 million. That was what I just noted is revenues that come in in terms of a credit as well as housing aid that help reduce that overall cost down to tax impacted dollars of about 4.3 million.
Our library is just noted, the original library requested, they're overall budget, actually, I'm sorry, they're overall budget, so we're 800,000, but a library had requested from a town transfer a little over 618,000, the request this year is just under 600,000, that original request was 4.96%, I've spoken to the director at the library, so Adrian, I will be communicating with her and the library will be here represented by their staff and most likely at trustees and I'm coming to you.
the council on what their needs are in the library.
School department overall budgets $15,185,000 or 0.41% increase of just $203,000.
I think the council is well versed in why that request is so limited this year.
And that's really a revenue issue. So that's a loss of over $800,000 in state aid.
It's loss of access to reserve funding at the level that had been used for multiple years.
And it was an overestimating on revenues, which has been closed.
That gap has been closed.
Some in the school departments budget proposal this year.
But there's still a loss of revenue.
So when you just those three, there are other reasons as well.
But just those three along with the 4% increase.
Pretty much neutralize each other.
Through this superintendent as well, worked through a number of very engaged and robust meetings with high attendance from the public, as well as employees to kind of work through and see where, you know, million and a half to million dollars of potential impact, cost impact in terms of expenditures on that program could be reduced. And so there was significant effort put forward by the district to be able to make that happen to balance their budget with a $200,000 increase.
question for you.
Well, Andy, I just wanted to say at this point, you know this, but to those of us, those who don't.
So, our representatives in Toronto closed the gap in the school funding.
We just tried to recover some of that.
Our representatives, just being called well, and Evan Shanley,
they introduced the bill.
The way this will successful will end up in the, as a budget item.
So it doesn't require the Senate, which is why Brigitte isn't on this.
But there was a hearing at the State House on their bill.
What the bill does is it changes the poverty loss stabilization formula.
Whenever you lose more than 2% of your funding for school aid,
the what kicked in was a 50% of that is kind of made up as a leveling smoothing effort.
They put it in legislation to make that 75% and it would apply to all municipalities, not just
these Greenwich. So I think we talked about that at the last meeting and the teacher's union was here
you know trying to work out the whole budget process and we indicated that there was that
coming up and that everybody should attend. And I know the school committee had a representative
testifying. Kevin Wright was up there and Mark Schwager makes a relevant eye on one of the
we testified. I know that Karen pushed and renewed sent a letter. I believe the school committee
Kevin said the school committee sent a letter in and Justin was organizing a bunch of community
members to also send she's in the PTG. So there was really an all-hands effort and the first
thing I'll say about that is that the environment at the state house is one of scarcity.
So with the federal government as you read about it, they expect to have dramatic impacts to what
they're doing and it's not just what they expect to receive on new funding. It's there in the
of projects like we are where you have federal funding coming in in stages and they're funding
pieces of it. And now they're getting those are being terminated but they're halfway in
and they've spent money and they just don't know what do you do? So go into debt and finish these
projects. So there are a lot of losses to what to do and it's not where the tiny estates are
tax or less than taxis, for instance, parents, but it really is sort of a, we love to help,
we love to keep what we're doing. We just don't wear being hammered and there's no way to
even understand what the reasonable settled expectation is for funding. Nonetheless, both just in
Evan, when they put this in, they put it in as their priority legislation, which when a representative
of does that. You're signaling to leadership and the whole body that this is your one. This is it.
And so both of our reps put that in. So they're making their stand this year on this issue for us.
And you know, I'd like to call that out and thank them for that. Hopefully, we'll be successful.
Evan seemed to think that it had a very good chance because they both looked at it as our priority.
and I appreciate the whole council support,
the school committee sending somebody up there.
I was told at Neary also sent a letter.
So from the teachers, that went up there,
I know through our Augusta manager,
I know that the League of Cities and Towns
was up there pushing the same thing.
So we put a full court press on this
and fingers crossed them hopeful.
We won't know until after we do our budget,
but I appreciate the team effort from everybody
to try to make that loss at least mitigate the loss.
So I'm just wanted to raise that, Andy.
Yeah, you know, thanks for that.
And I think what people don't understand the numbers, but going from 50 to 75,
basically recovers 50% of our loss, right?
So it'll be a little over $400,000, which I think would be funding well received by the district,
especially this year.
We also made it clear that we were double the next town, and we're not a big town.
So that's a lot of money 800,000 into to follow.
Out and they did not, just like during COVID, we had the funding challenges because if you're basing funding
on how many school lunches are funded, you know, all of that and nobody's in school, the formula
breaks down, right? And this isn't working that well in this environment, a huge inflationary
environment in a town that's growing in population. But anyway, I'm hopeful and we're going to
to talk about this, Andy, through the rest of our budgeting, and recognize we're not going
to know the answer to after we gavl our budget, but fingers crossed.
Oh, and by the way, Andy sent up a letter, too, on behalf of the town,
to the next page.
We'll kind of move through these fairly quickly, but we can definitely pause and answer questions
as we go.
So impacts on the expenditure side, I think, you know, clearly as is the case every
here. It's employee cost, right? That's where it is. So it's salaries and benefits. We're
seeing pretty consistent increases in retirement cost as well as healthcare and other
benefit costs. We presently have our five union contracts up in negotiation. We've got four
of those actively engaged right now that we're juggling weekend and week out and we're working
towards that, but there's a good chance that we won't have
those resolved as well by the end of the fiscal year.
So, Tris has provided for appropriate placeholders.
And just as a point, this is one of those moments
that we just want to pause for a second.
And so as you look through the budget
and as you try to calculate out what the costs might be,
we haven't negotiated the contract,
so there is no amount yet.
We can tell you what our projected healthcare costs
will be next year because through the interlocal trust we can tell you what some of our
benefit costs are. But when you try to figure out the number it's really important to know
that it's not just salary, right? So if I'm getting a 3% increase actually that cost is much
greater because you add my retirement contribution and you add flake it to that if I work in public
safety and there's probably some level of minimum manning which may prompt over time costs.
is a lot of other triggers that come into our formal calculation.
So when you see 3% in terms of a salary,
the true cost is much higher than that.
So you're going to, as you try to count out and back your way into what the place holders are,
they're going to be significantly higher.
So we hope to have some consistency in terms of how we negotiate those contracts in the coming
weeks and months, and I think they're all, they're all very different groups,
and they're all moving forward at a different pace.
So, but those are continuing to move forward.
Staffing wise, we have two staff positions
that one was at a this year,
one will be added most likely this next year.
But they're in the proprietary fund,
they're in the wastewater division,
and it was a requirement in an agreement
that we entered into with DEM associated
with additional support that we needed
for our collection system.
So, that was something that we agreed to
and we're moving forward on that,
but there will be no additional staff recommendations
in terms of staffing expansion in FY26 from the, from the, from the municipal side.
Next page, we.
School contractual obligations.
One thing we did want to explain, I was talking to Trisha about this a little earlier,
is that the numbers that you see before you, it's as salaries and benefits as proposed decrease
in a proposed increase of the 177 and the 849, and that is calculated a little differently.
So, these numbers, as calculated, were kicked off of the last approved budget that the
council authorized for 25, but then subsequent to that, there was an additional appropriation
of over $200,000.
So, the school departments budget, which neither is right, neither is wrong, they're both
right, they're just kicked differently.
So, the school budget is kicked based on the final budget, the school committee office
approved, which included the additional appropriation from the state of a couple hundred thousand.
So they're numbers a little bit lower. It's a little less than 177 and it's less than
the 849, but just so you know, where those numbers are coming from, you can't take the school
budget and Calcult those numbers. The 77.7% of expenses is accurate regarding overall salary
and benefits, but those two numbers are just a little bit different based on how we calculate
them versus how the school calculated it and just to go back to. So that that base year the
first year was that was that was the that was the year we were in for a cup of coffee right and
there was a right we just got in and they were and they were doing it. Well I mean in the last two years
they were just a couple of people apart in the nation. Twenty five yeah was twenty four and twenty five
that after you had gavled the final budget the state reconciled its education aid and the district
Thank you for watching.
In the last two years, there was a couple of months before we reached 25. It was 24 and 25 that after you had gavled the final budget, the state reconciled its education aid and the district received 200 plus thousand in each of the last few years.
So that came after you had already.
No, I understand. Thank you.
Yeah.
You know, prom. Yeah. The other one's supplemental.
We made good supplements like probation.
I think you meant are 19.
Yeah, yeah.
I think you meant ours.
Yeah. No problem.
Yeah.
And you can see the other information that runs through total out that an average total budget increase
over the past five years was averaging for the school district about 1.5 million.
And the average five year tax transfer was just under a million dollars.
So the top number includes state aid and tax transfer, the bottom number includes just the tax transfer.
So, again, we provide this information just for education.
it's not to point fingers, it's not to say we're right you're wrong, it's just to provide
information that these are the numbers. So over the past five years the district we talk
about funding, we talk about under funding, we talk about all those things, we just need to provide
context and I'm not really providing context to say 1.5 is enough. I'm just saying over the past
years maintenance of effort would have been zero. So this is a million and a half,
this is a
past five years. So that's a million dollars over the minimum legally. And I'm not saying
that that's appropriate for our district or that would have been satisfactory to our parents
and students. But when you look at the numbers, it's important to recognize what the contributions
have. And I think that's been noted by a number of people both at town and school in recent
meetings in terms of the work of the council and the administration regarding support for education.
It may never be enough, but it's important to know that we're functioning at a level
Well above what the minimum requirements are by the Department of Education and the percentage of the town budget
That's going for the school
and roughly I wrote down 85 percent now 85 percent is how much of their budget comes from the local appropriation according to you
How much?
So it's 42 or 43 of
six
That's the percentage
of the levee.
Yeah.
These five year numbers in terms of school appropriations,
they include COVID.
So that was all, you know, those were odd times, you know,
some of the years you budget things, and then you're not in school,
and that actually saved money, or cost money, or something, you know,
so it was, anyway, yeah, those weren't steady state.
Yeah.
As I took point out, according to Yacoa,
our our appropriation to them has grown over the past five years.
We're now at 85% of their budget comes from municipal sources where they started out some
more around 80% so we haven't creased our contribution to the schools and they haven't
been the tax payers are paying higher percentage of the educational cost and they were.
Yeah and the their revenue one for other items has not increased.
Yeah, so those points are really important right now and not here locally for me.
They're more important. I say this to people at the state level and that was some of
the information that I got forward into the council. I recently talked about cost per pupil.
And we hear locally I hear at the state level. You screenage campaign more, right?
Your cost per pupil is really low and basically they take it out of context and they don't
really know what they're talking about until you look at the numbers. So when you look at our
local share, you compare every district in the state,
and you look at what each community is contributing
in thousands of dollars per student,
each graduate was ranked 14th out of 36 districts.
So I think that's not at the top,
but I think it's a respectable number,
especially when six of those districts
are some of the smallest districts in the state,
thus forcing the really the loss of economies of scale.
They just don't have it because they don't have the numbers.
So they're cost are dramatically higher.
If you remove those, and I'm talking like the James Towns
Little Comptons, Block Islands, and those are the ones
that are dramatically higher foster, communities like that,
even if they're involved in a regional basis,
they do break them out individually, foster,
foster, and a few other towns.
Look at our incomparable Andy, it all.
So when you pull those out and you look at Comps, we're in the top 10.
So again, may not be enough.
The council community might want to spend more.
But when you talk about at the local level,
And I point the finger at the council and I say, you're underfunding.
Like 32 or 33. So when you integrate what the community received in terms of state aid, we fall to the bottom. And that's what everyone refers to. And they say, boy, he's granted, you should be paying a lot more.
Doesn't mean it can't be changed. But those are the kind of facts that I'm hoping that we can engage. And we can agree to disagree on what they mean and how they're interpreted.
But I think it's important when he's going to charge over 13,800 per student, local share that that is competing with a lot of districts and I'll be honest with you the districts that are spending 22, 23, 24,000, many of them have a $2,000 local share, $3,000 local share and $4,000, that's what's being contributed by their local community to support their students.
So, again, different towns, different situation,
but I think it's really the state aid piece.
And when we talk about equity, at least in my conversations,
and I don't garner a lot of support when I talk this way with state officials,
but it's important that, again, and I've noted this for the council as well,
everybody has full respect to support those districts that need the added help.
You just cannot, everyone wants to be a high performer.
You just can't pull back communities that are high-performing.
We all want to have a leg up and we all want to support.
And I think the numbers play out that he screened it just contributing at a local level
a decent amount.
Doesn't mean it can't be improved going forward, but it's a good amount.
So that's some of the educating that I'm trying to do at the state level, not always well
received.
I can tell you right now, but I think you've got to continue to stand for your community
and the needs that you have, whether you're in each screened at your central falls.
you have to continue to fight for your community. So that's what we do.
In any of that, that point about the local share funding per student, I amplified that point
you made in your letter and said that at the committee and kind of tried to put it in context with
so don't look at cost per student. Cost per taxpayer per student is really the issue. What's the
local share and we're spending it. We're taxing and we're spending it on the students at some
highest levels in the state, especially when you take out block island in a little, those that aren't
statistically comparable. You know, I also pointed out that when they're happy to let
be those taxes pass them down locally, that they leave us in a position where you are income,
our median income is used to reduce our funding. And the only way we can make that up is to
property taxes, which is largely a regressive tax.
It's not like we can pass on and do it as an income-based way locally, where the wealthier
people with the higher income pay have bigger share than somebody who's living on social
security on a country road in East Greenwich.
We don't have the ability to do that, so it's regressive.
Their house gets hit just like the people who are still working and could afford it.
And it's just, it's not consistent with the way we in Rhode Island and the nation have decided
that we fund sort of the public good.
It's usually through a graduated income tax.
That's how we do it.
It's just, it fails at the local level.
And when I was talking about that, I saw some heads not any at least understood the regressive
nature of what they're doing when they kick it to us.
At the state level, fine, raise taxes, income tax more, and you fund it.
And then it's not fair.
But doing it this way, it's not.
Also, Andy, you said it in your, in this book here, but I think a lot of people in the
public, and we've had people come here, say, we need to quote fully fun in the schools.
And I don't really know what that means exactly, but when I, I've spoken numerous times
to Mr. Andrade, Mr. De Silva, talk to them about lots of different things, and they laughed
when I said that, you know, we funding, they feel we're doing a very good job. So can you just
maybe address that fully funding comment that we hear quite frequently?
Yeah, I'm not, I think my best guess is kind of what I refer to a little bit earlier, and it
be similar to me saying, you know, the council should fully fund municipal operations. So that
basically means that as my professional team stands before you and makes requests that to fully
fund them would mean you need to approve of whatever they're requesting because as professionals
they know what they need and you should just support them and anything less than that you're
not fully funding them. And I would think that that applies to the district as well, right?
So as you go forward, I think the challenge we have is that you're the public body that has to balance
all those interests.
Right? And the balance of our demographic in the community and put a plan together so that we can advance all those areas in a systematic way.
Instead of the pendulum swinging where you have certain leadership, which have dramatic cuts, and then it swings back and you have dramatic expansion and services.
That is really not, that's not a fair way for local patch bank residents, right? You want, they want consistency. I think most are comfortable spending a little more each year.
they know costs only go in one direction, they only rise, generally taxes do the same, not always,
but generally they do the same. So in that case, I think my best guest Karen is that that's
what it's referring to. So for me, and I think the staff knows that, is that there is a balance,
and they have to trust me when I, and our finance team and others, we make strategic decisions,
and we know we know we're reacting to the school construction initiative.
So not, it's a municipal function, a municipal initiative,
but really emanating from one of the largest department that we have.
And that that grease debt over the next 25 years is going to not only affect municipal program,
municipal debt, but it's going to affect some things that we haven't even thought about yet
20 years from now that the town may be facing.
So, we have to find some balance in doing that and we need to be prepared both ways so that when the town is taking on a major initiative, whether that's a through pay-go capital or the bonding that there are other needs that can easily be defended in any of our larger departments that might have to be foregone for a period of time, it may take us three years to budget to get the ladder truck, you may not be able to get it in year one, right?
So we need to be able to plan that out and that's most of the work that Tristas and Bird
Department in terms of laying out the long-term schedule, manipulating and managing potential
tax rates along with property values to be able to find a formula or a plan that we think
will be palatable for the makeup or residents that we have.
So it's much more complicated, plus the decision making is not fun, right?
So that's hard decisions because everybody's an advocate, they're all bringing great things
forward. Every department is no matter what. And so the chat and you know this because you've served for so long, all of you, is that that decision probably the toughest one you make.
Where does the cut come? You got to cut the library because the police department needs a new vehicle. Where are you going to make those cuts? And I think the hope is is that we, the professional team are going to debate those issues and come up with a plan that you're comfortable with by the time you have to vote.
But that's not a vote that anybody else in town has to make trading off services.
Or trading off a service because you know that the tax impact is just too great for too many people in the town and needs to be spread out over a period of time.
Those are the conversations not a lot of people want to have, especially advocates, right?
Because it's important about the one issue that they're working on.
But it is a challenge really in every municipality to make those hard decisions.
and we try to do the best that we can as a professional team to make your job a little easier
by compromising an advance and bringing you a program that we think will fit but still advance
all those important services.
I don't know if you want to stay in this area but um
the other question that we get a lot that I've gotten a lot is we have a fun balance take the fun
take money out of the fund balance and you know spread it around and as I read what you
put in your report you can correct me if I'm wrong. Good government financial offices
association says you need about two months of operating budget right to to be a revenues right
revenues. That's one thing that we need. We have that right now, a little bit short, right?
We're short because we're advancing the school bonds. We've already printed $4.8 million for
that project, which means it's impacting my operating budget because that's money I don't have to
invest, right? So we're a little short there. And I know a lot of people come and
you know, that the bond rating, we want a high bond rating, I mean, that's, that's to the
town benefit, right? You want to, yeah, right? And, and it costs money not to have it, right?
And if you have, use your surplus for operating classes, now you have a structural deficit,
Somehow, which means we're going to have to raise tax even more. The structural deficit is probably
the worst thing at town or any budget could ever have. Would you agree with that? That just
leads to disaster later on?
I mean, I think it's just, it's, there is a cost to it, right? I
know it's, it's not just the savings account. You take it a little bit of money. You can put it back
quickly. We're talking big dollars, right? So this is, this is significant dollars at a time when
communities borrowing the most, it's ever in its history, right?
150 million plus dollars, they're going to be bonding.
So if the rating is impacted, I can't tell you that the rating would be affected in the
coming months, but if it was affected, there is a cost to that going forward.
I just want to say, like I've heard people say we choose a bond.
So let's use a million dollars of bond, right?
Well, that's permanently in the budget, if it's if it's structural, which means that
to 10 years, we have no money left at all. So to use our bond, unless it's a one time project,
is absolutely crazy. And that's just my opinion. And this is one case that I would look back,
because I think we could find around the country, thousands of examples of communities that have
done something like that based on leadership's decision to use available funding. And you can easily
see the impact that it's had on them.
And I think even here, right?
And I think the other piece to that Aaron is the whole issue of a fun balance, which is
the whole town, right?
It's really for a margin.
It's for a nutritious note.
It's a allowing project to go forward, like the school project.
We can front dollars now in June when going into July when the debt is issued.
We'll pay ourselves back.
So at some point, then we'll have the five million back.
So, but you're fronting dollars so you can save money, our consultant team can advance the
project.
We don't lose reimbursement from Rye.
I mean, it's a complicated process, the decision making that goes into it.
But we do that with a lot of projects, a lot of smaller projects, happenly a million dollar
projects where we sometimes have to front dollars, like you decided to do on the communications
for public safety.
We thought that was deserving of advancing the project because of the potential ramifications
if we don't of advancing that, so our public safety officials have the best communications that
function to keep our residents safe. We're going to front that doll as we're going to pay ourselves back.
So again, not setting up a short capital to one-time manufacturing expenditure. So it's important.
It's not that we don't want to solve a problem, but I think it's important to look at
other funds, how they've been used, and at times when you advance funds, and then you run out of time,
in the funding is gone, you then have to replace the funding,
well, you have to have a major service reduction.
An example would be the state of Rhode Island
with our opera funds, okay?
So it's not as if all of the officials in Rhode Island
didn't know that the federal money was not gonna keep
coming year after year for year.
You knew there would deadline set, commit it by the end of 24,
use it, or lose it by the end of 26.
That funding's gone, but if you wanna see budget growth,
Look at the state budget over the past five years. I mean, the budget growth has been incredible and for a lot of good reasons right a lot of good public support service
societal impacts that the money's being used for but everybody knew that the money was going to be gone and it couldn't be easily replaced
So now the challenge which you heard at the state house last week was there is no money and there's going to be significant
programmatic, not only capital, but programmatic cuts at the state level that it can affect a lot of fantastic organizations that do great work, but that's a structural deficit, might the money is just not there.
And, as I say, also not only are there going to be cuts, I think there's going to be significant tax raises on people's state income tax from what I'm hearing.
We're going down a long tunnel right now. I don't know how long until we get out.
First, do you say, what do we have to now in advancing funds on the school project?
I'll spend $5 million in that, until March.
So I'll have another probably $750,000 for April.
Right. So those who want us to spend our fund balance, we're doing that in a very, very big way,
we're advancing that and we're doing it in a responsible way. This money is coming back. It's just
laid. And the reason is the delay in advancing the school project
caused us to lose the pay-go. Otherwise, we'd have 11 or 12 million dollars,
right, of smoothing money that would not impact us in that way.
So, that's what's causing. This is a double whammy for us, because we weren't slated to issue these bonds until next year. That was the plan initially. So.
Right. And this in the end is to actually save. So we're spending the money to save money, right?
Yeah, it's fine. And at this point, unless something changes in the process, the schools are most of that school work. It's expected to be finished going into the fall of 27.
little over two years from now. So if we stay on a, on course with our approvals,
we'll committee council ultimately approve the plans. We agree on a place where we're going to advance
that that work is going to happen very, very quickly, which should save a significant money in the end.
And hopefully some of those savings can be rolled back into address some of the other needs within.
And for those who don't spend their time at our school construction committee,
The part of working with Conceived League was that we can save money if we sprint.
You know, we were at the initial assessment was $500,000 a month.
And what that required was that we support their all hands-on deck multi-lateral effort.
And that's what we decided to do.
And so we are advancing those funds significantly, but there's just no escaping that it's a good project. I think we're going to land it
I do think that the loss of pay-go simply means that there's going to be a three and a half four year impact on the tax rate that wasn't anticipated at a time when the state funding cuts occur at a time
more in contract negotiations for all of our labor groups, right? At a time when inflation is up
and when federal funding on all fronts is down. So it's a perfect conjunction of the spheres
and that's why we're going above our 4% cap, all for good reasons, but we're going to do it.
I'd like to reiterate that and also point out that I've also heard the same thing that
We're using, this is what this bond was for, intentionally, to accept the school buildings
and, you know, it's unfortunate that there was a delay with that cost us the pay
go money.
And it's unfortunate that it's going to cost it down because there are other projects that
we should be doing as well.
So, thank you for that, excuse me.
As long as we're talking about the schools right now, I think it's also important to talk
to say that I think, frankly, we need a better partner in funding, in budgeting,
they overestimated
the revenues by 600,000. The electricity line item was wrong. This year it was wrong. Last year
and we told them not to count it. We might not even get the revenue until 26. The Medicaid money
again, wrongly counted, and when I specifically asked that question,
aren't you underestimating? She said, no, it's going to be $300,000, and it's not $300,000.
So then we had the audit last week. The auditor said they had $100,000 deficit on
school lunch program. They have to make that up. Don't know why. There was also an over $100,000 deficit
in purchase services. That may be legitimate. We just don't know what that is. So, we, we here
as a council, we get at least me. I get sort of angry when people say, you know, we're not fully
funding, we should be taking out money, we're funding 4% this year, we funded 4% last year.
And we've told them when they had, you know, millions of dollars in the budget to use some of it.
And understand that their fund balance isn't the same as our fund balance. Those are different entities.
And so I want to support the schools, I think we do support the schools, but we frankly need a better partner.
I'm more reliable partner because what they're doing is unsustainable.
They rely on fund balances unsustainable.
So that sort of has to change.
The engine or the next page, almost through some of these quickly.
This is a great page to refer to, combined statement on sources and uses,
as all the revenues, all the expenditures for all the various elements in the oil.
We just have a card and not a card. And I'm a top part. You can see the history in terms of single
studying with assessment dates, single households, net on taxes, overall real estate rates
for residential tangible and kind of runs through there. Then at the bottom is normally a
similar slide that we will engage the council on when you're actually setting the tax rates and we'll
your residential commercial, what a vehicle and personal property, and so you'll you'll
leave increase and this really covers from FY19 through FY25. So it shows last year and
it's just for rounding reasons it says 3.99 or 4% the prior year we're at 3.96 but that
was also a 4% so as things round and adjustments occur these numbers change slightly.
That's from final value.
So by the time you adopt the budget, we're still finalizing our tax roll.
So that's why you adopt the budget, that's it.
But we're still doing work in finance on the tax roll.
So that's why it's not an actual 4%.
We saw a little bit of increase in the value, which decreases that tax rate.
Expagely.
So this is a tax cap calculation.
And so here, this is just focusing on the residential rate, which in the first column, for actual FY-25.
It's $14.73. The maximum that allowed without an exception is 1525.
We're proposing an increase to 1546, or 21 cent adjustment in terms of the exception that was requested by division of municipal finance.
But the bottom of that page, it also shows the 4% tax cap impact.
It shows your average home cost at about 726,000.
It shows the two different rates and it shows you the differential of 525 dollars in 76 cents.
So, should everything remain equal, the rates stay the same, the value stay the same.
You're looking at about a $43.81 per month increase on the residential side.
And that's assuming that the commercial side doesn't increase.
That's a discussion that I'm sure the council will want to have in the coming weeks.
Expagely.
This is just a little more detail.
As Trish had noted earlier, a town manager proposed general fund budget.
A little more of a breakdown and this includes your actuals for 24 adopted and projected for 25.
Your department request for 26 and then your proposed manager budget for 26.
I'll install the individual department.
These are all rolled up, and then later on,
when the department's present, they'll be able to provide
each individual line item.
Next page is just a breakdown on expenditures
by use type, same headers of the FY24 actual,
adopted projected 25 and 26 proposed.
This breaks it down by expenditure type
by use type of salaries benefit services.
Capital, materials, insurance, other miscellaneous, and transfers as previously plus as a pie chart to break it out.
Next page talks about all budgeted fund expenditures.
Same header, same years provided.
This breaks down the general fund, which is general government, general services, public safety public works.
Community resources, fire department.
Now, on-departmentals in your capital outlay, you'll see in the final column you've got
your $28,524,702 as proposed for the general fund, you've got a debt service fund, and
again, these are just the expenditures side, not the revenues of $6.4 million.
You've got the wastewater fund at $4.8 million, a school department at $50 million, 50.1,
almost 50.2 million, the library funded just under 600,000 totaling out to that all fund
expenditure amount of 90,583,000. The next page includes a breakdown, all budgeted funds
summaries. So again, again, same header of the actual adopted rejected and proposed.
You'd go to breakdown by revenue, in this case, which has general fund school fund debt service
and wastewater fund, and these are just on the revenue side.
On the top half of the page, on the bottom half,
you have expenditures by fund, same for categories,
so it gives you total expenditures by fund,
Next page, you've got general fund revenues in a different diagram.
Next page is state revenues. It's passed through when education aid.
So at the top is the number is reflected in the reduction in aid of just under 66 million 100,000 down from the local, the loss of over 800.
You've got municipal pass through aid categories of public service cooperation tax, hotel tax, meals and beverage, which continues to increase at a rating.
the projection was even a little higher than that.
Appropriated state aid, you're seeing an increase of over 105,000
funding win-win-tech based on property value increases.
We've got a pilot at Ken Hospital, just on the 13,700 motor vehicle,
phase out at 2.4 million statewide tangible tax exemption.
This is the new funding Trishard referred to at 546,000,
so you've got a total of just over $5 million.
But looking at an increase of about six hundred and eighty three thousand, mostly due to that tangible tax exemption.
Can I ask a question, can we do our own meal and beverage tax?
Like, you know, instead of doing the state amount, there's an abling legislation for that.
Yeah. So pretty much, the state has the ability to tax and they give us a very limited ability for us to tax.
Anything else would require an act of the general assembly?
could be out from us you. They are not giving up tax on liquor to us.
I was hoping they let us do income tax. You may recall that the years ago there was a
suggestion from a school committee member that we have our property taxes also be somehow
be reflective of our income, and we had to have a discussion about how that's an income tax,
and the state would never ever.
I see in that, I mean, the amount of beverages that this town sells and the amount of,
you see that our public safety ends up going to directly affected by those,
but those would make a really good offset quite honestly.
The usual effort locally is a municipality start charging bees, wink, wink for certain things, which are taxes, you know, and then that's the litigation. So these people have done this. This has been done before people.
I mean,
why not?
I think we're not getting enough for that.
Try it, Renew.
Well, it doesn't work for you to try it.
That's one of the reasons why we're very supportive of the chamber, because we've been doing well.
Now, again, there's a lot of expenses, operationally, that the town incurs,
EPW, in terms of all the work they do on Main Street, and there's a plowings.
we've been clean, it's a lot else that,
and this isn't the only commercial district,
as we know, there's other districts in town as well.
So there's a lot of other support that go into it,
but we try to support the organizing entity
of about a third of those businesses,
which isn't chambered, commerce.
But I think it's still showing that
it's a robust commercial district,
and it's still doing well, which is, which is.
I just want a piece of that.
It's not, you're getting one percent of that.
as we all do.
Can she put a toll booth on each and a
mainstream, so this is a great
job.
But the airport, those planes fly over us.
Well, we don't fall to for trying.
The next next page is somewhere you
by category and source.
So here you have the general property taxes as
brought across from 2425 and 26.
You've got state and federal aid.
It's a nice breakdown there where you see
the introduction in the projected 25 of the tangible property tax that Trish referred to, the
546,000.
You see the other numbers and you can see the trending that's occurred over time and you
can see where it's consistent and we can rely on and where it's not.
The addition to that, you've got licenses and permits, revenue from investments, as well
as department revenue finds and charges broken down at the individual departments to
just capture that for you over a period of time.
The fairly consistent in and around that 1.7 million dollar total, it's been below, it's been above, but it's a fairly consistent number in terms of the amount of business.
Like, like, you know, the license, I know we raised our licenses on the beverage and now that stuff. But what if we made it higher?
Oh, good. I actually all I can see the thousand the golden dog license. That's what radio is going on.
No, not the dog licenses. Those can't be raised.
So those an impact and impact fees are the usual.
Next page covers a summary of accounts by category and source, following pace to that is just a little discussion on general fund revenues, talks about general property tax, the 4.93% levy request talks about the 4% tax transfer to the school, talks about a 20.51% increase in the tax transfer to the debt service fund, a minor overall to minor increase of 97,000,
$1,750 with the associated anticipation of issuing the $4 million road bonds,
number of other facts they are associated with just general property taxes,
prior year interest on taxes has been level funded, as well as the payment and lower tax,
as increased by the 105,000 is just noted for New England.
Some comments as well regarding state and federal aid, license and permits, is a lot more detailed
information and the larger budget document on all these subjects, and then the unassigned
fund balance use for the town this year is recommended at 500,000. Typically, our process
is ensuring as Trish noted earlier, there's around 600,000 anticipated at the end of the year.
That's after we repair ourselves for the 500. So we're not depleting the fund balance. We're
fronting those dollars with the expectation to keep our tax rate lower with the expectation
that if we function well in terms of revenue and expense management, we'll cover the 500, so there will be
no erosion of the fund balance.
That number had been as high as 600,000 in recent years, so we're
starting to slowly bring that number down and would like to get it a little bit lower than that
500 as well. Next page talks about on a signed fund balance, places at about 10.2 million,
or 13.78 percent. Again, as noted, you know, although the policy and generally for GFOA, it's
10 to 17 percent. This in no way means that we're comfortable in terms of where we should be and actually
those two months of expenditures is about 13.3 billion. We're only at 10.2 million. So we're still
about 3 million dollars off of, I think, where we would like to be at 17 percent. But again,
you don't need to rush to get there. We just need to plan it out accordingly, especially as we
with other local priorities that are more important than that goal would be at this particular time.
Next page is property taxes. Basically breaks down the current taxes generated prior to your
taxes, interest on taxes and payment and Louis taxes and totaling out cover for the overall tax
Libby impact, which is in and around that 6768 million dollar total. In the question on that, the
came in and Lou, it really affects us most with doing
on tech, right?
And he is the league getting any word about,
is this the area we're going to underfund on the general assembly?
I think this, they're setting up the percentage, right?
So I think the max is 27%.
It's 27%.
It's 27% as the maximum.
It's 27%.
Oh, too.
So usually it's not at 27.
It's not this year.
It was last year.
It's 24, 25.
It depends on how they set that.
And so are you plugging in the 27 for that projected revenue for the number that we budget from the governor is from last year, so this number is from last year, so next year once because our values on in yet so next year once we set the tax roll, the number that's appropriated at that time will become 2027.
Patricia over the past several years has it been at the less than 27% yeah, yeah, it's when did they drop it back from
27 lobbying to increase the number, but again, it only affects a handful of communities where
usually we're not in that pool. This one case we happen to be in the pool of the payment
and lower taxes and having an institution that qualifies, so there's only a handful around the
state, so it's very difficult to get the percentage increased. 24 was 27 percent, 25 was 26.65
percent in 26 is 25.89. That's from the governor's budget. Governors proposed budget. Yes.
It's so legislatively. That is an area. If there was funding and I know that the speaker didn't
the spous that there was a lot of funding available.
Ex-value was $129 million at 25.89% times our $27 tax rate for commercial property.
So we're up against a URI, a Rick, and stuff like that, brown. Other communities like that is that.
But they provide again more services for their students.
They also pilot agreements in a lot of those.
I don't have pilot with not at you are I don't have
Question yeah, I mean
I was a little different it's not a private school. Yeah, I'm just thinking about money I
Think in that respect so the state law does say 27 is the maximum so that's when we start lobbying to try to push the pilot up to 20
What about charging New England tech, for instance, I mean, I see that there's safety, you know, public safety, the fire department goes there, that was something they had promised to do when they had built the school, they have never.
I mean, I know they have a safety dude who rocks drives around, but I see that guy in the corner a lot of the time he's not.
So the pilot agreement, if I'm going to remember this correctly, that we haven't placed with
New England Tech as a total value of only 450,000. So if not for the pilot program with the
state of Rhode Island paying more than double that, we would be bound to the institution to only
receive the 450. I mean, then I'm paying any of it at this point. So it's a conversation that should
continue to happen. I think right now, it's probably a decent number. It would be great if we could
increase that. But I think our relationship with New England tech needs to be bolstered.
I've mentioned that a couple of times today are government relations people and I think
with the district construction product and this is a way to enter that conversation and I've
noted this for them already is we're going to lose field access in town for a number of years
and then we have to rebuild the fields and so we're very willing to work with New England tech
have access for some of our youth leagues and our school teams at their facility and we would
be happy to help them maintain that during that period of time for the opportunity for access.
So that's something that will aware and I think I'm hoping is a good neighbor in town would
be willing to cooperate with the town and that respect. There's a lot of other things about access
to the building and I think they provide that access for certain groups and they can like to
change chamber meetings or held into England tech and as well as the other Kennedy forums and events
like that. So there is a, there's a good relationship. And I think at some point, if the
council is interested, I would love to be able to schedule a town gown meeting with them,
just to maybe get up to speed, get everybody back in the same way.
I think that New England tech should be used more, should be more integrated into the town.
I've always felt that. I mean, they have, and I feel like their students should use more of
the town as well. I don't think that they, I think it could be bolstered on both sides, quite honestly.
Yeah, we did that. We met with them before, and it was an interesting time because it was right around the time that they were starting to feel the impacts of Gina Romando's free CCRI.
So that impacted them a lot. And so, you know, we negotiated, but the, it's when we go into those meetings it's important to understand that it's a mutual hostage situation in that.
if we can push, but they have state protection, right, in terms of, and we got to be careful
what we want, and one of the things is, they still hold a lot of property in these
runners that's not in their tax-exempt foundation, their tax-exempt entity, and so what happens
is, and what happened in Providence when Buddy C. Anzi decided to go after everybody,
Brown, for instance, held a lot of property outside of the tax exempt entity, so they just rolled it all in and took them off the rolls.
And so you got to be careful of that.
Our hostage is that the President has grand plans, right, to make this a significant national universe four year of college, right?
And so all of that is evident, not just in their narrative, but they also came before the planning board years ago when they started this and then over the years with their 500-year plan.
When they came and got that approval, they have the master plan approval and that's best to true.
What we didn't give them when the planning board was sewer access.
So you can build all the buildings you want, knock the other ones down and put it in a five-acre septic system, whenever you're ready to do that.
So we have a hostage in that of interest too, but, you know, our relationship is very good in all of that's going to be some given take over time.
but we don't, we have risk that they roll all the property into a tax-exempt entity and they
have the risk that at some point when they want to go and build more that they need our sewer
connection and we don't have a lot. Could they get to West Warwick and Coventry maybe? Yeah,
but so that's kind of the, but in even, it's a, it's a nuanced conversation one that we should
I revisit.
I'm just just brainstorming for money.
That's all I'm doing.
You can go to the next slide.
Next is just wastewater.
We've spreadsheet on wastewater and road assessment fees.
Next page covers state and federal aid.
Runs through.
Starting with school housing aid.
Public services tax.
The pilot.
Really all of those categories that we just noted.
for a total of 12.4 million in terms of state and federal aid.
Next page covers license fees and rents,
totaling out to just under a million dollars,
as proposed this year,
for rental of town properties, business licenses,
non-business licenses, reals.
Rentals,
next page covers departmental revenue fines and charges
of about 1.7 million, covering everything
from senior and near-men service fees,
town clerk's miscellaneous, finance department,
and police department municipal court, public works,
rescue billing at just close to a million dollars,
moring fees, planning department,
plating and subdivision than the wastewater permits
and connection fees.
Of a million.
Next page covers in brief miscellaneous revenue
of about 422,000, including general miscellaneous,
sewer use and sewer assessment, miscellaneous tuition
for other districts as well as school fundraising and other miscellaneous those max out at 422,000 projected
this year at about 373,000.
Next is a look at, again, the unassigned fund balance looking back
over a period of time
for the general designated fund balance for the town in terms of what we're using
each year and again that was in 24 the actual was 600,000 this year it's 500 it's proposed next year
for another 500 net assets forwarded to operations
at the wastewater plant at 50,000,
and the re-appropriated fund balance for the school.
We're in FY2040.
The actual expenditure was just over 1.4 million,
adopted in the present fiscal year as 842,000,
and in FY26 proposed it's 300,000.
Next page quickly highlights some of the things
we've talked about in the past,
and that is not recommended for any action this year,
but it's a continuation of tracking services that I think are felt that whether they rest
our rows, community services, in terms of parks, public work services, and plowing sweeping
sanding, tree work, and things like that, substance abuse prevention, and mental health
support, as well as communications and EMA work, which is an ongoing discussion, that that
number is about a half a million dollars of still expenses, and I think when I make these
comments, I don't want anybody to think that I'm not encouraging our joint effort because
I think if the town has the systems, the department, and the people in place, we can provide
that in the relationship already. We can provide that service more efficiently than others. It's
just about where the dollars show, where they expend it to show, and then communities that
in my opinion handle this the right way. They show the expense on the school side, and if the
provides the service or another vendor provides it, ultimately those funds are transferred to
that entity. So in the example of the parks department, if they're handling all grounds,
we come up with an MOA that talks about the percentage of grounds, we come up with an annual cost
to providing the service. That money is funded and is reflected in the school budget, transferred to
Our own, if the district still wants us or rows, it's going to be our own personnel in the police department that provide that service.
There are about $120, I'll just round $125,000 each. You've got two of them. It's quarter of an million dollars.
You know, we've talked about having an MOA where we just, because the offices are not there 24, 7, 3, 65, you split the cost. You pick up one, we'll pick up the other, but they're both going to be with you for the entire school year.
things like that. And we just continue to track them, but because of the other financial pressures this year,
I am not recommending that any additional costs be shifted. The last one we shifted was last year,
and that was about $80,000 for a trash removal and dumpster services, just dedicated to the districts that
in their budget. Next page, just as we're finishing up right now is really just a full time
employee listing the two employees on this first page at the very bottom are really not impacted
by the tax base.
This is our wastewater division as noted earlier in the agreement that we have with a DM
our permitting requirements for our wastewater plan and managing the collection system require
us to add to additional people.
When we've added the next one will be added shortly, all other positions will stay static.
We still have two positions that we are funding, but we have to get to fill them.
would be the town's purchasing agent and one would be a resiliency planner. So we're looking
up, we think they're both critically important. We just have yet to act, but those positions
are funded.
Last couple of slides just really wraps up with our capital programming as noted early
it's a $1.1 million program. As recommended for the next year we do anticipate that there will be a
so we have a better idea on year-end projections.
The next slide talks about a capital improvements in program
with related debt service,
which breaks out those numbers.
So in the second column in, you've been FY26.
You can follow that along.
You've got existing debt that's on the books already.
You've got proposed new debt.
You've got new municipal debt of 97,750.
You've got new school debt of the 2.4 million
into 150 million, which is just over 1.8 million.
but that's the increased cost as discussed previously in terms of the need for the tax
levee exception and kind of work your way down.
You can see school housing aid in the federal credit at just over 1.8 million.
So total impact is 4.67 in terms of the projected tax impact on capital program in terms
of debt service for the next year.
Last couple of pages just really continue to talk a little bit about our capital improvement program, the differences in general obligation bond versus our wastewater bonds, wastewater is really secured mostly through a Rhode Island infrastructure bank.
And then the last two pages really just are an example of the tax disclosure and tax rate calculations that we typically talk about before the council sets the sets the rate and you'll see here that
Basically, when you break that down, you've got the in the yellow column, you've got a levy increase
proposed at 4.93%. You've got a assessed value increase of about 0.77. And as you work your way down,
you can see the average home as the budget is presented before you. Home value at about 726,000,
a 1552 proposed rate cost average homeowner about 11,274 dollars in an increase of 75
if we were to take for the year,
depending on a lot of variables that have yet to be.
Really kind of captures the actual high-level summary,
if you can believe it.
There's a lot more detailed information
that all of the departments that are here tonight
are prepared to go through
in our next couple of meetings.
We're going to really focus
on preparing your questions accordingly,
regarding individual departments.
I'll try to release for you a listing
once I secure our information as to who I know
is absolutely going to be here on the 12th and the 19th.
We'll have that schedule put up, we'll provide for you a detail, so you'll know what's
going to be covered.
Then clearly at the end of those discussions, we can of course pick up whatever the questions
you may have.
We have other questions you want to get to us in advance for us to engage on those questions.
Please just let us know and we were sending out the same information to the local public
in the community so that we can make sure that we tackle all the important questions that
people have.
But I'm going to stop there.
I mean, myself or other department heads
that are here happening to answer any of the questions
that council may have for tonight.
If not, we'll gear up for the official public hearing,
not really any different than our other work sessions,
but a requirement of our charter,
that we have a formal public hearing.
11, and I saw, are we, we're not expecting anything for us, like I know for a school, they get some
Medicaid money at that. We had them, there was a Medicaid, the school does. The school receives Medicaid money,
but I believe it's obviously it's based on their special ed program and who authorizes reimbursement.
And then Irish here, if she would like to speak to that, but I'm not aware of any increase in that.
one of the lines was a Medicaid revenue line so I was just curious because that's a totality
of the budget, not just the general fund, that's why it's included in the total adopted budgets
proposed budgets. So we include the schools in there. And then I was curious to me if there's
I know on the revenue side, I know that I believe a couple of members of the fire department
have brought up to me before that, we could charge also the military base, I believe, because
we are responsible for camp boundaries, safety, or fire prevention, or whatever happens
like camp-overty, can we not get money from them?
Good luck.
Unclear.
I'm not sure that we can renew, but we're happy to look into it.
Yeah.
I mean, for responsible for there, you know, I don't think they have a fire department.
I don't do that for me.
I believe that you've been a fire department, but I...
You're the ability.
I mean they do.
We're responsible for their safety.
That's only for their fire, I think.
If they could get something for them.
They use it a lot.
They go by my house every weekend.
And also, do we have any concerns over the library, EG Housing?
Because I know that they had been concerned about their own revenues.
I know that both of them have big capital needs
and that they've been trying to, I know that they're sort of on their own as far as, you know,
their own budgets, et cetera, but I was curious if there's any way that the town could help them.
I think they're both sort of a little... I'd miss you. Who are we talking about?
Oh, but I think the local library, the library and the housing authority are both sort of like
under housing authorities of federal agency. Yeah, I mean, I know they're very much concerned about what's going to have. Yeah, they are. And then I know that library is also facing.
They've had some capital needs and I was wondering if we could work with them to. Yeah, no question. I mean, I had a conversation with Adrian. I noted that I would get back to her on the date. I told her to come prepared to kind of work through the whole program.
And we've been years past talked about increases,
although the percentage increase seems high,
of the original request, the dollar amounts are not high,
because it's smaller program.
So we had recommended one point last year,
they had a four or five percent increase.
This year we were recommending a 1.7,
they totally understand.
They also have a whole series of other funds and activities,
which I noted in the document,
broke those all down based on how much money
They generate, you know, the top of my head, I think this year, they're expecting to contribute close to 85,000 up from about 80, 1,000 this past year in terms of alternate revenue sources.
So I think it's important that the town is the contributor, right?
I think if I remember correctly, we're up about 7, I think it's 72% of the overall program where the state contributes.
I think around, I think privately about 10%, I think the rest is about 17, 18% of the state.
So, and most people think we own it.
Understood.
Yeah, most people don't have the public.
Yeah, that's right now.
Public in terms of, I mean, it's simply run, but it's not.
It's privately run.
So, we've had conversations.
I think they do a fantastic job.
The Board of Trustees is very engaged.
And I think Mike, just so, you know, and they'll come prepared to have that conversation.
I told them they should come prepared to address all of their needs and what they're facing.
We'd be happy to work with them on larger scale capital projects in the future.
where we really don't have, in my tenure anyways,
have not had that level of a relationship,
where we're communicating at that level.
We do communicate often in terms of budget process
and other needs, like the sidewalk work
that was performed around the library parking
and things of other impacts, their sewer work,
and others that we have a direct involvement in,
but should have been the council's desire.
I mean, there were overall requests
might have been 30,000 give or take.
Plus or minus, I think we have so far
have a placeholder of 10.
They would like the council rate. I think you'd already stated to stay flat because they saw a big increase from the year over year from the last year. So that was my other.
And right, right, just to give that some context or a little, I look at the two neighboring communities because that's what we compete with right for location.
And so we're a little higher than Warwick and significant little lower than West Warwick. I don't look at North Kingston because you can see when you drive down post road.
and you get to that point to make it so dead end.
And also, I don't look at their rates
because until somebody, until the federal government
gives you screen it, wants it, you know,
we have very different budgets.
I could definitely.
And then, I also, I really appreciate,
and I just wanted to mention this,
that on page 137, you had the open space parcels listed
with all the space that is actually preserved from development in East Grand Edge, which
totals about 545 acres, which I just wanted to highlight there, because people, I don't think
recognize that. So thank you for my questions. Great. I think the only other thing,
Trisha and I wanted to add, just so it's clear, is that the overall budget of the town, the school
only makes up 65%, it's not 85%.
No, 85% was the amount of the budget from the town
that goes,
that the schools budget, 85% is the amount
that's funded by the town.
And that's increased from 80 to 85 over the last five years.
So they get 85% of their budget from the town currently,
according to the 75% of the taxes
are transferred to the school department, right?
It may go for 85%, she's just saying,
which makes up 85% of their budget, up from 80%
a few years ago.
It just wanted to say.
So she's just saying that the tax payer support of that,
really not, that's not empirically, yeah.
And in ultimate dollars, it's irrelevant.
It's just when we make our case at the state house,
it's just we can point out that.
Exactly.
Yeah, and so we've been crazy.
players fund more of our students are part of their budget or their, you know, we've increased
5% over the last, you know, so many years. No point taken.
Chris, what did you say? 55 or 65? 65, yeah. It's been in that range over the years.
Foxley, pretty steady at that range.
My question.
There questions for our manager or finance director.
I do want to say I think it's been an
discussion, wide-ranging, covering a lot of ground. I do think that the schools took a little bit of heat
tonight. I would say that over time, if I look at our e-screens community and communities around
the state, the relationship between school committees and town councils tends to wax and wane.
I think at the current time that the relationship with the school committee is good, and I think that
improving. We do have now a budget workshop with the school committee which has been productive
and since we've met with them, the school committee has shared more information on how they
arrive at their budgets. The town has talked about its budget process and the school committee
has taken some suggestions from the town to improve some of their practices. I would say also
that the school committee really had a very, very difficult time with their budget this year
due to a variety of factors, one of the major ones, the big reduction in the school
aid education, the state aid education. They had to cut and eventually ended up cutting
932,000 dollars from their expenses, essentially eliminating capital improvements, cutting back
on hardware and technology, field trips have been on hold.
And that is a very, very difficult position to be in.
And I think that they handled it admably.
They also had to make major proposed changes in personnel.
So these reductions are not in extras.
These are in programs and in personnel.
They did cut personnel.
School committee I think has had to make some very difficult decisions. The town I think is capable of trying to give them information that may benefit them during this process. They also have had to use some fund balance. We were hoping that they could use no fund balance. But without that, they would have had to eliminate athletics.
They would have cut the swim team athletics, I'm sorry, I'd call at the at the middle school.
They would have had to eliminate high school swim team and salad and reduction of important personnel.
So I think at the present time the groups are improving their partnership and I think we'll continue to work with them.
And as Mr. Nata had said that this budget process has got a long ways to go another month or so.
So we will continue to work with the school department to try to land the entire budget both
town and school at the best that we can provide. Otherwise, I just wanted to also thank Mr.
Jnada and his staff, Trish Sando and our finest director, Rosemilia, Emilio, the Administrative
Service Manager, all the department heads have been crucial in this process. I think each year that
do the budget and presentation. It gets clearer, more concise. I think the document that
you produced this year was very easy to get through. It's long, but it's almost like a reference
work. You can go and find whatever you need. Very clear, very concise, very thorough. So,
Kudos to you and your staff.
I'd like to thank you all as well and, you know,
like with sports programs, right, continuity of team is really important. And you guys have been together
a while, we've been together a while and we've been able to work through this, you know,
what I hear and I'm sure we'll hear this when we go through it with the department heads
is that you have a system where you work with the department heads, they make their ass,
they know what to expect, they know how to work with you.
So at least we move through the process in a way that's coherent and it's evident in
this document, it's evidence in our public discussions and I think it's evidence in the way
we're able to financially plan.
Thank you.
other questions. So Mr. Nader, the next step on the 12th, and that will be the public hearing.
It's PM and I'll get out in a couple of days on a preliminary agenda for that, which will note specifically.